Preparing the Conductor as Teacher

Abstract

As nineteenth-century musical romanticism flourished, professional ensembles began to exceed the chamber music dimensions of preceding generations. Musical scores required dozens and sometimes hundreds of musicians to perform the music of Berlioz, Wagner, and Mahler. Out of necessity, the conductor began to replace the performer as the principal leader during performances. Because many of these early conductors were composers, their role as interpreter was central in the evolution of the profession. Although this professional model has served as the template for the training of conductors, many undergraduate conducting students will spend their careers in the teaching profession working with inexperienced, amateur musicians. Additionally, the size of many ensembles in schools today more closely approximates the chamber music of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries than the gargantuan groups of the Romantic era. How we prepare conductors, then, should focus on the conductor as teacher, musical collaborator, and pedagogue. Much of the formal academic and professional training and the majority of conducting workshops and master classes emphasize communicating musical ideas effectively through visual gestures--using the hands, face, and body. Most professional ensembles, by extension, foster an environment where the conductor shapes the finished product according to his or her preconceptions of the music derived from score study. The group seeks to mirror the conductor's interpretive ideas through watching and reading the physical conducting. While conductorless ensembles are rare in the music world, they have much to offer the cause of developing independence among ensemble members.2 Conducting students usually begin their training by developing skill in physical conducting technique. The conducting instructor observes and attempts to refine the movements of the student into motions that will communicate ideas inherent in the music. Students ultimately conduct one another in a laboratory environment, where the intent is to produce musicians who are able to interpret a musical score and be comfortable in front of an ensemble. In addition to physical technique, most conducting classes emphasize score study prior to rehearsal. For example, if an apprentice is assigned to conduct Mozart's Ave verum corpus, he or she must know what the Latin lyrics mean, be able to give a short synopsis of Mozart's life, and have some knowledge of his oeuvre. The apprentice should also possess an understanding of form, key, instrumentation, performing edition, and other compositional features of the work. For many conducting classes, these two issues, conducting technique (communicating to an ensemble) and score preparation (understanding the composer's intent), are the principal foci of undergraduate conducting classes. A cursory examination of conducting textbooks and course syllabi corroborates these two topics as the primary components of