Marvin Hagler. I was a big boxing fan in those days. Hagler, Hearns, Leonard, Duran
I’ve seen James Levine on stage many times - even went to one of his rehearsals in Boston. Such a great career, sadly tarnished by revelations of sexual abuse.
RIP Sabine Schmitz, queen of the Nurburgring. She was the one lapping the ring in a stripped out van on Top Gear some years ago.
His health had noticeably deteriorated even before the abuse accusations. I was a little surprised he managed to hold on for as long as he did.
At least they’ve not yanked the recordings of his many performances, because he was an excellent opera conductor. His conducting of Mozart operas was my favorite.
Actor Yaphet Kotto - I did not realize he was Jewish
I kind of want to throw away all my CDs where he’s the conductor. Unfortunately one of my favorites is one with Anne Sophie Mutter.
I am not a fan at all of classical music. Sorry it’s just not my thing.
Second, as a non-fan, I don’t really understand the meaningfulness nor the importance of the conductor. He’s the guy who decides when the music starts, while the musicians do all the work, so the musicians should get the credit. It’s not like he wrote the music, nor is it likely that he is teaching any music to musicians of symphony caliber. He is just some dude that holds a stick, not a bow, not a horn, not a keyboard.
Shouldn’t we just cancel this guy? Burn the records, strip him of the grammy’s, and remove the files from downloadable content.
While maybe not exactly the same, think of the conductor like a producer. The musicians play their parts, but the producer makes the final product.
Think of it like the Sistine Chapel. There’s one artist that serves as the creative director, but the assistants do the actual painting.
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Conductors have a say in the artistic interpretation of a musical piece. Not every conductor will play a Beethoven piece in the same way. There are differences in tempo, dynamics, phrasing of notes, etc. Levine was one of the all time best and he’s conducted so many productions over the years that there would be a gaping hole in classical music collections if people threw out his stuff.
Yeah like have two conductors conduct the same piece with the same orchestra and it will sound much different and you will have your preferred recording.
Your take also assumes that all those musicians just naturally play well and perfectly together, like machines. I don’t think that is the case, and there is a lot of practice involved, and the conductor leads those practices, and when the concert occurs, he is there as a reminder of all that practice to all of the players how and when to play.
However, I don’t play an instrument, so I might be wrong about this whole process.
Unless one (or both) of the conductors have an unorthodox take on it, the differences will probably be subtle and easily missed by someone without a trained ear. They may still end up preferring one recording over the other, but they might not be able to pinpoint why.
I tend to notice it more if I’ve come to know and love a particular version. I’ll then hear a different conductor and think “wow, that’s slower/faster than I’m used to” or “she/he’s really bringing out the double basses more than I’m used to”. It’s harder for the second version to usurp the first that I’ve come to know but occasionally it does or I get this curious case of wanting to find a recording that has the best features of both. I like one version of Bruckner’s 3rd Symphony for the 1st and 3rd movements and another version for the 2nd and 4th (can you mix and match recordings?).
does the conductor get all this variation by waving his little stick and signaling what he wants or is it how he has them practice and his place in the actual performance is marginal?
Tempo can definitely be changed in live performance. Balance (which instruments are louder than others) is generally worked out in rehearsal although the conductor in live performance can give the “give me all you’ve got” eye. Or the opposite, when Richard Strauss said “never look at the trombones, it only encourages them”.
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A bit of both, probably. I imagine musicians in orchestras get good at “reading” the conductor. I believe a lot of professional orchestras don’t actually rehearse with the conductor all that much.
I sing with a big choral and orchestra organization. Not professional, but pretty good. Some of the orchestra members may be in professional orchestras as well.
The choirs rehearse weekly for 3 months or so for a concert. I think the orchestra usually only gets together maybe 3 or 4 times (at least one of those with the choirs).
To further complicate matters, most orchestras will bring in guest conductors from time to time. The regular conductor runs the rehearsals and the guest conductor comes in at the end for the final rehearsal or possibly two and the performance(s).
But the guest conductor and the regular conductor will be in contact, usually. So the regular conductor should have a fairly good idea about how the guest conductor wants to do things.
Good musicians will follow the conductor’s signals. They convey quite a bit of information and no two performances are ever exactly the same.
It’s both. But as I said, there is quite a bit of information conveyed in “how they wave the little stick.” As well as facial expressions and how they use their arms and the non-dominant hand.
They can convey tempo, volume, which instruments should be louder/softer, which parts of the piece should be louder/softer, the mood (peppy, somber, frantic, relaxed, etc.) and more.
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Here is the MetOpera’s Levine obit:
A few things to note:
Maestro Levine conducted more than 2,500 performances of 85 different operas at the Met, starting with his company debut in 1971 leading Puccini’s Tosca .
…
Despite his undeniable artistic achievements on behalf of the Met, his relationship with the company frayed in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct, and in 2018 he was removed from his position as Music Director Emeritus after a three-month investigation by outside counsel. His final appearance at the Met was leading a concert performance of the Verdi Requiem on December 2, 2017.
And here are all the recordings w/ Levine available at the MetOpera shop:
My fave in there is Falstaff:
And this is not about Levine, but about Pierre Monteux, but it does explain a little about conductors:
What makes a great conductor?
A great conductor is a musician of the very first rank, able to hear in his head and play at the piano even the most complex orchestral scores. But more than just a top-flight musician, he must be, alternately, a therapist, critic, benevolent friend and tyrant as he rehearses and shapes a work for performance.
Some new age-type conductors even talk today about giving their players ownership of the music. This is a lovely, politically-correct concept, though it is a concept, as every leader knows, that can be taken only so far. The bottom line is that a conductor can neither abdicate nor delegate his or her responsibility: the musical buck must stop at the podium. An orchestra is not a democracy. A great conductor is an enlightened despot who can, to a degree, empower her players without ever surrendering her own power, vision, and responsibility.
Now, he’s talking a regular orchestra conductor, but an opera conductor has even more to deal with… because they’ve also got to work with the singers.
And just taking this further down a tangent.
The guy I just quoted, Prof. Bob Greenberg, is the main music guy for the Great Courses, and my favorite lecturer there (he’s been doing this since the 90s at least). I’ve heard almost all his lectures, I think, and I contribute to his Patreon.
I was listening to his lectures on Clara & Robert Schumann this morning:
https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/download/great-masters-schumanns-lives-music/
and I just got to the part about the shitshow that was Robert Schumann attempting to conduct. Evidently, he was about the worst conductor ever - and managed to hang on for 3 years! (as a conductor in Dusseldorf)
He would drop the baton all the time, and at one point taped/fastened the baton to his hand. During rehearsals would provide feedback by whispering to Clara, who would then deliver the message to the orchestra. Sounds like a disaster.
To be sure, many composers were good conductors of their own works, and some were great conductors of other people’s work, like Gustav Mahler, who was a great opera conductor (and the way he made his money).