Music director

“ Like all musical directors he had in his leisure moments composed the complete score of a musical play and spent much of his time waylaying librettists on the Rialto and trying to lure them to his apartment to listen to it, with a view to business. The eternal tragedy of a musical director’s life is comparable only to that of the waiter who, himself fasting, has to assist others to eat, Mr Saltzburg had lofty ideas on music, and his soul revolted at being compelled perpetually to rehearse and direct the inferior compositions of other men. ”

“ Let the church make an attempt to secure as its musical director one who possesses a type of seriousness and high-mindedness that will make him sympathetic with what the church is trying to do, thus enabling him to minister to the people through music even as the priest or preacher does through words of consolation or inspiration. We admit that this sort of a man (who is at the same time unimpeachable in his musical authority) is often hard to find; but that the two elements are incompatible, and that such a type of choir director cannot be trained, we absolutely refuse to believe. ”

“ He has been described as the world's most patient and impatient orchestral director. In rehearsal he will take the men through a passage, a mere phrase, innumerable times to achieve a certain tonal or dynamic effect. But he explodes when he feels that he is faced with stupidity or stubbornness. ”

“ Less than a week later that same choleric director, with the burning deep-set black eyes, the finely chiseled features and the halo of silver hair surrounding a bald spot that turns purple in his passions, walked into a room where a girl of this reporter's acquaintance stood beside a canary cage, making a rather successful attempt at whistling, in time and tune with the bird.
For a moment the man who can make music like no one else on earth listened to the girl and her pet. ”

“ The programme always contained at least two concerted instrumental works of a high order, and the compositions chosen showed the director to be marvellously free from narrowness in musical taste. The executants were generally artists of established position, many of whom had not appeared before in England. The annual series consisted of eight afternoon concerts given during the season, at first in Willis's Rooms, and a benefit concert for the director, when vocal music, at other times excluded, was allowed to form part of the programme. ”

“ When he was director of the famous Meiningen orchestra, not content with conducting without a score, he endeavored, though without success, to induce the members of his band to learn their music by heart. ”

“ Because of the fact that community music is a sociological phenomenon as well as an artistic one, the director of a community chorus must possess a combination of artistic and personal traits not necessarily present in the case of other musicians. In particular, he must be a good mixer as well as a good musician; and if one or86 the other of these qualities has to be sacrificed in some degree in favor of the other, we should be inclined to insist first of all upon the right sort of personal traits in the leader of community music. ”

“ The medical director of music does not have to be a trained musician but he should be acquainted in a general way with most musical forms which appeal to a majority of patients. His most important qualification will be the ability to rise above personal prejudices of musical taste. He must recognize that musical tastes can be as diverse as individual appetites for different foods, and feel free to order music as he would food for patients. ”

“ In nearly every large studio where more than one company is working there are to be heard the faint strains of Sonata Pathetique, where some melancholy scene is being taken, or livelier music for a bit of comedy in another set. Also the directors are always behind the camera to guide their actors with spoken directions as the scene is made. This orchestra business has always seemed to us pure buncombe, but if the director or actor gets any fun out of it, it doesn't do any particular harm. ”

“ We received therefore from the Director of the Society (who here in Switzerland is not the same who directs the music, but he who conducts the correspondance, provides the locale, superintends the erection of the orchestral platform and the printing of the tickets of admission) a friendly invitation it is true, to be present at the Festival, but not a word was said about the direction of the orchestra. Instead of that, he begged me to assist with the violin. ”

“ Very little time at best is at the disposal of the musical director. A director like Toscanini would, in a first-class opera house, with a full and competent company, require about fifteen days to complete the rehearsals, and other preparations for such a production as Aïda, should such a work be brought out as a novelty. A good conductor needs at least four orchestra rehearsals. Pelleas et Melisande would require more extensive rehearsing, as the music is of a new order and is, in a sense, a new form of art. ”

“ The deep and general feeling which this concert, in honour of the great master of the modern art in Germany, excited, together with the disappointment experienced by many who were unable to obtain admission, induced the Director of the Theatre to make an offer to the composer of a certain consideration if he would condescend once more to appear in public, and assist at a repetition of the same music. ”

“ Into the study of the orchestral conductor it brings a translation of all the multitudinous voices of the band; to the choir-master it represents the chorus of singers in the church-loft or on the concert-platform; with its aid the opera director fills his imagination with the people, passions, and pageantry of the lyric drama long before the singers have received their parts, or the costumer, stage manager, and scene-painter have begun their work. It is the only medium through which the musician in his study can [Pg 158] commune with the whole world of music and all its heroes ”

“ In case you are a choir director, learn also to plan your services weeks or even months in advance, [2] and then keep working toward the complete carrying out of your plan by familiarizing your musicians with the material as far in advance of the public performance as possible. In this way the music is absorbed, as it were, and the singers and players are much more apt to feel at ease in performing it than when it has been taken up at only one or two rehearsals.
DISCIPLINE IN THE REHEARSALIt is impossible to conduct well unless you have the absolute attention of every singer or player. ”

