Journal of theConductors Guild

Volume 22, Nos. 1 & 2Winter/Spring - Summer/Fall 2001

Officers

Board of Directors

Advisory Council

Theodore Thomas Award Winners

Thelma A. Robinson Award Winners

Max Rudolf Award Winners

The publication date of the present double issue of the Journal of the Conductors Guild isJuly, 2002; consequently the publication date and the issue date do not coincide. Eff ective Volume13, the Journal of the Conductors Guild has been published semi-annually, the two issuesbeing numbered 1 and 2; the seasonal references remain unchanged, as is its length.TheConductors Guild reserves the right to approve and edit all material submitted for publica-t ion . Publ i cat ion o f adver t i s ing i s not nec e s sar i l y an endorsement and theConductors Guild reserves the right to refuse to print any advertisement. Library of CongressNo. 82-644733. Copyright ©2002 by Conductors Guild, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN: 0734-1032.

Jonathan D. Green*Murray GrossAlan Harler

Thomas JoinerAnthony LaGruth

Michael LuxnerKirk Muspratt

Melinda O’NealMark Scatterday

Virginia A. AllenHenry Bloch*Glenn BlockMark Cedel

Charles P. Conrad*William H. CurrySandra DackowAllan Dennis

Robert Freeman

Lawrence L. SmithMariusz Smolij

Jonathan Sternberg*Alton ThompsonDiane M. WittryBurton Zipser*

* ex-officio

Charles AnsbacherMichael Charry

Sergiu ComissionaHarold Farberman

Lukas Foss

Adrian GnamSamuel JonesDaniel Lewis

Larry NewlandMaurice Peress

Donald PortnoyBarbara SchubertGunther Schuller

Claudio AbbadoMaurice Abravanel

Leon BarzinLeonard Bernstein

Pierre Boulez

Frederick FennelMargaret HillisJames LevineKurt MasurMax Rudolf

Robert ShawLeonard SlatkinSir Georg Solti

Miriam Burns

Annunziata Tomaro

Gustav Meier Gunther SchullerOtto-Werner Mueller

Journal of the Conductors GuildEditor Jonathan D. Green

Founding Editor Jacques Voois

Production StaffExecutive Director R. Kevin PaulPublications Coordinator Sarabeth GheithAdministrative Assistant Sarabeth GheithProduction Quicker Printers

Harlan Parker, PresidentEmily Freeman Brown, President-elect

Michael Griffith, Vice-President

Tonu Kalam, SecretaryFrederick Peter Morden, Treasurer

Wes Kenney, Past-President

Table of ContentsCommentary page 1

The Metronome Indications in page 2

Beethoven’s Symphonies

by Max Rudolf

A Pilot Study of the Expressive page 14

Gestures Used by Classical

Orchestra Conductors

by Thüring Bräm and Penny Boyes Braem

Beauty’s Plea: An Introduction page 30

to the Music of William Alwyn

by Brian Murphy

Organizing and Conducting page 45

the College-Community Orchestra

by Victor Vallo Jr.

A Study of Student Community page 51

Orchestras in the United States

and Canada

by Dr. Lynn Schenbeck and

Rebecca Jones Rose

Engaging the Head Voice: page 66

Simple Exercises for Amateur

Community Choirs

by Welborne E. Young

Francis Poulenc’s Gloria: page 71

Corrections to the New (1969)

Full Score

by Lee G. Barrow

Books in Review page 78

Craig Kirchhoff, Series Advisor,

Windependence: A Repertoire

Series for Wind Bands

reviewed by Tom Erdmann

John Canarina, Uncle Sam’s

Orchestra, Memories of the

Seventh Army Symphony

reviewed by Henry Bloch

Carl S. Leafsteadt, Inside

Bluebeard’s Castle, (Music and

Drama in Bela Bartôk’s Opera)

reviewed by Henry Bloch

Michael Stern (Ed.), Max

Rudolf: A Musical Life,

Writings and Letters

reviewed by John Canarina

*****

Eric Bell

Laura Rexroth Steven Martyn Zike

Kevin Geraldi

Beatrice Jona Affron

6219 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL 60660

T: (773) 764-7563; F: (773) 764-7564

E-mail: guild@conductorsguild.net

publ icat ions@conductorsguild.net

Website: www.conductorsguild.org

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 1

This issue of the Journal is a departure from the norm in that a number of articles are specifically dedicated to thetopic of community ensembles. This may in fact not be a departure since our goal has been to meet the needs of ourmembership, and as that membership has grown, we have an ever-larger number of members who conduct community-based, volunteer ensembles.

Victor Vallo has prepared a set of guidelines for establishing and leading a college-community orchestra. Lyn Schenbeckand Rebecca Jones present the results of their broad-based study of such ensembles in the U.S. and Canada. Thestatistical anomalies are sometimes dumbfounding and sometimes encouraging. If you direct such an ensemble, youmay find that the peculiar vagaries of your situation are not unique, and hopefully the integrated anecdotes will proveuseful in addressing problems in your own groups. Welborne E. Young offers us some useful exercises to engage thehead voice in amateur choirs. Thomas Erdmann reviews a new wind band series that may provide new repertoireand new editions for community band programs. Lee G. Barrow has prepared an errata list for the new edition ofPoulenc’s Gloria, a work visited by many community choirs.

You will also find provocative and nostalgic inclusions. John Canarina reviews the new anthology of Max Rudolf’swritings. As many of you know, Max was probably the most prolific contributor of articles to this publication. Hisessay on Beethoven’s metronome markings, which appeared in our first issue, remains our most requested reprint.We have therefore begun this issue with a reprint of that article and we close with John’s review. Also be sure to readHenry Bloch’s review of John Canarina’s wonderful book about the Seventh Army Symphony. Our thanks go toTonu Kalam for bringing the Bräm and Braem article to our attention. This is a fascinating study of the conductorialgestures from the perspective of gestural semiotics. You may never look in the mirror the same way again. BrianMurphy has written a valuable introduction to the music of British composer, William Alwyn, whose works arequickly gaining long-deserved recognition.

I hope that as you prepare for your coming seasons, you find some kernels of aid and encouragement in these pages.

Cheers,Jonathan Green

Commentary

2 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

I

After more than a century of unsuccessful attempts toconstruct an efficient tool for measuring speed in music,Maelzel’s Metronome entered the market in 1816. It metwith quick and enthusiastic acceptance. Within a few years,the abbreviation M.M., followed by note symbol, equalsign, and number started to appear in printed music. Evenbefore this became a custom, Beethoven had published alist of metronome markings for eight symphonies.

Beethoven moved to Vienna the same year as Maelzeland was a frequent visitor to the inventor’s workshop.While laboring on an earlier model known as achronometer, Maelzel consulted with the composer whois said to have voiced doubts regarding the instrument’susefulness. Still, Beethoven’s name was listed togetherwith other composers who, according to an officialannouncement in 1813, recommended the chronometeras a device to determine “the correct tempo of everymovement at the first reading of a score.”

The metronome, an improved version of the chronometer,had Beethoven’s full approval. In addition to a publicdeclaration which he co-signed with Antonio Salieri,Beethoven’s letters, over a period of ten years, tell of hiscontinued interest and satisfaction. Three months beforehis death, he wrote to his publisher who was then printingthe first edition of the Missa solemnis: “Metronomemarkings will follow soon. Wait for them. Certainly, inour century they are necessary. Also, letters from Berlininform me that the first performance of the symphony(No. 9) took place with enthusiastic applause, which Iattribute mainly to the metronome markings. We can hardlyhave tempi ordinari any longer, because one must beguided by the ideas of the free genius.” In the face of

ample testimony to Beethoven’s appreciation of themetronome, the one negative remark, “to the devil withall mechanisms,” does not carry weight. It was made in amoment of nervous tension (Beethoven’s nephew hadjust attempted suicide) and combined with the words “themetronome markings follow.”

