Evolution of conducting styles
Lionel Tacchini
A few weeks ago, I finally decided to get some Furtwaengler recordings of
Bruckner symphonies, as well as Jochum's recording of the 5th with the
Concertgebouw (1964).
Comparing those performances to more recent ones (Inbal, Chailly, Solti ...)
I couldn't help noticing incredible differences. I do not want to talk about
"quality" here, but more about differences in style. Both Furtwaengler and
Jochum use of tempo changes. Furtwaengler, in the 8th (1949, Music & Arts),
seems to add systematically (or at least very often) accelerando to
crescendo. Jochum does that as well in places in the 5th.
There is nothing of that in any "modern" recording that I know, or at least
not in such an obvious way (there are probably exceptions in other recordings,
but exceptions are not the point).
So there seems to have been a radical change in conducting style in the last
decades, "modern" conductors have departed from the more personal style of
the "ancients".
This raises many questions :
1) Did they really do that ? Were Furt and Jochum representative of a quite
common way of conducting in their time or were they just exceptions ?
2) Assuming there has been a change in conducting styles, when did it start ?
Who promoted it ? Was it the result of a new attitude of "respect of the
scores" or just a by-product of the record industry ?
3) If we assumed that Furtwaengler was "taking liberties with the score" when
conducting Bruckner, could we say as well that he was taking liberties with
"Bruckner's intentions" ? In other words, can we be sure that this
conducting style was not already in use in Bruckner's time ?
A case close to ornementations in baroque music. It's not in the score, but
the composer expected performers to add their own touch to his music.
So, does a lack of indications in the score demand a constant in its
interpretation or does it grant some freedom to the performer ?
I took Bruckner as an example because these questions came to me as I was
listening to his music, but this could probably be generalized to most
composers of the same period.
4) I read somewhere that the original version of the slow movement of
Bruckner's 4th (1874) contains about 18 different tempo indications, which
seems to legitimate the practice of changing tempo along a movement.
Or was it an exception ?
5) Don't we have detailled descriptions, in old concert reviews, of the style
of different conductors ? Was conducting style not a subject of debate
and polemic in those days ?
There could be many more questions, but the most important is just "What
has changed and why ?".
Lionel Tacchini.
Robert Fink
>Where is Furtwaengler's inheritage ?
[snip]
>This raises many questions :
>1) Did they really do that ? Were Furt and Jochum representative of a quite
>common way of conducting in their time or were they just exceptions ?
They were exceptions, representing a style of conducting that was by then
way out of date. If there was a time when *everybody* conducted like that,
it would have to have been the late 19th century. Weingartner is inveighing
against the "rubato conductors" as early as 1904 or so.
>2) Assuming there has been a change in conducting styles, when did it start ?
>Who promoted it ? Was it the result of a new attitude of "respect of the
>scores" or just a by-product of the record industry ?
See above. Around 1900 or so there was a backlash against the
highly-inflected style popularized by Han von Bulow among others. By about
1920 or so, a "modernist" style of conducting is taking shape, eschewing
tempo inflections and attempting to eliminate "arbitrary" deviations from
'the score'. It seems to have been compounded from the anti-emotional side
of modernism (Stravinsky), the brisk style of Toscanini, and the ascendant
ethos of Werktreue coming out of German musicology (Schenker, et al.)
Doesn't seem like the record industry had anything to do with it, really.
>3) If we assumed that Furtwaengler was "taking liberties with the score" when
>conducting Bruckner, could we say as well that he was taking liberties with
>"Bruckner's intentions" ? In other words, can we be sure that this
>conducting style was not already in use in Bruckner's time ?
>A case close to ornementations in baroque music. It's not in the score, but
>the composer expected performers to add their own touch to his music.
>So, does a lack of indications in the score demand a constant in its
>interpretation or does it grant some freedom to the performer ?
Can't touch this. There *are* indications that Bruckner's organ playing
sounded a lot like Horenstein/Furtwangler performances--ie crescendo =
accelerando. But the aesthetic issues you raise here are very much still in
dispute!
>I took Bruckner as an example because these questions came to me as I was
>listening to his music, but this could probably be generalized to most
>composers of the same period.
>4) I read somewhere that the original version of the slow movement of
>Bruckner's 4th (1874) contains about 18 different tempo indications, which
>seems to legitimate the practice of changing tempo along a movement.
>Or was it an exception ?
>5) Don't we have detailled descriptions, in old concert reviews, of the style
>of different conductors ? Was conducting style not a subject of debate
>and polemic in those days ?
Yes and no. There is rarely a bar-by-bar description of what folks did, and
never a metronome marking (almost never, I guess would be safer).
Weingartner's books do dissect von Bulow's performances in enough detail to
give an idea (and his guides to performing the great symphonies give us blow
by blow descriptions of his own intepretative choices); Wagner gives
detailed complaints about how inferior conductors ruined Baeethoven and
Wagner's own music; and so on. But newspaper reviews did not use this kind
of detail as a matter of course.
>There could be many more questions, but the most important is just "What
>has changed and why ?".
Hope this is of interest. See:
Taruskin, _Text and Act_
Horowitz, _Understanding Toscanini_
Weingartner, _On Conducting_, _On the Performance of Beethoven Symphonies_
Wagner, _On Conducting_
Robert Fink
Eastman School of Music
>Lionel Tacchini.
Haig Utidjian
Robert Fink said:
>Doesn't seem like the record industry had anything to do with it, really.
you rightly say strove to eliminate "arbitrary" deviations from the printed
page, such as tempo variations (and, in fact, also glissandi), was consistent
with making live performances similar to recordings -- and with recordings
it _is_ necessary to eschew "mannerisms" that do not bear repeated hearing
but which may be effective in the heat of the moment in the course of live
performance. Might there not be a causal link?
It is my suspicion that a new style interpretation may have emerged
that was especially suited for recording, and with the subsequent preponderance
of recordings it became almost necessary for live performances too to
emulate this style.
All this is of course very crude and over-simplified... but might there not
be some truth in it? I would appreciate your opinion.
Thanks for your interesting posting, and that of the original querist.
best wishes,
Haig
--
For my biography and details of my conducting engagements please refer
to URL http://www-control.eng.cam.ac.uk/hu/hu.html
Donald Phillipson
Lionel Tacchini (l...@anacad.de) writes:
> . . .
> I couldn't help noticing incredible differences. I do not want to talk about
> "quality" here, but more about differences in style. Both Furtwaengler and
> Jochum use of tempo changes. Furtwaengler, in the 8th (1949, Music & Arts),
> seems to add systematically (or at least very often) accelerando to
> crescendo. Jochum does that as well in places in the 5th.
> So there seems to have been a radical change in conducting style in the last
> decades, "modern" conductors have departed from the more personal style of
> the "ancients".
>
> This raises many questions :
> has changed and why ?".
Answers are suggested in Lebrecht, Norman, The Maestro Myth: Great
Conductors in Pursuit of Power (1991) which I encountered by chance and
found stimulating and provoking: so would welcome comment by people who
know the history of podium style from (nearest to) primary sources.
Lebrecht seems to be a British critic, Mahler export, born about 1945.
--
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