“ Although the Rhenish musical festival was held at Whitsuntide, and therefore at a time when our theatrical vacation had not yet begun, and I therefore required to obtain an express permission to do so, I nevertheless succeeded in obtaining it immediately, for the Elector felt himself flattered when his director of music was invited to important musical performances, and thereby acquired honour and fame. ”

“ As a director, a man of exceptional business acumen and a composer of great ability, he is probably the best known orchestra leader in the country, and he rightly claims that his organizations are originations. ”

“ For this it is necessary to secure those persons possessing sufficient vocal and instrumental talent to insure the success of the entertainment, and to arrange with them a programme, assigning to each, in order, his or her part. It is customary to commence with a piece of instrumental music, followed by solos, duets, quartettes, etc., with instrumental music interspersed, in not too great proportions. Some competent person is needed as accompanist. It is the duty of the hostess to maintain silence among her guests during the performance of instrumental as well as vocal music. ”

“ First of all, we must choose directors for the choruses of boys, and men, and maidens, whom they shall follow in the amusement of the dance, and for our other musical arrangements;—one director will be enough for the choruses, and he should be not less than forty years of age. One director will also be enough to introduce the solo singers, and to give judgment on the competitors, and he ought not to be less than thirty years of age. ”

“ And at night, when she goes home worn with effort, there are songs to be learned, and then to be repeated over and over again in chorus the next day, to the accompaniment of a battered and expressionless piano shoved into the brightest spot on the gloomy half-dark stage, or, if there be no such thing, placed in the orchestra pit, where the musical director can enjoy the advantage of an electric light. ”

“ He threw himself into this new work with great ardor and entire devotion. With the founding of the department there were two distinct ideas to be carried out. First, to train musicians who would be able to teach and compose. Second, to teach musical history and aesthetics.
All this involved five courses, with many lectures each week, taking up form, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, composition, vocal and instrumental music, both from the technical and interpretative side. It was a tremendous labor to organize and keep all this going, unaided. ”

“ Chief of all comes the owner, the promoter, known to the profession as the Theatrical Manager. He it is who selects the author of his contemplated production, and also the writer of the lyrics and the composer of the musical score. He engages the producer, the creative genius who realizes the possibilities of the production and directs and rehearses it, and the principal actors and singers, and some of the members of the chorus as well, but the producing director usually recruits his own chorus and dancers. ”

“ The director not only cannot detect errors and make intelligent criticisms if he sings with the chorus, but will make the members dependent upon his voice instead of compelling them to form the habit of watching him. ”

“ The purchaser of the music, e.g., the father of the bride, the chairman of the events, etc., makes arrangements with a musician, or with a musician's booking agent, for an orchestra of a conductor and a given number of instrumentalists, or 'sidemen,' at a specified time and place. The musician in such cases assumes the role of 'leader' of the orchestra, obtains the 'sidemen' and attends to the bookkeeping and other details of the engagement. Usually the 'leader' performs with the orchestra, sometimes only conducting but often also playing an instrument. ”

“ At length when you have concluded that every musician has exhausted his last resource in the general attempt to make a noise, you are knocked into a start of astonishment by the introduction of a corps de reserve, in the clash of cymbals, which sounds as if a careless servant had stumbled in coming up stairs and mashed an entire set of Sevres china. In the midst of this carnage of crotchets and quavers, the director is obviously the controlling spirit who "rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." ”

“ Well, every one has his or her own peculiar idea of study and rehearsal, but the true artist always arrives at the same result, with the aid of a clever stage manager and musical conductor. When a part is handed to me, generally six weeks before the opening night, I read it through carefully, picture myself in different positions in the several scenes, and then I separate the music from the dialogue and study the music first. ”

“ All the details of the make-up had been completed, and the company settled down as the leader of the small, hired orchestra tapped significantly upon his music rack with his baton and began the soft curtain-raising strain. ”

“ The Conductor must also have a literary and a poetic sense to understand the romantic and historical subjects, which composers so often select as themes; and he must have imagination to visualize a picture in his own mind before he can make his own Orchestra and his audience follow the music, or the phrases, that go to make up that picture, or that musical impression of a picture. ”

“ One of my most important recommendations for the school was that every week at least one concert should be given by the professors and such of the bandsmen as were really competent musicians. The programmes should be made up only of the great master composers, in order that the students—many of whom had come from isolated communities in our country and had had but little opportunity to hear good music—should become sensitive to the finer and more spiritual qualities of music as an art. ”

“ With practically no exceptions, the composers of musical compositions are engaged in various other walks of life, and this line of work is more or less incidental to the occupations they follow. As an illustration I will name a few of them: Band masters, professional pianists, organists, choir leaders, teachers of music, piano salesmen, music salesmen, and many other callings. The amount of time or application spent in framing musical compositions is oftentimes but a few hours and in the majority of cases in otherwise idle hours. ”

“ The problem of the future, therefore, deals not so much with material increase of orchestral resource, as with what manner of thought and music the orchestra is destined to portray. What are to be the musical ethics of the twentieth century composers? The most subtle thinkers of the world have generally taken an idealistic view of the social mission of musical art. ”