Beethoven’s interest in this brand-new invention must beseen in the light of a development that had taken placeduring the second half of the 18th century. A new desirefor individual expression had sprung up in the creativearts. In music, the traditional tempo categories no longersatisfied composers who regarded differentiation in pacingas an integral part of musical expression and wanted toprotect the interpretation of their works againstmisreadings by performers. Contemporary treatiseswarned performers not to express their own feelings butthose of the composers. Against this background we canfully understand why the metronome was hailed as thelong-awaited device to provide specific information abouttempo. Enthusiastic Viennese musicians predicted that inthe future, performers would never again be in doubt aboutthe pace of music of the past. It was even suggested thatmetronome indications should be added to the works ofGluck and Mozart while the true tradition was still alive.

These proposals underscore the composer’s obviousdistrust regarding the performer’s ability to choose theproper tempo. Mozart, who had called tempo the mostimportant and difficult thing in music, could be highly criticalof musicians who failed to grasp the right pace.Beethoven’s attitude was not different. It is said that whenfriends reported on performances of his works,Beethoven’s first question was, “How were the tempos?”

The Metronome Indications In Beethoven’s Symphonies

By Max Rudolf

This article first appeared in JCG Volume 1, Number 1 in 1980.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 3

II

Thanks to composers who had steadfastly believed inthe metronome’s usefulness, Maelzel’s mechanism andits modern equivalents have been thriving for more than160 years. Its function has never been better defined thanby Berlioz who used it consistently and, in his essay on“The Conductor’s Art,” presented his thoughts on themetronome clearly and strongly. He pointed to theconductor’s plight caused by vague tempo markings; hewondered whether the “various degrees of slowness”within a tempo such as Largo should be determined bythe conductor’s individual feelings. His answer was: “Thisis a question of the composer’s, not the conductor’sfeelings. Composers must therefore not neglectmetronome indications in their works and conductors areobliged to study them well. To neglect this study wouldbe an act of dishonesty on the part of the conductor.”

Berlioz’s request “study them well” must not beunderstood in the sense of subjecting music to an inflexiblebeat. In the same essay, he warned against lifeless time-beating. Only in rare cases does a metronome figure fit amovement “like a glove” from start to finish as, for instance,in the Allegretto scherzando of Beethoven’s EighthSymphony. When Beethoven began using the metronome,he made it clear that music in need of tempo flexibilityought not to be hampered by metronome-like rigidity. InFebruary, 1817, he wrote on the autograph of a song:“100 according to Maelzel, but this applies only to thefirst measures, since feeling (Empfindung) also has itsmeasure. This, however, cannot be expressed quite wellat this rate, namely 100.” Although Beethoven referredhere to a strophic song, contemporary reports on hisperforming habits indicate that he was not averse to tempomodifications, if they remained within a generally steady pulse.

Musicians may disagree on where to draw the linebetween minor and major tempo fluctuations, yet theirjudgment is usually unanimous in cases where the choiceof tempo unquestionably affects the music’s fundamentalcharacter. If, for instance, Beethoven’s marking = 80for the Allegro vivace in Symphony No. 4 was notfollowed to the letter, but reduced to = 76, the intendedliveliness and excitement would be preserved. However,a reduction to = 126 (suggested by Weingartner)

transforms the movement into an easygoing Allegro manon tanto, a tempo category that Beethoven chose for asection in Symphony No. 9 with the marking = 120.

Measuring musical speed is a ticklish, often frustratingventure. Technical questions, such as playability, are partof the problem, but most of the time the uncertainty mustbe attributed to psychological factors. A tempo mayappear perfect today, but uncomfortable when testedtomorrow; after a week’s lapse a third tempo may turnout to be more satisfactory. It is not surprising, then, thatBeethoven, in letters to his publisher, pleaded for moretime to prepare metronome markings. Unfortunately, dueto procrastination some of them were never delivered.

No matter how much time and care is given toexperimentation in the studio, the only place where thespeed of orchestral music can be successfully measuredis in the concert hall. Even then, metronome figures oughtto be tested on several occasions. Problems caused byuntested printed metronome figures are well known toconductors who have discussed tempos with composersduring rehearsals or after concerts. Igor Stravinsky, a mostarticulate composer, once remarked that he did notobserve to the letter all of his printed metronomeindications when conducting his works. Apparently, someof his ideas had changed in the course of repeatedperformances. It is true that metronome alterations madeby composers rarely exceed a few metronome degreesand do not affect the music’s basic conception. Yet, thevery need for changing printed markings proves that theoriginals do not necessarily provide exact information.For this reason, some composers now indicate a temporange between two given metronome figures, or addmodifying markings during the course of a movement.

In modern scores, metronome indications are readilyaccepted as an essential and welcome guide to acomposer’s intentions. By contrast, they are frequentlyignored in works written in the 19th century. One mustassume, therefore, that performers either believe thatmetronome readings of former times are unreliable, orprefer to choose a tempo without regard for thecomposer’s wishes. Beethoven’s symphonies are amongthe works whose metronome markings are still being givena low credibility rating by many conductors. In fact,

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prominent members of the profession have recommendedthat these markings be disregarded altogether. Beforeconsidering the case in detail, it seems proper to seekbasic information concerning the reliability of Beethoven’smetronome indications.

III

(1) Were metronome readings in Beethoven’s timesignificantly different from those derived frommodern instruments? Some - though not all - electricmetronomes, come close to being accurate. However,the performance of spring-driven models, be it the time-honored Maelzel type or the watch-like pocketmetronome, is hardly ever free of irregularities. The beatmay be lopsided, the calibration inexact, or the tick mayslow down as the spring unwinds. Moreover, metronomesdeteriorate unless kept in perfect condition. With theseand other uncertainties in mind, scholars have examinedexisting original models built by Maelzel and haveestablished that their readings were not significantly atvariance with those derived from modern metronomes.

(2) Was Beethoven’s metronome faulty? Only a singlemodel existed in his day. At first, it was enclosed in ametal box, later in a wooden box, though of identicalconstruction, with a notched pendulum calibrated from50 to 160 (The story of two different models was one ofthe numerous fabrications by Anton Schindler.)Beethoven, after years of discussions with Maelzel, wascertainly familiar with the metronome’s action and keenlyaware of calibration problems. It can, therefore, be takenfor granted that the 60-tick on his metronomecorresponded exactly to one second although we haveno way of knowing that he checked every notch on thescale. We know also that he cared about his metronome’sperformance. In 1825, shortly after having complainedthat its readings were still “shaky”, he brought it to awatchmaker’s shop to have it “regain its steady pulse.”On all counts, there is no reason to suspect thatBeethoven’s personal metronome was not handled withcare, or that it was less reliable than other instruments ofits kind.

(3) Are the metronome figures in Beethoven’ssymphonies free of misprints? For Symphony No. 9,Beethoven prepared a list of metronome markings two-

and-a-half years after the work’s premiere. It is extantand available in photocopy. Though written by his nephew,it bears the composer’s signature. Furthermore, aconversation book reveals that uncle and nephew hadtaken pains to recheck the figures before mailing the list.

