The complete idiot's guide to classical music (26 page)

A dictatorship is more efficient than a democracy, primarily because nobody dares talk back to the boss. For the first half of the 20th century, conductors pretty much made their own rules. They could hire and fire musicians at will, throw tantrums (or more tangible items like watches and batons) at the players, and generally proceed on their tonal ways without fear of contradiction. Those days, of course, are gone forever, but so, perhaps, are the conditions that made possible some of the conducting giants of the recent past.

We’ve already discussed Beethoven’s heaven-storming qualities as a composer and pianist. As you might have guessed, he wasn’t any calmer as a conductor. In fact, with his high drama and drive, wildly flying hair, and explosive temper, Beethoven must have been something to see up on the podium. Since we can’t produce a videotape, let’s substitute an eyewitness account by the German conductor and composer, Ludwig Spohr: “Beethoven became accustomed to indicating the marks of expression by all kinds of peculiar movements,” he wrote. “Whenever a sforzando [a suddenly emphasized note or chord] occurred, he would vehemently open both arms, which had before been crossed on his chest. For a quiet passage, he would bend down, and the softer it was to be, the lower he would stoop, until he practically disappeared under the music stand. For a crescendo (increase in volume), he would draw himself up more and more, till at the arrival of the forte, he gave a leap into the air, screaming out to increase the volume. . . .” They just don’t make conductors like that any more!

 
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At the premiere of the Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Beethoven—now completely deaf—beat time in front of the orchestra while another musician stood behind him and did the actual conducting. At the end, the listeners broke into a wild, cheering ovation of which Beethoven, with his back to them, was completely unaware. At last, one of the singers approached the master and gently turned him around, so that he might see—if not hear—the jubilant reaction of the audience.

Mendelssohn, in a way, was Beethoven’s opposite. His music, like his personality, was refined, elegant, and well-mannered. Some critics have faulted this restraint (a characteristic we may be assured Beethoven was never accused of), but the melodic warmth that flows through Mendelssohn’s music is ever a source of wonder. Although he was a superb pianist and organist, and remains best known as a composer, he was also an exemplary conductor. And why not? His doting (and wealthy) family gave him a little orchestra to play with, and from ages 12 to 14, Felix led the players in a regular series of house concerts.

 
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When Beethoven was in love, he wrote “My thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, I send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits. . . .” When Mendelssohn was about to be married he wrote his mother “I wish to be calm and collected and go through this affair with the coolness I have always managed to preserve hitherto. . . .” You might say these guys were type “A” and “B” personalities.

In 1829, Mendelssohn added yet another string to his illustrious musical bow, reviving the then all-but-forgotten
St. Mathew Passion
of Bach. His concern for music of the past led him to other important premieres as well, most notably Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, and two symphonies of Schumann, not to mention his own compositions. With very rare exceptions, Mendelssohn never lost his conducting cool. When things were going well with an orchestra, he would often be content to set down his baton and, as one contemporary critic reported, “listen with seraphic transport, occasionally beckoning with eye or hand.”

Appointed director of the celebrated Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mendelssohn weeded out the inferior players, established rehearsal discipline and built what had been a fair-to-middling regional ensemble into a superb orchestra of international reputation. He was a much loved visitor in England, conducting his
Scotch Symphony
and the premiere of his oratorio
Elijah
to wildly enthusiastic response. He even hobnobbed with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, pronouncing Buckingham Palace “the one pleasant English home where I can really feel at ease.”

We were talking about Mendelssohn’s historic resurrection of Bach’s
St. Mathew Passion.
In the early-19th century, it was considered discourteous to the composer to conduct without music, so even though he had memorized the whole piece, Mendelssohn bowed to convention and had a score in front of him during the concert.

Toscanini also knew his scores without looking at the page, but his notoriously poor eyesight (probably caused by his teenage job of copying music at night) more than likely was a contributing factor in his decision to conduct everything by heart.

