Book Looks At Conductor’s Role In Making Music

“The Compleat Conductor” Gunther Schuller (Oxford University Press, 571 pp., $49.95)

Perhaps the most prominent performer in a symphony concert is the conductor that elegant fellow waving his wandlike baton, or perhaps just his bare hands, in front of a stage full of symphony musicians. But what exactly does he do up there?

Whatever those motions accomplish, the sounds they elicit often have the power to move the human spirit in ways nearly unknown outside religious ecstasy. In his new book, Gunther Schuller contends, more often than not, what the conductor does (or does not do) on the podium and in rehearsal makes a fine mess out of the matter at hand, namely translating into musical sounds the symbols that the composer puts on paper.

Schuller, nearing his 72nd birthday, has spent a lifetime in music, first as the 16-year-old principal French horn of the Cincinnati Symphony, later as a composer, conductor, record producer, music historian, publisher, teacher and administrator. This experience has been distilled in a stunning book - stunning both in the sense of “shocking” and in the sense of “astounding.”

I know of no other book like it.

What makes “The Compleat Conductor” unique is Schuller’s detailed examinations of eight symphonic masterpieces from Beethoven to Ravel. Here Schuller compares what the composers have written in their scores with more than 400 recordings conducted by maestros from Arthur Nikisch with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1913 to Leonard Slatkin leading the St. Louis Symphony in the 1990s.

The works Schuller discusses include six symphonies - Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh, Brahms’ First and Fourth, Schumann’s Second and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth - along with Strauss’ “Till Eulenspiegel” and Ravel’s “Daphiset Chloe” Suite No. 2.

Everybody’s favorite conductor is there. All the famous ones are examined - Toscanini, Furtwangler, Stokowski, Bernstein, Karajan and other magisterial stars. Lesser-known conductors are there, too - Wand, Suitner, Janowski, Rowicki and a long list of others. Schuller cites the specific instances in which the conductors he has studied simply fail to follow what the composer has written or have chosen to ignore what the composer asks for and substituted the conductor’s own ideas.

No one escapes unscathed. Even conductors Schuller greatly admires - Toscanini, Reiner and Haitink, for example - take their knocks.

Sometimes conductors appear not even to have looked at the score, Schuller says.

They conduct the music the way they heard it conducted by their teacher or by some admired maestro of their student days. Mere tradition is a bad teacher.

But praise is there, too, even for those Schuller has battered rather thoroughly. Wilhelm Furtwangler’s 1936 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 with the Berlin Philharmonic is lauded as “a magnificent listening experience.” Willem Mengleberg’s 1928 recording of Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” with the New York Philharmonic is cited as “one of the most perfect recordings ever made.”

“The Compleat Conductor” should be read by every musician. Young conductors will benefit most by Schuller’s flood of detailed analysis. But composers, orchestral musicians, soloists and, yes, even singers, will develop a new respect for what is on the page and what lies beyond the page in the heart of every musician.

Since Schuller names names in this book, “The Compleat Conductor” is unlikely to gain him friends (and may cost him a few) in the conductorial trade or among partisans of famous conductors. But his loving attention to details should earn him the everlasting gratitude of conducting students.

To benefit from Schuller’s discussions of the eight works he surveys, the ability to read music is required. But there is much in “The Compleat Conductor” for the nonprofessional. Schuller’s chapters on the philosophy and history of conducting are excellent and lucidly written. He views the conductor as someone whose responsibility it is to “realize” music, to bring the composer’s ideas into acoustical reality, rather than “interpret” it as though the score were a painting that needed retouching or novel that needed rewording.

His chapter on the history of conducting cites well-known books and essays by Berlioz, Wagner, Weingartner (all composers as well as conductors, by the way) as well as some lively out-of-the-way sources such as a short pamphlet published in 1782 by Carl Ludwig Junker, a musician, art historian and Lutheran pastor who commented in a quite modern way on the problems facing a conductor.

In a postscript to the book, Schuller talks about the education of musicians. Despite the incredible rise in the virtuosity of orchestra players, many of the musicians seem to have no interest in what else is going on in the music other than their own part. Even musicians in the best orchestras fail to hear how their parts fit into the harmony and structure and fail to be sensitive to how loud or soft their parts should be in relation to others.

For both the practicing musician and non-professional listener, the most moving testimonial to this book is the recording on the GM label (2051CD) of Beethoven’s Fifth and Brahms’ First symphonies. Schuller leads a hand-picked orchestra of New York musicians. These performances illustrate the kind of emotional impact that results when humility, love and respect for the score are brought to bear in performance and recording.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Conductor discovers magic through composer By Travis Rivers Correspondent Gunther Schuller first conducted the Spokane Symphony in 1983, achieving some of the orchestra’s best-ever playing in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and in his own “Seven Studies on theme by Paul Klee.” Schuller served as the orchestra’s principal conductor and artistic adviser for the 1984-85 season, and for the past 12 years he has appeared with the orchestra at The Festival at Sandpoint and as guest conductor in Opera House concerts. Schuller has previously written two volumes of a critically acclaimed history of jazz (a third volume is in preparation) and a collection of essays, articles and program notes called “Musings.” All are published by Oxford University Press. He is at work on an autobiography. “The Compleat Conductor” will be available in bookstores in September. His recording of Beethoven’s Fifth and Brahms’ First is already available in record stores. “I’m not claiming in the book or on the record that my performance or my book is some kind of definitive statement, ” Schuller said in a recent telephone interview. “There is no such thing in music as a ‘definitive’ statement. What I am saying is ‘Look, folks, if you would respect what the composer notates, you would at least discover that this is a wonderful and viable alternative to the kind of indulgent interpretation this music is usually subjected to.’ “I’m just saying, ‘Look what happens when you really respect every dynamic and every tempo and every phrase and every articulation and you don’t retouch it. Look what a miracle this music is!”’