For the other symphonies, the sole source is theaforementioned list printed in the AllgemeineMusikalische Zeitung of December, 1817; it bears thesub-heading “determined by the author himself accordingto Maelzel’s metronome.” In Symphony No. 3, onemisprint (also found in some printed scores) is probable.The concluding Presto is marked = 116, though thereis little doubt that it should read = 116. Whether this isthe only error on the list cannot be verified. The list’sgeneral appearance however gives the impression that itwas prepared with reasonable care.

Incorrect metronome markings that, due to printing errors,have been perpetuated in various editions of Beethoven’ssymphonies, are not mentioned here. In this article, allfigures are quoted from the original lists.

(4) Was Beethoven less skillful in handling themetronome than later composers? First, we shouldask by what criteria such a skill is to be judged. Playabilityis an important consideration; an overly fast metronomespeed that prohibits clear execution of all the notesobviously calls for adjustment. Technical problems,however, seldom interfere with the application ofBeethoven’s metronome markings. Their validity has beenquestioned mainly because conductors believe them tobe incongruous with the appropriate musical expression.For an illustration, we turn to Weingartner’s much-readessay On the Performance of Beethoven’s Symphonies.In it, he defines the Trio in Symphony No. 7 as a “radiantlycheerful and movingly heartfelt song” while recommendingas “the right tempo” a metronome speed of = 60, arather drastic deviation from the original = 84. Otherconductors have performed the same music at = 76-80, a relatively insignificant reduction that leaves the basiccharacter of the Trio unchanged.

Similar examples that demonstrate the relationshipbetween a movement’s metronome marking and itsintrinsic meaning can be drawn from all nine symphonies.It seems, therefore, that in fairness to Beethoven, one

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should not question his results without first investigatinghow he arrived at a given metronome figure. Whilehandling the metronome, he probably proceeded like anyother musician, namely singing, humming, gesturing, orperhaps “thinking” the music, except when he used thepiano, as he did while working on the list for SymphonyNo. 9. Understandably, none of those methods werefoolproof. On the other hand, by the end of 1817Beethoven had obviously gained valuable experiencethrough having conducted, or listened to, numerousperformances of his symphonies. It has been suggestedthat by 1817, he had lost the proper feeling for workscomposed between 1800 and 1812. It seems absurdthat he could have misjudged his own music to the pointof distorting its character. Moreover, performances ofSymphonies Nos. 7 and 8 had occurred fairly recently. Itappears unlikely, therefore, that Beethoven could havebeen significantly afield when measuring the pace for thesetwo works. Stated differently, it would seem logical thatthe ten metronome figures appearing in these two scores(measured at the same time with the use of the sameinstrument!) were either all inaccurate or all sufficientlyvalid to warrant careful study.

Not all conductors have shared this view. Weingartner,for one, accepted only four of the ten markings withoutreservation. He challenged the remaining six. For theAllegretto in Symphony No. 8, he called Beethoven’s = 88 a “well-chosen tempo”. Yet, assuming the 88-notch on the scale of Beethoven’s metronome (hardlydistinguishable in performance from 84) functionedsatisfactorily, how then could the 84-notch indicated forthe Trio of Symphony No. 7 be completely false asWeingartner believed!

Various theories have been proposed to explain how andwhy Beethoven bungled his metronome readings. Someclaim that he missed the right notch when moving thependulum’s weight; others that he looked at the scalefrom a wrong angle. Aside from the fact that speculationsof this sort imply a low opinion of Beethoven’sintelligence, they by no means explain how, in the samescore, one figure can be judged faulty, another perfect—unless we attribute the latter to “potluck.”

Of the 60 metronome indications in Beethoven’ssymphonies, about 20 are currently observed in mostperformances, either by literally heeding the original

markings or at least by staying close to them. Thisacceptance rate may seem low, but other 19th centurycomposers do not fare much better. Beethoven, however,for unexplained reasons has been singled out for unusuallysevere and persistent criticism. The following exampledemonstrates that this judgment is not easily supportedby logic. In the Marcia funebre in Symphony No. 3,prominent conductors (as their recordings prove)accepted Beethoven’s marking = 80 for therecapitulation at bar 105, thereby endorsing the soundnessof the composer’s judgment. Yet, the same conductorsrejected this marking at the start of the movement forwhich they chose a speed of = 52. One cannot helpwondering whether the vision of a funeral march calls fora much livelier gait a few minutes after the march hasbegun. Apparently, Beethoven had not visualized it thisway. In any event, an interpreter’s questionable ideashould not result in criticism of Beethoven’s handling ofhis metronome.

(5) Can disregard for Beethoven’s metronomeindications be related to shifting performancehabits? By the middle of the 19th century, a newapproach to the interpretation of Beethoven’s music wasset into motion by the “New-German” school. Wagnerand Liszt were its protagonists, joined later by Hans vonBulow. In 1844, a music journal reported that underLiszt’s direction Beethoven’s symphonies were playedmore slowly than had been customary. Musicianssupporting the new movement gave praise to Liszt, whichby inference criticized Mendelssohn, who representedthe older tradition. Schumann, in his reviews of theGewandhaus Concerts, largely agreed with Mendelssohnregarding Beethoven’s tempos. On the other hand, hedisliked Wagner’s treatment of the master’s music. Aftera performance of Fidelio, Schumann reported: “badperformance and unbelievable choice of tempo by R.Wagner.” Wagner, in turn, violently criticizedMendelssohn’s interpretations of Beethoven’ssymphonies, calling them superficial and finding the temposunduly rushed.

We do not know how fast Mendelssohn’s tempos werenor how slow were those taken by Wagner and Liszt.Nonetheless we can draw conclusions from the fact thatMendelssohn, like Schumann, was a traditionalist. Evenbefore taking charge of the Gewandhaus Concerts eight

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years after Beethoven’s death, he had associated withmusicians who had heard Beethoven perform hissymphonies. Besides, Mendelssohn had an integrity whichrespected a composer’s wishes (he declined to edit aHandel score unless his additions were clearly discernablefrom the original version) while Wagner, a strong-willedindividualist, was indifferent to stylistic considerations asdemonstrated by his romanticized arrangement ofPalestrina’s Stabat Mater.

It must be remembered that this new approach to musicalinterpretation coincided with a radical change in concertprogramming. For the first time in music history, themasterworks of the past began to play a dominant role inorchestral concerts. Consequently their interpretation wasincreasingly subjected to shifting performance habits. Bythe end of the century, the interpretive ideas of conductorsbelonging to the New-German school had been widelyaccepted. These ideas include a proclivity for a ponderoustreatment of the slower movements in classic music.

In our time, the interpretation of Beethoven’s symphoniesstill shows the influence of these late-romantic ideas, apractice that would undoubtedly lose ground if thecomposer’s metronome indications were taken seriously.

IV

Musicians who denounce the validity of Beethoven’smetronome indications argue that many of them contradicthis own Italian tempo markings and that the resultingtempos are often incompatible with the musical context.Those taking an opposite view believe that Beethoven’sdislike for the traditional tempo designations was justifiedand that his metronome markings are safer in preventingmisunderstandings.

