Don't get me started...

I'm always surprised what passes for "news", particularly in our corner of the music industry. For instance, I've mentioned in past posts, every now and then we get yet another piece about the "phenomena" of female conductors, few of which draw any new conclusions (if they draw conclusions at all).

So, in view of all the talk of orchestras slashing budgets and struggling on the fiscal front, I guess it's time to trot out another "conductors are overpaid" article, this one from the Guardian.

To say that pieces like this one - written with little apparent understanding of either the business of music, or, more importantly, the artistic process of music – frustrate me to no end is an understatement.

First off, I don't deny that there are some conductors who demand exorbitant fees by anyone's standard (“rockstar fees”, they say, but even rockstars are taking fee reductions in this recession). But I really object to using those very few to judge the majority. One can find people with extreme salaries in all walks of life - athletes with contracts worth well over $20 million come to mind. If you leave the big leagues and look at rank-and-file, however, salaries are nothing to write an article about; the starting salary for a minor league ball player, for instance, is in the $25-35K range. Should we judge athletes' salaries by the few that make astronomical figures? No. Neither should we for conductors.

Then comes the bit that really rubs me the wrong way:

But how much difference does the average conductor make? What can be said is that music, given players sufficiently accomplished, speaks for itself. Even in the case of the talented few maestri, the skills on offer are subject to an indefinable alchemy of charisma and self-belief. And as is the case with any dictator, what seems paramount is the ability to inspire confidence in their powers.

You do not have to be a musician to wonder if such a nebulous yet omnipotent job description might be dangerous.

To say that “music speaks for itself” defies a bit of logic; one needs only to hear five or six examples of the opening of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (try it on iTunes, it really is illuminating…) and one begins to understand how any decent conductor puts a distinct imprint on the score at hand. The notes on the page, everything printed in the score, might hypothetically “speak for itself”, but how that translates to an actual sonic world is entirely the responsibility of a conductor.

As for “the ability to inspire confidence in their powers”, let me tell you this; musicians are acutely aware of whether a conductor is full of musical knowledge of simply full of it. An orchestra will have little confidence in an overbearing podium personality if a seriously studied understanding of the score and inherent musicality is not there. Charisma counts for very little (at least from the musicians’ perspective – audiences are more easily fooled) if a conductor doesn’t have the goods to back it up.

The article's premise seems predicated on the notion that the major job of a conductor is to cut a dictatorial figure on the podium, acting as a symbolic figure that players don't even pay attention to:

The truth is that almost the last place you look as a musician is towards the conductor. There simply isn't time. The notes fly past and the brain is in overdrive, busy processing vast amounts of information on the page...

To assume that the conductor is largely responsible for the music is a bit like believing an air-traffic controller should take most of the credit for a Red Arrows display.

Any player or conductor will tell you that it's impossible to have eyes glued to the podium. That would be both impractical and nonsensical. Furthermore, people who make these kinds of observations assume that what they see and hear in a concert is the be-all and end-all of a conductor’s role. ANY player (and any good conductor) will tell you that the most significant work a conductor does is in rehearsal.

As for the argument that orchestras could play conductor-less; yes, some specialized ensembles do (and they tend to be chamber orchestras), but they take a great deal of extra rehearsal to be able to coordinate and to come to artistic agreements. Apply that working model to a large modern symphony – 80+ players – and just imagine the artistic differences, never mind the practical hurdle of working on ensemble with so many people. With the number of extra services needed to accomplish that, you could hire an “overpaid” conductor several times over, and save everyone hours, to boot.

But that's just assuming a conductor is merely a glorified metronome. The most important function of a conductor is to give a focus and unified vision to the repertoire being played. And that focus and understanding comes from 1) long hours of study of a score (20 hours per actual hour of music, minimum, to really begin to understand a score) and 2) the ability to communicate the knowledge gained from this study, by both physical gesture and verbal explanation, whether it be the largest of musical ideas to the smallest detail of tuning a tricky wind chord or fixing an inner rhythmic figure.

Perhaps I take umbrage in this article simply because it insults what I do for a living, but the larger issue is that when obviously one-sided rants like this one hit the mainstream media, it casts a negative light on the classical music business as a whole. And we certainly don’t need that right now. If it’s just muckraking and stirring controversy so one can be self-righteously indignant (and it’s easy to get people worked-up about money in an economic downturn), so be it. It’s simply perturbing to come across an article that the average reader with little knowledge of classical music might take as fact, when it is clear that the author has a very specific bone to pick.

And that’s my rant for the day!