The Orchestral Conductor Part 3

The best way would be to have several sub-conductors, with several electric metronomes beating before their eyes the princ.i.p.al beats of the bar.

And now,--should the orchestral conductor give the time standing or sitting down?

If, in theatres where they perform scores of immense length, it is very difficult to endure the fatigue of remaining on foot the whole evening, it is none the less true that the orchestral conductor, when seated, loses a portion of his power, and cannot give free course to his animation, if he possess any.

Then, should he conduct reading from a full score, or from a first violin part (leader's copy), as is customary in some theatres? It is evident that he should have before him a full score. Conducting by means of a part containing only the princ.i.p.al instrumental cues, the ba.s.s and the melody, demands a needless effort of memory from a conductor; and moreover, if he happens to tell one of the performers, whose part he cannot examine, that he is wrong, exposes him to the chance of the reply: "How do you know?"

The disposal and grouping of the players and chorus-singers come also within the province of the orchestral conductor; particularly for concerts. It is impossible to indicate arbitrarily the best method of grouping the performers in a theatre or concert-room; the shape and arrangement of the interior of these places necessarily influence the course to be taken in such a case. Let us add, that it depends, moreover, upon the number of performers requiring to be grouped; and, on some occasions, upon the style of composition adopted by the author whose work is to be performed.

In general, for concerts, the following disposal of the orchestra seems best:--An amphitheatre of eight, or at least, five rows is indispensable.

The semicircular form is the best for the amphitheatre. If it is large enough to contain the whole orchestra, the entire ma.s.s of instrumentalists can be disposed of along these rows; the first violins in front on the right, facing the public; the second violins in front on the left; the violas, in the middle, between the two groups of violins; the flutes, hautboys, clarinets, horns, and ba.s.soons behind the first violins; a double rank of violoncellos and double-ba.s.ses behind the second violins; the trumpets, cornets, trombones, and tubas behind the violas; the rest of the violoncellos and double-ba.s.ses behind the wooden wind instruments; the harps in the foreground, close to the orchestral conductor; the kettle-drums, and other instruments of percussion behind or in the centre of the bra.s.s instruments; the orchestral conductor, turning his back to the public, at the base of the orchestra, and near to the foremost desks of the first and second violins.

There should be a horizontal flooring, or stage, more or less wide, extending in front of the first rows of the amphitheatre. On this flooring the chorus-singers should be placed, in form of a fan turned three-quarters towards the public, so that all shall be able easily to see the motions of the orchestral conductor. The grouping of the chorus-singers, in consonance with their respective order of voice, will differ according as the author has written in three, four, or six parts.

At any rate, the women--sopranos and contraltos--should be in front, seated; the tenors standing behind the contraltos; and the ba.s.ses standing behind the sopranos.

The solo-singers should occupy the centre, and foremost, part of the front stage, and should always place themselves in such a way as to be able, by slightly turning the head, to see the conducting-stick.

For the rest, I repeat, these indications can be but approximate; they may be, for many reasons, modified in various ways.

At the Conservatoire, in Paris, where the amphitheatre is composed of only four or five rows, not circular, and cannot therefore contain the whole orchestra, the violins and violas are on the stage; while the ba.s.ses and wind instruments alone occupy the rows; the chorus is seated on the front of the stage, facing the public, and the women, sopranos and contraltos, turning their backs directly upon the orchestral conductor, are utterly unable to see his motions. The arrangement is very inconvenient for this portion of the chorus.

It is of the greatest consequence that the chorus-singers placed on the front of the stage shall occupy a plane somewhat lower than that of the violins; otherwise they would considerably deaden the sound of these instruments.

For the same reason, if there are no other rows for the choir in front of the orchestra, it is absolutely needful that the women should be seated, and the men remain standing up; in order that the voices of the tenors and ba.s.ses, proceeding from a more elevated point than those of the sopranos and contraltos, may come forth freely, and be neither stifled nor intercepted.

When the presence of the chorus-singers in front of the orchestra is not necessary, the conductor must take care to send them away; since this large number of human bodies injures the sonority of the instruments. A symphony performed by an orchestra thus more or less stifled, loses much of its effect.

There are yet other precautions, relative especially to the orchestra, which the conductor may also take, to avoid certain defects in performance.

The instruments of percussion, placed, as I have indicated, upon one of the last rows of the orchestra, have a tendency to modify the rhythm, and slacken the time. A series of strokes on the drum struck at regular intervals in a quick movement, like the following:--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

will sometimes lead to the complete destruction of a fine rhythmical progression, by checking the onward bound of the rest of the orchestra, and destroying the unity. Almost always, the drum player, through not observing the original time given by the conductor, is somewhat behindhand in striking his first stroke. This r.e.t.a.r.dment, multiplied by the number of strokes which follow the first one, soon produces--as may be imagined--a rhythmical discrepancy of the most fatal effect. The conductor,--all whose efforts to re-establish unanimity are then in vain--has only one thing left to do; which is, to insist that the long drum player shall count beforehand the number of strokes to be given in the pa.s.sage in question, and that, knowing his part, he shall no longer look at his copy, but keep his eyes constantly fixed upon the conducting-stick; by which means he will follow the time without the slightest want of precision.