In reference to the Allegro ma non tanto that opensSymphony No. 6, Weingartner declared categorically,“The metronome indication ( = 66) is too fast and alsogives the erroneous impression that this movement is tobe conducted with one beat to the bar. I suggest about = 108.” Weingartner apparently ignores the fact thatBeethoven could have written = 132 (as he did in thesame symphony for an Allegro that requires a duplemeter) but rather wanted to indicate by his metronome

marking that the music was indeed to be felt in one beatto the measure. Weingartner should not have assumedthat Beethoven’s markings were always related to beatingpatterns. This, after all, was a strictly technical matterwith which the composer was unconcerned. Actually, ifthis “Allegro” were to be felt in two beats “ma non tanto”would not have made sense. Through the addition of =66, Beethoven made it clear that the “ma non tanto”referred to a whole-bar meter. N. B. Long stretches inthis movement can be directed with one leisurely beat tothe measure; some conductors might prefer to begin themovement with a slightly slower two beat in preparationfor the fermata in bar four.

Beethoven’s metronome indications can also be used todispel the notion that every classic symphony ought toinclude a slow movement characterized by quietcontemplation and emotional depth. Actually, a fairly largenumber of classic symphonies, sonatas, and ensembleworks do not contain movements of this type, as we seein Beethoven’s symphonies Nos. 1, 7, and 8. During the18th and into the 19th century, composers used thedesignation Adagio for movements whose expressionwarranted a really slow pace. This did not apply to musicmarked Andante or even Larghetto, especially whenwritten in 3/8 time. Beethoven documented this by hischoice of metronome speeds for the so-called slowmovements in symphonies Nos. 2 and 5.

Some conductors maintain that all slow introductions mustbe in a mathematical ratio to the adjoining fast sections ofa symphony. To apply this theory to the five examples inBeethoven’s symphonies would be contrary to hisintentions. The metronome markings clearly show thathe preferred the element of surprise to that ofpredictability.

V

The following list of Beethoven’s metronome figurescorresponds to the authentic sources. The comments thatare added to the listing for each symphony are not meantto infringe upon the conductor’s prerogative to interpretmusic as he deems best. After all, his decisions regardingthe choice of tempo should be influenced by a variety offactors including such practical considerations as the

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players’ ability and the hall’s acoustics. The three abbreviations are: ML (refers to Beethoven’s metronome listof 1817); L (refers to the letter concerning Symphony No. 9); and ? (refers to textual problems).

SYMPHONY NO. 1

1. The designation “Adagio molto” could be misunderstood without the metronome marking. For the “MoltoAdagio” 4/4 in the String Quartet Op. 59, II, Beethoven indicated an even faster pace, = 60.

3. Because of the triplets and dotted rhythms that occur in this movement, conductors are inclined to reducethe speed by 6-8 metronome degrees, even though the music suggests a lyric scherzando, not a slow movement.

6. This extreme metronome speed tells the conductor to play the movement at the maximum pace his playerscan master.

SYMPHONY NO. 2

1. ML: “Adagio” (without “molto”), also in the first printed edition of the score. The autographs for symphonies

Nos. 1, 2, and 3 unfortunately are lost. This void causes numerous uncertainties.

2. This metronome marking gives the impression of a “keyboard tempo.” An ever-so-slight reduction from 100

to 98 creates an “orchestra tempo.”

3. Here, the metronome speed seems to have been chosen to apply to the entire movement. If we are to

believe Anton Schindler, the composer wanted the passage beginning at measure 75 to be treated as an

“Allegretto.” Most conductors begin the movement slightly slower than = 92. However, it must be remembered

that “Larghetto” belonged traditionally to the Andante group and that Beethoven, in his arrangement of the

symphony for piano trio, changed the marking to “Larghetto quasi Andante.”

5. A very minor adjustment from 152 to 146 establishes a tempo with which the players can feel more comfortable.

1. Adagio molto 4/4 = 882. Allegro con brio = 1123. Andante cantabile con moto 3/8 = 1204. Menuetto. Allegro molto e vivace 3/4 = 1085. Adagio 2/4 = 636. Allegro molto e vivace 2/4 = 88

1. Adagio molto 3/4 = 842. Allegro con brio 4/4 = 1003. Larghetto 3/8 = 924. Scherzo. Allegro 3/4 = 1005. Allegro molto = 84

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SYMPHONY NO. 3

1. The metronome marking is appropriate for an “Allegro con brio”, though it is unlikely that Beethoven intended,the beat to be relentlessly maintained throughout the movement.

2. See Chapter III, 4.

5. It must be assumed that the metronome speed refers to the first eleven bars. It does not indicate the movement’smain tempo. The finale of Beethoven’s Prometheus ballet, which utilizes the same thematic material, is marked“Allegretto.” The absence of an applicable tempo marking for this movement is only one of the textual problems inthe Eroica score caused by the lack of reliable sources (see comment 1, Symphony No. 2).

6. At present, conductors perform this passage at about = 88, a metronome speed which Beethoven selected fora “Poco Adagio” (String Quartet Op. 18, V). Obviously, by choosing “poco”Andante” for this music, he wasthinking of a more flowing pace. We have here yet another instance in which a noticeable deviation from the metronomemarking affects the musical expression in a manner not intended by the composer.

7. The designation “Presto” as well as the musical context (including the measured 32nd-notes in the strings) supportthe assumption of a misprint: it should read =116.

SYMPHONY NO. 4

2. See comment 2, Symphony No. 2.

6. See the paragraph discussing the first movement of Symphony No. 6 in Chapter IV. Here again, “ma non troppo”would not make sense unless applied to the meter of a whole bar. Still, a reduction to = 76-74 will be appreciated

1. Allegro con brio 3/4 = 602. Marcia funebre. Adagio assai 2/4 = 803. Scherzo. Allegro vivace 3/4 = 1164. Alla breve = 1165. Finale. Allegro molto 2/4 = 766. Poco Andante 2/4 = 1087. Presto 2/4 = 116

1. Adagio = 662. Allegro vivace = 803. Adagio 3/4 = 844. Allegro vivace 3/4 = 1005. Trio. Un poco meno Allegro 3/4 = 886. Allegro ma non troppo 2/4 = 80

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SYMPHONY NO. 5

1. Conductors must decide for themselves whether to take Beethoven’s metronome speed literally. Such an

interpretation would mean storming through the movement with unflagging vehemence. The alternative is to treat this

metronome figure as among those which are “on the fast side.” See also comment 2, Symphony No. 2.

2. Before deciding on a noticeably slower tempo than the one indicated, one ought to remember that the “Larghetto”

in Symphony No. 2 received an identical marking. Practically speaking one must be aware that while testing the

speed for these two movements, the composer used the same metronome and arrived at the same pulse!

5. It is worth noting that Beethoven was not “on the fast side!” The metronome figure indicates a moderately fast

Allegro.

SYMPHONY NO. 6

1. See comments in Chapter IV.

2. ML: “Andante con moto.”

3. ML: “Allegretto.”

6. Conductors who like to increase the speed in the course of the movement may feel encouraged by reports that

Beethoven took liberties when performing his piano music.

1. Allegro can brio 2/4 = 1082. Andante con moto 3/8 = 923. Più moto 3/8 = 1164. Allegro 3/4 = 965. Allegro 4/4 = 846. Presto = 112

1. Allegro ma non troppo 2/4 = 662. Andante molto moto 12/8 = 503. Allegro 3/4 = 1084. a tempo Allegro 2/4 = 1325. Allegro 4/4 = 806. Allegretto 6/8 = 60

by the solo bassoon. Regardless of the tempo, a 2-beat is needed for the start, even though a 1-beat is appropriatefor certain passages

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SYMPHONY NO. 7

5. See comment in Chapter III, 4.

6. ML: “Allegro.” In this movement, we cannot tell whether “con brio” was omitted by the printer or missing in thecopy prepared by the composer. If we compare this metronome figure with = 108 chosen by Beethoven for the“Allegro con brio” in Symphony No. 5 (also written in 2/4 time), we would discover that his distrust of Italian tempomarkings appears to be justified.

