José Antonio Bowen (Editor) - The Cambridge Companion to Conducting

The Cambridge Companion to Conducting

In this wide-ranging inside view of the history and practice of conducting, analysis and advice come directly from working conductors, including Sir Charles Mackerras on opera, Bramwell Tovey on being an artistic director, Martyn Brabbins on modern music, Leon Botstein on programming, and Vance George on choral conducting, and from those who work closely with conductors: a leading violinist describes working as a soloist with Stokowski, Ormandy, and Barbirolli, while Solti and Abbados studio producer explains orchestral recording, and one of the worlds most powerful managers tells all.

The book includes advice on how to conduct different types of groups (choral, opera, symphony, early music) and provides a substantial history of conducting as a study of national traditions. It is an unusually honest book about a secretive industry, and managers, artistic directors, soloists, players, and conductors openly discuss their different perspectives for the first time.

The Cambridge Companion to

CONDUCTING

EDITED BY

Jos Antonio Bowen

Georgetown University

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521821087

Cambridge University Press 2003

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2003

7th printing 2013

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-82108-7 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-52791-0 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Illustrations

Figures

Music examples

Notes on the contributors

Charles F. Barber is a conductor active in concert, opera, and recording, and received a DMA in conducting from Stanford University. He has conducted for Stan Getz, Weslia Whitfield, Sarah Vaughn, and Francis Ford Coppola. With Marty Paich he worked on recording projects with Mel Torm, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, and on the films Prince of Tides, Alive, and Grand Canyon. In classical music he has co-produced CDs for Naxos/Marco Polo, led over forty works of musical theatre and opera, and guest-conducted in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Morocco. In 1992 he established the Conductors on Film Collection at Stanford. Barber is author of Lost in the Stars: The Forgotten Musical Life of Alexander Siloti (Scarecrow Press, 2002). I never write letters of recommendation, so this is an exception. Charles Barber is a scholar and a conductor who adores and understands music. We have become friends, and he pretends to believe that I have taught him something Carlos Kleiber.

Leon Botstein is the President and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Bard College. He is music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, as well as co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival. His international conducting engagements have included performances in London, Prague, Budapest, So Paulo, Bucharest, Manila, Seoul, Vienna, Edinburgh, and Hong Kong. He has worked with Rudolf Firkusny, Benny Goodman, Yo-Yo Ma, Blanca Uribe, Leon Fleischer, Yefim Bronfmann, and Janos Starker. A champion of new music, Leon Botstein has performed works by Richard Wilson, Robert Moevs, Peter Schickele, Joan Tower, Sofia Gubaidulina, and many others. His recordings include a series on CRI featuring works by Richard Wilson, Robert Starer, Richard Wernick, and Meyer Kupferman, and two recordings with the London Philharmonic on the Telarc label. Dr. Botstein is also editor of The Musical Quarterly. He has published books in both English and German. He was a National Arts Club Gold Medal recipient in 1995, and in 1996 he was awarded the Centennial Medal of the Harvard Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences.

Jos Antonio Bowen is the Caestecker Chair and Director of Music at Georgetown University. He founded the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM) at the University of Southampton, and his articles have appeared in many books and journals and in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to work on his forthcoming book, The Conductor and the Score: A History of the Relationship between Interpreter and Text from Beethoven to Wagner, and he is the editor of A Guide to Discography (University of California Press, forthcoming). His compositions and playing are featured on numerous recordings, and in over twenty-five years as a conductor and jazz performer, he has appeared with Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, Liberace, and many others. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in England and Founding Member of the National Recordings Preservation Board at the Library of Congress.

Martyn Brabbins studied in London and with Ilya Musin in Leningrad. He has since conducted most of the major symphony orchestras in Britain: he has been Associate Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of Sinfonia 21 since 1994 and is the conductor for the Philharmonia Orchestras Music of Today Series. He conducts at the BBC Proms every year, and his international experience ranges from the orchestras of Bayerischer Rundfunk and St. Petersburg, to the Ensemble InterContemporain. In recent years he has championed the music of James Dillon, Jonathan Lloyd, Harrison Birtwistle, Steve Reich, James MacMillan, Minna Keal, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Robin Holloway. Known for his performances of British concert music, he is equally at home at the Kirov Opera or English National Opera; he recently conducted the world premiere of Alexander Knaifels Alice in Wonderland with the Netherlands Opera. He records for Hyperion with the BBC Scottish and has also recorded works by Birtwistle, David Bedford, and Finnissy for NMC. His recording of Korngolds Die Kathrin with the BBC Concert Orchestra for CPO won the Opera Award at the Cannes International Music Festival.

David Cairns CBE was music critic of the Sunday Times from 1983 to 2002, having previously written for the Spectator, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman. From 1967 to 1972 he worked as classical program co-ordinator for Philips Records and was involved in some of the companys major recording projects, including operas by Mozart, Berlioz, and Tippett. He has always been actively involved in music-making: he was co-founder of the Chelsea Opera Group in 1950, and sang solo roles under the groups first conductor, Colin Davis. He is conductor of the Thorington Players, an amateur orchestra which gives regular concerts for charity. He has written several books including a prize-winning two-volume biography of Berlioz (University of California Press).

J. Michele Edwards, conductor and musicologist, is professor emerita of music at Macalester College and was Director of the Macalester Festival Chorale (19929) and programmed innovative repertoire including