Another r.e.t.a.r.dment, arising from a different cause, frequently takes place in the trumpet-parts; it is when they contain a quick flow of pa.s.sages such as this:--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The trumpet-player, instead of taking breath _before_ the first of these three bars, takes breath at their commencement, during the quaver-rest, A; and, not counting for anything the short time it has taken him to breathe, gives its whole value to the quaver-rest, which thus becomes super-added to the value of the first bar. The result of this is the following:--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

an effect all the worse because the final accent, struck at the commencement of the third bar by the rest of the orchestra, comes a third of the time too slow in the trumpets, and destroys unity in the striking of the last chord.

To obviate this, the conductor must first previously warn the players against such inexactness, into which they almost all are led to fall unawares; and then, while conducting, must cast a glance towards them at the decisive moment, and _antic.i.p.ate a little_, by beating the first beat of the bar where they come in. It is incredible how difficult it is to prevent trumpet-players from doubling the value of a quaver-rest thus placed.

When a long _accelerando, little by little_, is indicated by the composer, for pa.s.sing from an allegro moderato to a presto, the majority of orchestral conductors hurry the time _by jerks_, instead of quickening it equally throughout, by an insensible onward rate. This should be carefully avoided.

The same remark applies to the converse proposition. It is even more difficult to slacken a quick time smoothly, and without checks, so as to transform it little by little into a slow time. Often, from a desire to testify zeal, or from defect of delivery in his musical feeling, a conductor demands from his players _an exaggeration of nice gradations_.

He comprehends neither the character nor the style of the piece. The gradations then become so many blemishes; the accents, yells; the intentions of the poor composer are totally disfigured and perverted; while those of the orchestral conductor--however politely meant they may be--are none the less injurious: like the caresses of the a.s.s in the fable, who crushed his master while fondling him.

And now let us instance many deplorable abuses that are obtained in almost all the orchestras of Europe--abuses which reduce composers to despair, and which it is the duty of conductors to abolish as soon as possible.

Performers playing stringed instruments will rarely give themselves the trouble to play a _tremolo_; they subst.i.tute for this very characteristic effect, a tame repet.i.tion of the note, half, and sometimes three-quarters slower than the one whence results the tremolo: instead of demisemiquavers, they make triple or double ones; and in lieu of producing sixty-four notes in a bar in four-time (adagio), they produce only thirty-two, or even sixteen. The action of the arm necessary for producing a true tremolo, demands from them too great an effort. This idleness is intolerable.

Many double-ba.s.s players permit themselves--from idleness, also, or from a dread of being unable to achieve certain difficulties--to simplify their part. This race of simplifiers has existed for forty years; but it cannot endure any longer. In ancient works, the double-ba.s.s parts were extremely simple; therefore there can be no reason to impoverish them still more: those in modern scores are rather more difficult, it is true; but, with very few exceptions, there is nothing in them impossible of execution; composers, masters of their art, write them with care, and as they ought to be executed. If it is from idleness that the simplifiers pervert them, the energetic orchestral conductor is armed with the necessary authority to compel the fulfilment of their duty. If it is from incapacity, let him dismiss them. It is his best interest to rid himself of instrumentalists who cannot play their instrument.

Flute-players, accustomed to having their parts written in the upper octave, and not admitting that their part can be written below that of clarinets or hautboys, frequently transpose entire pa.s.sages an octave higher. The conductor, if he does not carefully peruse his score, if he is not thoroughly acquainted with the work he is conducting, or if his ear lacks keenness, will not perceive the strange liberty thus taken.

Nevertheless, mult.i.tudes of such instances occur, and care should be taken to banish them entirely.

It happens everywhere (I do not say in some orchestras only)--that when ten, fifteen, or twenty violinists have to play the same part in unison, that they do not count the bars' rest; each, from idleness, relying on the others doing it. Whence it follows that scarcely half of them come in again at the right moment; while the rest still hold their instrument under their left arm, and look about them. Thus the point is greatly weakened, if not entirely missed. I invoke the attention and vigor of orchestral conductors to this insufferable habit. It is, however, so rooted that they will only ensure its extirpation by making a large number of violinists amenable for the fault of a single player; by inflicting a fine, for example, upon a whole row, if one of them misses coming in. Even were this fine no more than half-a-crown, I will answer for it that each of the violinists would count his rests, and keep watch that his neighbors did the same, since it might be inflicted five or six times upon the same individuals in the course of one performance.