SYMPHONY NO. 8

1. ML: “Allegro vivace.” see comment 2, Symphony No. 2.

3. This metronome figure has been disputed although the pace is typical of a “Tempo di Menuetto” [compare =120 in the Septet Op. 20, and the “Menuetto (Grazioso)” in the String Quartet Op. 59, III marked = 116]. Forthe Trio, however, this tempo does seem rushed. Interpretively, conductors have three choices: 1) to apply Beethoven’smarking literally (causing the Trio to sound rough and hectic); 2) to reduce the speed slightly for the entire movement;or 3) to reduce tempo only in the Trio.

4. This movement has been performed by virtuoso orchestras at = 80-82 which is quite close to Beethoven’soptimistic marking. Any good professional group should be able to play the movement at = 76.

SYMPHONY NO. 9

The handwritten list (see Chapter III, 3) was sent to Beethoven’s publisher, B. Schott in Mainz, on October 13,1826. It was accompanied by a letter which read; “I am using the remaining part of the summer for recreation in thecountry, because it was impossible for me to leave Vienna this summer. During this time I have prepared metronomeindications for the entire symphony and enclose the tempos herewith.”

The list is clearly written and constitutes the only original source for Beethoven’s metronome figures. Dots, missingafter some half-notes in 3/4 time have been added here. Had Beethoven doubted the validity of the list, he would nothave spoken of its good effects on the Berlin performance.

Despite these favorable circumstances, some of the metronome indications for this symphony are problematic, infact more so than the markings in other symphonies.

1. L: “Allo ma non troppo.” The writing in the autograph seems to indicate that Beethoven wrote the tempo designationin three stages: Allo / ma non troppo / e un poco maestoso. Also, on the right upper corner of the autograph is a pencilednote “108 or 120 Maelzel.” Scholars have tried to explain this cryptic note. However, unless further research can shedlight on the circumstances under which this entry occurred, we have to content ourselves with the marking = 88, eventhough this speed is not convincing and seems to fit only certain passages which occur later in the movement.

3. This marking has been disputed. Beethoven’s list leaves no doubt about the half-note! To assume that his nephewmistakenly wrote it in place of a whole note would be absurd. Nonetheless, = 116 gives the impression of a tempo“on the slow side.” Interestingly, the autograph reveals that the Trio was originally written in 2/4-time. Beethoventhen erased some of his writing and changed the time-signature to , combining two 2/4-bars into one alla breve bar.“Presto” had been the marking for the 2/4-time and, indeed, within this meter = 116 is a reasonable speed for a“Presto.” Nevertheless, this still does not solve the problem of how to handle the preceding stringendo which issupposed to lead into the tempo of the Trio. Conductors have little choice but to continue grappling with this puzzlingsituation (unless of course they believe they have found the “only right” solution). Certainly the orchestral texture andthe pastoral nature of the Trio are well served by an unhurried pace.

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1. Poco sostenuto 4/4 = 692. Vivace 6/8 = 1043. Allegretto 2/4 = 764. Presto 3/4 = 1325. Assai meno presto 3/4 = 846. Allegro con brio 2/4 = 72

1. Allegro vivace e con brio 3/4 = 692. Allegretto scherzando 2/4 = 883. Tempo di Menuetto 3/4 = 1264. Allegro vivace = 84

1. Allegro, ma non troppo, un poco maestoso 2/4 = 882. Molto vivace 3/4 = 1163. Adagio molto e cantabile = 1164. Presto 4/4 = 605. Andante moderato 3/4 = 636. Presto 3/4 = 667. Allegro ma non troppo 2/4 = 888. Allegro assai 4/4 = 809. Allegro assai vivace. Alla Marcia 6/8 = 8410. Andante maestoso 3/2 = 7211. Adagio, ma non troppo, ma divoto 3/2 = 6012. Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato 6/4 = 8413. Allegro ma non tanto = 12014. Prestissimo = 13215. Maestoso 3/4 = 60

SYMPHONY NO. 7

SYMPHONY NO. 8

SYMPHONY NO. 9

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4. “E cantabile” is a later addition in the autograph. Making a melody singable does not call for slowing the pace.When considered in the light of the style change that Beethoven underwent in his later years, this metronome markingdoes not appear excessively fast.

5. Beethoven was surely aware of the very minor difference between 60 and 63 on the metronome scale!

8. L: this tempo is listed only once whereas it appears twice in the printed score. In bar 77, the autograph has“Allegro” only.

9. This metronome speed has stirred up much controversy. It seems to be slow. Perhaps Beethoven intended it to bea warning of “not too fast, please” in order to create an atmosphere of tension at the beginning of the “Turkish”march. Here again, conductors will have to accept the fact that we all must “live with doubt”!

14. “Prestissimo” is crossed out in the autograph and replaced by “presto.” Another entry, apparently made at thesame time, reads “Maelzel 132.” Aside from this and the metronome marking mentioned in No. 1, no other suchindications are found in the autograph.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

My comments in the last chapter of this article leave no doubt that I am partial to the kind of interpretation that grantsthe composer first rights. Some people call this, wrongly I believe, a literal approach. No one would seriouslysuggest that performances of the past can be duplicated. Yet, a difference exists between using a score simply as ablueprint for an interpreter’s “creation” (as proposed by Ernest Ansermet), and trying to utilize all available evidenceto ascertain a composer’s intentions. In the first instance, we rely mainly on our intuition, in the latter we make agenuine effort to stay within the framework of the composer’s ideas.

Ours is the first century that has searched for historically-correct practices of former performance styles. It wasduring my student years that musicologists formed collegia musica at German universities to promote a re-examinationof baroque musical performance practices. I remember the indignation of the performing community, accustomed tomake Bach and other baroque masters more palatable to the modern listener by infusing romantic devices into theirworks. Today, sixty years later, concert attendance and record sales prove that “the modern listener” enjoys baroquemusic even more when it is presented with the stylistic requirements of its time.

At present, we are witnessing another attempt which, if continued, will surely intrude into other established performancestandards. I am referring to the work of those solo artists and chamber music players who are developing anapproach to the early Viennese classics that utilizes performance customs of the late 18th century. To date, fewconductors have shown a similar interest. However, having observed how slowly and reluctantly most musiciansparted with their cherished baroque performance habits, I am inclined to believe that in the course of time the late-romantic concepts of the Viennese classics will give way to an approach that is germane to the spirit of the classical era.

Admittedly, the choice of tempo is only one part of the interpretive process. However, it is of predominant importancein the case of Beethoven’s symphonies since, as I have tried to show, the music’s meaning can undergo a drasticchange by shifting from one speed range to another. In other words, this article was not written to dictate howBeethoven’s music ought to be performed, but rather to suggest to my younger colleagues that the instructions of agreat master deserve, at least, the benefit of the doubt. Recent performance traditions must not prevent us frominvestigating such pertinent information as Beethoven’s metronome indications. By accepting them as a guide to hisintentions we might discover a new identification with his music.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 13

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beethoven, Sämtliche Briefe, 5 volumes (F. Prelinger) Leipzig, 1907-11 (English translation: Anderson, Beethoven’s Letters).

Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, Facsimile Edition Leipzig, 1924.

Beethoven, Das Problem der Interpretation in Musik-Konzepte No. 8 München, 1979 (valuable information on Beethoven’s use of the metronome).

Berlioz, Le Chef d’Orchestre, Théorie de son Art in Traité d’ Instrumentation.