Born to a working class family in Parma, Italy, Arturo had a talent that was clear from the start. And so was his imperious manner—among his school nicknames were “Napoleon” and “Little Genius.” Before the age of 18, he had graduated with the highest possible scores in both cello and composition.

Toscanini’s emergence as a conductor the following year is one of those stories that any self-respecting Hollywood director would dismiss as totally unbelievable. Toscanini was playing second cello for an Italian opera company on tour in Brazil when the local conductor—furious because the audience had hissed the Prelude (to Verdi’s
Aida
)—stalked out of the pit. With disaster—financial as well as artistic—staring him in the face, the company manager turned in desperation to Toscanini, who, it was rumored, knew the opera too. Calmly walking to the podium, Toscanini turned and gave the downbeat. In a moment, the booing had stopped, and before the end of Act I, the hostility and restlessness of the audience had turned to admiration. When the final curtain fell, there was pandemonium in the hall as the audience hailed a new genius. The untouched score still lay on the podium, opened to page 1: The 19-year-old lad had conducted the entire opera from memory. Within a few months, word had spread, and Toscanini’s cello-playing days were over for good.

In short order, he became one of the most famous conductors in the world, serving as music director at the famous La Scala Opera House in Milan from 1898 to 1908, and again from 1921 to 1929. In the United States, he conducted operas at the Met from 1908 to 1915, returned to take over the New York Philharmonic from 1930 to 1936, and then began the association that would most indelibly stamp his artistry upon the American public: In 1937, he led the first concert of the newly formed NBC Symphony, sending the finest music around the country on wings of radio sound. This included concert versions of operas, a full range of symphonic music, and performances with Horowitz and many of the most renowned soloists in the country. Through these broadcasts, and the recordings that followed, he made music accessible to audiences in a way that had not been possible before, converting casual listeners across the land into opera enthusiasts and avid classical music fans. Toscanini remained at the helm of the NBC Symphony until 1954, when he grudgingly went into retirement at the age of 87. He died three years later at his home in Riverdale, New York.

Toscanini had a temper and his rehearsal rages became legendary—he would scream, yell, and throw things to get what he wanted from his performers. His podium manner at concerts was modest, however, as he feared to distract audiences from the beauty of the music at hand.

 
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The Toscanini temper could flare outside the studio as well. In his autobiography,
Unfinished Journey
, Yehudi Menuhin describes a scene at New York’s Hotel Astor, where he, as a teenaged violinist, had come to discuss the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Maestro. In the middle of their discussions, the phone rang. The musicians ignored it. It rang again, at which point, Menuhin writes, “the pressure in the room was boiling up. At the third ring, Toscanini stopped, and with determined steps, walked not to the telephone, but to the installation in the wall and jerked the whole thing bodily out, wooden fitting, plaster, dust, severed dangling wires; then without a word, he came back to take up where we had stopped, in total serenity.”

Born in Hungary, Fritz Reiner (1888–1963) began his career in Budapest, where he conducted the Volksopera from 1911 to 1914. His next stop was Dresden, where he was principal conductor of the Court (later State) Opera until 1921. An appointment as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony in 1922 brought Reiner to what would thenceforth become his adopted homeland (he became an American citizen six years later). He taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (where his more talented students included the soon-to-be famous composer Lukas Foss and the even more famous Leonard Bernstein), spent ten years as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, several more as a resident conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, and finally—in 1953—arrived at his last and most significant post: music director of the Chicago Symphony.

Like Toscanini, Reiner could be a hard taskmaster, and temper tantrums were not unknown to his players; on the other hand, his sturdy discipline and musical perfectionism raised the Chicago Symphony to a level of excellence ranked among the best orchestras in the country—arguably in the world.

 
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One night, during one of Reiner’s five seasons at the Met, a famous singer happened to notice Reiner enjoying a late dinner and stopped by to chat. “What opera was on?” she asked. “I don’t know what they did,” was Reiner’s twinkling comeback, “I conducted
Meistersinger.
”