An orchestra, the instruments of which are not in tune individually, and with each other, is a monstrosity; the conductor, therefore, should take the greatest care that the musicians tune accurately. But this operation should not be performed in presence of the public; and, moreover, every instrumental noise--every kind of preluding between the acts--const.i.tutes a real offence to all civilized auditors. The bad training of an orchestra, and its musical mediocrity is to be inferred from the impertinent noise it makes during the periods of quiet at an Opera or Concert.

It is also imperative for a conductor not to allow clarinet-players to use always the same instrument (the clarinet in _B?_), without regard to the author's indications; just as if the different clarinets--those in _D_ and _A_, particularly--had not a special character of their own, of which the intelligent composer knows the exact value; and as if the clarinet in _A_ had not moreover a low semitone more than the clarinet in _B?_--, the C?, of excellent effect, [Ill.u.s.tration] produced by the E, [Ill.u.s.tration] which E gives only the D, [Ill.u.s.tration] on the clarinet in _B?_.

A habit as vicious, and still more baneful, has crept into many orchestras since the introduction of horns with cylinders and pistons: it is that of playing _in open sounds_; by means of the new mechanism adapted to the instrument, those notes intended by the composer to be produced _in closed sounds_, by means of the right hand within the bell.

Moreover, the horn-players nowadays, on account of the facility afforded by the pistons or cylinders for putting their instrument into different keys, use only the _horn in F_ whatever may be the key indicated by the author. This custom gives rise to a host of inconveniences, from which the conductor should use all his efforts to preserve the works of composers _who know how to write_.

He should also set his face against the economical fashion adopted by certain theatres--called lyric--of causing the cymbals and the long drum to be played by the same performer. The sound of the cymbals when attached to the drum--as they must be to render this economy feasible--is an ign.o.ble noise, fit only for bands at tea-gardens. This custom, moreover, leads mediocre composers into the habit of never employing one of these instruments without the other, and considering their use as solely confined to forcibly marking the accented parts of the bar. This is an idea fruitful in noisy plat.i.tudes; and one that has brought upon us the ridiculous excesses beneath which, if a stop be not put to them, dramatic music will sooner or later sink.

I conclude by expressing sincere regret at beholding choral and orchestral studies still so badly organized. Everywhere, for grand choral and instrumental compositions, the system of rehearsals in the ma.s.s is maintained. They make all the chorus-singers study at once, on the one hand; and all the instrumentalists at once, on the other.

Deplorable errors, innumerable mistakes, are thus committed--particularly in the intermediate parts--errors which the chorus-master and the conductor do not perceive. Once established, these errors degenerate into habits, and become part and parcel of the execution.

The hapless chorus-singers, moreover, are by far the worst treated of all the performers during their studies, such as they are. Instead of giving them _a good conductor_, knowing the times of the different movements accurately, and proficient in the art of singing, to beat the time, and make critical observations: _a good pianist_, playing _from a well-arranged pianoforte score_, upon _a good piano_; and a _violinist_, to play in unison or in octave with the voices as each part is learned alone--instead of these three _indispensable artists_, they commit them (in two-thirds of the lyric theatres of Europe) to the superintendence of a single man, who has no more idea of the art of conducting than of that of singing, who is generally a poor musician, selected from among the worst pianists to be found, or who cannot play the pianoforte at all--some old superannuated individual, who, seated before a battered out-of-tune instrument, tries to decipher a dislocated score which he does not know, strikes false chords major, when they are minor, or vice-versa, and under the pretext of conducting and of accompanying by himself, employs his right hand in setting the chorus-singers wrong in their time, and his left hand in setting them wrong in their tune.

One might believe one's self in the Dark Ages, on witnessing such an exhibition of Gothish economy.

A faithful, well-colored, clever interpretation of a modern work, even when confided to artists of a higher order, can only be obtained, I firmly believe, by partial rehearsals. Each part of a chorus should be studied singly until it is thoroughly known, before combining it with the others. The same step should be taken with regard to the orchestra, for a symphony at all complicated. The violins should first be practised alone; the violas and ba.s.ses by themselves; the wooden wind instruments (with a small band of stringed instruments, to fill in the rests, and accustom the wind instruments to the points of re-entrance) and the bra.s.s instruments the same; and very often it is necessary to practise the instruments of percussion alone; and lastly, the harps, if they be numerous. The studies in combination are then far more profitable, and more rapid; and there is then good hope of attaining fidelity of interpretation, now, alas, but too rare.

The performances obtained by the old method of study are merely _approaches_ to achievement; beneath which so very many masterpieces have succ.u.mbed. The superintending conductor, after the butchering of a master, none the less serenely lays down his stick with a satisfied smile; and if some few misgivings remain with him as to the mode in which he has fulfilled his task, should no one venture at the close to dispute its accomplishment, he murmurs aside: "Bah! vae victis!"

HECTOR BERLIOZ.