Harding (Rosamund E.M.), The Metronome and its Precursors in Origins of Musical Time and Expression London, 1938.

Nottebohm (Gustav), Beethoveniana, Vol. I, Leipzig, 1872.

Schünemann (Georg), Geschichte des Dirigierens, Leipzig, 1913.

Thayer, Life of Beethoven, New Edition by E. Forbes, Princeton, 1967.

Weingartner, Ratschläge für Auffführungen von Beethoven’s Symphonien Leipzig, 1928 (English edition: Dover paperback).

14 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

A Pilot Study of the Expressive GesturesUsed by Classical Orchestra Conductors

By Thüring Bräm & Penny Boyes Braem

ABSTRACT

Traditional studies of orchestral conductors’ gestures havebeen limited to the gestures of the dominant hand, whichis used to indicate the beat and other structural aspectsof the music. The gestures of the non-dominant handhave been typically simply described as being ‘expressive’and ‘idiosyncratic’. In this pilot project, we (a signlanguage researcher and an orchestral conductor) havefocused on these ‘expressive gestures’, specificallylooking at the formational sub-components of the gestures:handshape, hand orientation, location and movement. Inour detailed analyses of videotapes of the conducting oftwo conductors with very different conducting styles(Bernstein and Celibidache), we have found a shared andlimited set of gestures which reflect categories also foundin ‘classifying handshapes’ of polymorphemic verbs inDeaf sign languages. These gestural components are thenanalyzed as being surface representations of metaphorsor metonyms similar to those which have been found tounderlie many spoken language forms for cognitive andemotional concepts, the signs of Deaf sign languages aswell as gestures which hearing persons use to accompanyspeech.

INTRODUCTION

research questions are the following: Is there a repertoireof ‘expressive’ gestures? If so, how do they comparewith the hand gestures, which accompany speech, andwith the more highly coded sign language of the deaf?Are conducting gestures systematized in any way beyondthe organizing, structuring patterns of the classicalorchestral conductor?

The music historian, Harvey Sachs (1993), in his“Reflections on Toscanini” gives an anecdote whichdirectly concerns these topics. The incident occurredduring a performance of Pictures at an Exhibition bythe Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Budapest.Toscanini, who always conducted from memory, beganto conduct the wrong episode. The principal bassoonistof the orchestra recounted the following:

Not one musician started to play! It was ghost-like, a littlelike a nightmare: Toscanini conducted in the air, and not onesound occurred! Toscanini, for a tenth of a second, wasflabbergasted and stony-faced: how come nobody plays? Butin another tenth of a second he realized that instead of Tuilerieshe had conducted the beginning of Bydlo, which was verydifferent in dynamic character. And with an almostindiscernible nod, he gave the right dynamic sign for thebeginning of Tuileries, and then the orchestra, mostharmoniously, as if nothing had happened, started to play.Afterwards he said: ‘This is the greatest compliment an orchestracan pay me: I make a mistake, and the orchestra at once realizesI am wrong.’ Why? Because his Zeichengebung, his gesture forcommunication and conducting, is so unmistakable in its onepossible meaning that you cannot take it as meaning anything

else... (quoted in Sachs, 1993, p. 148)

There are two relevant observations in this incident: First,there was a gestural communication from the conductorthat was so clear that a hundred players reacted‘correctly’. Second, there is something in addition to theorganizational signs which operate as a communicative

The purpose of this study is to extend the traditionalanalysis of the gestures which the orchestral conductormakes with the dominant hand, to those ‘expressive’gestures which are usually made with the non-dominanthand. It is clear that, in addition to manual gestures, facialand body expressions as well as eye gaze are veryimportant in the conductor’s communication. This pilotstudy will, however, concentrate on the manual gestures,with the acknowledgement that the other factorsmentioned above deserve studies of their own. Our

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 15

entity, whether it be an ‘indiscernible nod’ or the ‘stony-face’, that in a tenth of a second can give an unambiguoussignal.

The conductor George Szell describes Toscanini’stechnique as ‘deceptively simple’:

Toscanini...made a distinction between the responsibilities ofthe right and left arms. His right arm generally moved in broad,clear, compelling strokes, not merely beating time but drawingthe musicians into the music and helping them to progressthrough it, persuading them to bring it to life; it activated andshaped the music. His left hand was responsible for the fine-tuning: from a position directly in front of him, where it wasinvisible for much of the audience, it cautioned and exhorted.(Sachs, 1993, p. 150)

The Traditional Description of the ConductingGestures of the Dominant Hand

Equally important to what is shown by the conductor, iswhat is not shown. The conductor does not indicate allthe important elements of the music, which can be foundin the printed score: the pitches and the rhythmic values.The dominant hand indicates the organization (thebeginnings and ends), the tempo, and the rhythmic raster,or tact. The non-dominant hand shows special dynamics,sound colors, uniquely occurring events, entrances andarticulation. Naturally, all of these parameters influenceeach other and whether they are signaled by the dominantor the non-dominant hand is more of a general tendencythan a firm rule. However, most books on conductingdescribe a general division of labor between the hands,an asymmetry of movements and functions which is oneof the difficult techniques which students of conductingmust master.

This view is also found in one of the most authoritativetreatments of conducting, “The Grammar of Conducting”by Max Rudolf (1994). A conductor himself, Rudolf wasalso the musical director of the Metropolitan Opera inNew York in the 1940s and thus was in constant contactwith other conductors such as Toscanini, Walter and Szell.Rudolf treats the basic patterns of the right hand (theneutral pattern, the staccato and the legato beats) andthe organizational ‘details’ shown by the left hand. Themusically most impressive interpretations are, of course,not solely due to these learnable techniques, but are

dependent on a thorough knowledge of the piece’sstructure and musical intent. Given that the conductorhas this background knowledge, the dominant handgestures are generally used to ‘direct the musical traffic’.Examples for this ‘directing’ function of the right handare shown in the fundamental beating patterns representedin Figure 1.

In books on conducting and in conducting courses, theuse of the non-dominant hand has usually been mentionedin a more general way, giving the impression that it is upto the individual conductor to develop gestures whichwill show other aspects of the music such as sound texture,foregrounding of instrumental voices, ‘density’,‘atmosphere’, and ‘expression’. Exactly how the non-dominant hand (together with the facial and bodyexpression and eye gaze) actually manage to communicateall these aspects of the conductor’s message have never,to our knowledge, been studied in detail.

ANALYSES OF THE CONDUCTING GESTURES

OF THE NON-DOMINANT HAND

Theoretical Bases

In this pilot study of the gestures of the non-dominanthand of the conductor, the theoretical starting point is nothistorical or technical but is based rather on the

Fig. 1: Dominant hand (from the conductor’s perspective): (a)traditional division of the conducting space, showing thetemporal organization of the music (b) 2 beats; (c) 3 beats; (d)4 beats.

16 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

componential analysis of the signs of deaf sign languagesas well as of gestures hearing people use to accompanyspeech. These gestural components are then consideredfrom the point of view of cognitive linguistic theories,which postulate the metaphoric underpinnings of muchof human conceptualization.

The Componential Analysis of Hearing Gesturesand Deaf Signs

Linguists who have studied the visual-corporal signlanguages used by deaf persons have found that the signsin these language are not global, non-analyzable units butare instead composed of several distinct parameters, someof which are manual and others of which are nonmanual.(Cf. for example Stokoe et. al. 1965, Klima and Bellugi,1979, Boyes Braem, 1995). The manual parameters,which have been found to be important for this form oflanguage, include the location of the hand, its handshapeand orientation as well as its movement. The significantnonmanual parameters include the facial expression,position and movements of the head and trunk anddirection of eye gaze. Within these parameters, there arelimited sets of sub-components used in the individual signlanguages. For example, of the many handshapes, whichthe human is physically capable of making, only a limitednumber are used linguistically in any one sign language.

In a subset of signs (‘productive’ or ‘polymorphemic’verbs with classifier handshapes) the handshapes canconvey distinct meanings, depending on how they arecombined with the other parameters and the context ofthe message. For example, the concept of ‘grasping anobject’ can be denoted by some of these verbs, in whichthe category of object being grasped is indicated by aspecific handshape (cf. Fig. 2).

In other combinations of the parameters, the handshapesshown above can convey other, non-grasping, meanings.The fist handshape in illustration 2a, for example, whencombined with a repeated linear movement can mean‘pounding’ or ‘beating’. The ‘pincer’ handshape inillustration 2b if combined with repeated short, sharpdownward movements could mean ‘pecking’. In otherwords, the handshapes themselves are not tied to anyone meaning, but are polysemous, capable of conveyingseveral meanings, depending on the context of the otherparameters.

Calbris (1990) has found this same polysemy in her studyof the gestures which hearing French people use withspeech, as has Boyes Braem (1998) for the interpretationof signs from Italian Sign Language by non-signing hearingpersons from several European countries.

The Metaphoric Basis of Conceptual Thinking

While speech-accompanying gestures are polysemous,this does not mean that any one handshape can besubstituted for another. One would not use a ‘fist’handshape, for example, to accompany a meaning thathad to do with ‘small, fine detail’, ‘precision’, and soforth.

Polysemous gestures are thus constrained by a more basicsystem which, we propose, is the same which severalcognitive linguists have argued structures most of ourconceptual thinking and spoken language. (Johnson,1987; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989;Sweetser, 1990).

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), much if not allthinking and communication about abstract concepts ismade possible through the use of metonymic andmetaphoric structures. Of particular relevance to thisstudy of conducting gestures are their comments on theconcepts humans have of ‘object’, ‘substance’ and‘container’:

We experience ourselves as entities, separate fromthe rest of the world - as containers with an inside andan outside. We also experience things external to usas entities- often also as containers with insides andoutsides. We experience ourselves as being made upof substances - e.g., flesh and bone - and external

Fig. 2: ‘Grasp’ handshapes for different kinds of objects (a) forheavy objects, e.g. a suitcase; (b) for small, light, thin object (athread); (c) for fairly large, roundish objects (a ball, a pipe)

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 17

Fig. 3: The limited set of handshapes used by the conductorin non-dominant hand gestures.

objects as being made of various kinds of substances- wood, stone, metal, etc. We experience many things,through sight and touch, as having distinct boundaries,and, when things have no distinct boundaries, we of-ten project boundaries upon them - conceptualizingthem as entities and often as containers (for example,forests, clearings, clouds, etc.). (p. 58)

Several researchers have proposed that this kind ofmetaphoric-metonymic thinking not only underlies spokenlanguage but also Deaf signed languages and speech-accompanying gestures used by hearing persons (cf. e.g.,Boyes Braem, 1981; Brennan, 1990; Taub, 1997;Wilcox, 1993.

Here, we will argue that this kind of basic metaphoricthinking is also the basis for the communicative gestureswhich conductors make with their non-dominant hand.The gestural space of the conductor is like a small stage,on which the actors are the conductor’s hands, body,face and eye gaze, all of which play out specific aspectsof the musical score through the indication of basicmetaphors. The size of this stage is about the same asthat of the ‘signing space’ of deaf sign language, rangingvertically from the top of the head to the waist, horizontally,an arm length to either side and to the front. The effectiveconductor typically does not move his whole body much,as this would make it difficult for the musicians who arealso concentrating on their scores to quickly focus on theconductor standing in front of them.

The conductor’s stage is often a metaphorical containerin which there are objects which one can manipulate: e.g.hold (‘tenuto’), ‘pick-up’, ‘drop’, ‘push-away’, ‘pulltowards oneself’, ‘touch’, ‘stroke’, ‘scratch’, etc. Theorchestra is the primary public for this gestural theater. Itunderstands the gestural message and translates theunderlying metaphors into sounds for the audience, aprocess of translating a theater for the eye (Greek‘theaomai’ = to see) into one for the ear.1 Essential forthis transfer of the musical message from the printed scoreto the musicians’ musical thinking is a conceptual systemof essentially body-based metaphors.

METHODOLOGY AND GENERAL FINDINGS

The data for this study are based on transcripts of thevideotaped gestures of a variety of different conductors.

The examples given here will be primarily from twoconductors who have very different performing styles:the American, Leonard Bernstein and the Rumanian,Sergiu Celibidache.2

The non-dominant hand gestures used by theseconductors were notated according to their sub-components as well as their musical meaning. Thecompositional analyses of the gestures was done by theco-author, who is a sign language researcher (P. BoyesBraem); the interpretation of the musical intent of thegesture was made by the co-author Bräm, who is aclassical orchestra conductor and a teacher of conducting.For the illustrations, Bräm has also reproduced examplesof all the gestures discussed.

Compared to the relatively large number of differenthandshapes, which are phonological components of signlanguages, the number of handshapes regularly used byconductors seems to be quite limited (cf. Fig. 3). In thisrespect, conducting gestures are similar to gestures usedto accompany speech. The limited set of handshapesincludes those, which are found in most sign languages ofthe world, and those, which are used first by young deafchildren learning sign languages. It is quite probably thefact that this is a basic, limited set of handshapes whichmakes the conducting gestures so easily interpretable bymusicians in orchestras around the world, even when theyare confronted by a conductor that has never directedthem before and might be from a different culture. Mostof these handshapes are also sufficiently different fromeach other, that they can be easily distinguished. This isimportant, as in large orchestra formations, manymusicians are seated at some distance from the conductingpodium. As the dominant hand of most conductors ofclassical music is usually grasping a baton and beatingthe musical structure, most of the gestures for indicating‘expression’ are one-handed.

18 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

A REPERTOIRE OF NON-DOMINANT

HAND GESTURES

The gestures which were used repeatedly by theconductors in this data seem to be based on the kinds ofmetaphoric association which have been found in studiesof the lexicon of sign languages and in speech-accompanying gestures used by hearing persons.

They can be grouped into the following categories,according to the source domain of the metaphor uponwhich they are based:

(a) Manipulating objects(b) Showing the path or form of an object(c) Indicating direction(d) Portraying an object(e) Indicating a body part(f) Holophrastic interjections

(a) Manipulating Objects = Sound Quality,Structure, Articulation, MusicalDevelopment, Psychological Motivation

A great many conducting gestures fall in the category ofmanipulation of objects. These are gestures whichrepresent a grasping of an object, a touching, holding orletting go of an object, hitting or chopping, painting, playingsomething.

(a) (b)

Fig. 4: ‘pulling out an object’ (a) thin sound and (b) a full sound

‘Pulling out an object’

In this gesture, a rounded ‘pincer’ handshapemoves in a straight line from a musician towardsthe conductor, who is metaphorically pulling asound, like a thread, from the musicians’ mouth(Fig. 4a). The pincer handshape indicates that athin sound is desired and is typically used for flutesounds and vocalists. For the drawing out of a‘fuller’ sound (for example, from a brassinstrument), all the components of the gestureremain the same (location, movement, orientation ofthe hand), but a full ‘cupped’ grasp handshape wouldbe used instead of the pincer handshape (Fig. 4b).

‘Taking out of view’

Another common left hand gesture used by manyconductors is based on the metaphor of ‘takingsomething away from the visual field’ (see Fig.5). In this case, what is being metaphoricallytaken away is all the sound. The gesture is usedat the end of the piece or of sections to indicate‘stop the production of sound’. For this purpose,an open hand closes to a closed grasp hand andcan be combined with a movement towards theconductor or with a movement to ‘off-stage’,which can be in a direction out of the conductingspace (i.e. below the waist, to the side, even to

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 19

Fig. 6: ‘gathering objects’ = homogenous sound quality

Fig. 7: ‘supporting an object’ = sustained sound

behind the back). Which of these movements are used seems to be up to the personal preference of theindividual conductor, many of whom seem to have their trademark ‘taking out of view’ gesture. The mannerof the closing of the hand into the grasp handshape can indicate more precisely how the music should end: anabrupt cut-off with a fast movement; a slowly dying sound if the fingers close successively while the handmoves out of sight.

Several other types gestures have been observed in the data that involve the handling of an object are described briefly next.

Fig. 5: ‘taking out of view” = stop playing!

20 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Fig. 8: ‘hitting an object’ = (a) hard; (b) hacking sound quality

Fig. 9: ‘pushing an object’ = point and strength of attack Fig. 10: ‘touching a surface’ = sound quality (e.g. homogeneous sound quality)

Fig. 11: ‘feeling a substance’ = sound quality (e.g. thick, dense)

(b)(a)

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 21

‘Gathering objects’, i.e. individual sounds, in order to elicit an homogenous sound quality or an increasingly focused one; (Fig. 6)‘Supporting an object’ to sustain a solid soundquality; (Fig. 7)‘Hitting a hard object’ which, depending onthe type of movement with which it is combined,is used for a hard/precise or heavy sound quality(Fig. 8a). If the orientation of the hand is turned,the association becomes more specifically oneof ‘hacking, as in hacking wood’ and is used fordifferent grades of staccato. (Fig. 8b) If a lesshard attack is desired, the handshape componentof this gesture can be changed to that of a openflat hand, palm oriented downward.‘Pushing an object’ which pushes the soundaway (out in front, upwards or downwards) towhere in the beat the point of playing, the attack,begins, as well as how strong the attack shouldbe. (Fig. 9)‘Touching a surface’ which, depending on thetype of movement and the handshape canindicate, for example, a smooth, homogenoussound with the full flat handshape (Fig. 10), or ascratchy sound (claw handshape).‘Feeling a substance’ such as moving the handthrough flour, honey, kneading bread dough,squeezing clay, etc. to elicit specific sound qualitiesas ‘feather light’, ‘sticky’, ‘thick’, etc. (Fig. 11)‘Playing an instrument’ mimics the hand andbody motions as well as facial expressionstypically used by players of particular instruments(bowing for strings, beating for timpani, showingan embouchure for winds, strumming strings forharp, rippling a keyboard, etc.) to encourage themusicians to thoroughly savor and ‘play out’ thispassage on their instrument; (Fig. 12)‘Drawing or painting’ in which an open flathand is held downwards and moves like a brushbetween two locations to ‘smooth together thesurfaces’ (Fig. 13a); a pincer handshape, as if

holding a small brush or pen, when combinedwith repeated, short jabbing movements, marksimportant points in the musical passage, whichoften are turning points in the musicaldevelopment (Fig. 13b).

(b) Showing the Path or Form of an Object = Structure

Some gestures are indicators of musical paths in that theyshow where a musical development begins and in whichdirection it develops. These paths can be thedevelopment of the content or motive of the music, or bea purely ‘geographical’ indication of the movement of theplaying of the motive first by one musical group, thenanother. The significant components here are the locationswhere the gesture begins (for ‘geographical’ indications,the group of musicians who play the beginning of thedevelopment) and the location where it ends (the groupwhich continues the development). The handshape canbe a traditional deictic index finger or a flat whole handhandshape with digits together or separated, or even alightly cupped handshape. The manner of movement asthe hand moves from group to group can be varied toindicate more details of the development (slow, brisk,abrupt change, etc.) (Fig. 14)

The general structure of a musical ‘form’ is indicated eitherby an index finger alone to stress the sound ‘line’, or by afull flat hand in an arcing movement to indicate a fullerstructure, usually a combination of harmony and ‘grain’.(Fig. 15)

(c) Vertical Direction = Dynamics

Vertical levels within the conducting space can indicatethe dynamics of the music: high level = more = louder;low level = less = softer. These levels are indicated by agesture with an open flat hand, moving upwards ordownwards, palm held horizontally. (Fig. 16a, b) Anaccompanying lateral spreading or closing of the digitscan augment the ‘louder’ or ‘softer’ effect. (An analogous‘opening = louder’ and ‘closing = softer’ metaphor can

22 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Fig. 14: ‘path’ = movement of musical material betweeninstruments

Fig. 15: ‘form’ = harmony and ‘grain’ of a musical motive

Fig. 12: ‘playing an instrument’ = play out your instrument (a) strings; (b) brass

Fig. 13: ‘drawing, painting’ = (a) connected musical sequence; (b) important points, pivots in musical passage

(a)

(b)

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 23

Fig. 17: ‘rays’ = sound quality (radiating, bright timbre)

Fig. 16: (a) upwards = louder; (b) downwards = softer

be indicated by the arms moving horizontally apart ortogether.)

(d) Portraying an Object = Sound Quality

A gesture in which a closed hand, palm oriented up, opensinto a spread-5 handshape is used for a particular timberof the sound, a light, radiating quality. (Fig. 17) In manysign languages, this opening gesture is the metaphoric baseof signs associated with ‘radiating’ objects (streams ofwater, rays of light, etc.). In the conducting gesture, themetaphor is ‘radiating sound’. If the movementcomponent of the hand is changed, from moving upwardto moving out towards the orchestra, and is combinedwith a sharp, emphatic opening of the digits, the gesturemeans, ‘louder and more brilliant’.

(e) Indicating a Body Part = Intensity, Focusing,Intonation

Gestures, which involve pointing to particular parts ofthe body, can metonymically refer to functions of thatbody part or, in further derivation to metaphoric meaningsassociated with it in particular cultures.

Heart /Solar plexus: In pointing to these parts of thebody, the conductor is indicating that at this passage ofthe music, there should be an emotional intensity, or (inthe case of the solar plexus), that a ‘concentrated /centered’ quality of playing is desired. (Fig. 18a)Ear: When a conductor points to, touches or grabs hisear, he is making an association with the ear’s biologicalfunction, which is hearing, and thereby indicating to themusicians, ‘Listen!’. Specifically, this gesture is usedwhen the conductor wants the musicians to pay closerattention to or correct their intonation (Fig. 18b).Lips: The indication of the lips can have at least twodifferent meanings:

- The widely conventionalized meaning of ‘shh, keep quiet’ is used by the conductor to indicate ‘play softer!’ (Fig. 18c).-If a ‘pursed’ (as in Fig.18d) or ‘grasping’

handshape is used and the hand is broughtclose to the lips, the association is that ofsomething which tastes good. The gesture isused by the conductor when a ‘sensuous’sound quality is wished.

Nose: The indication of the nose by conductors isinteresting, in that - unlike the largely negative associations

(a) (b)

24 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Fig. 18: body parts = sound quality (a) heart / solar plexus = play with emotion / concentrated (b) ear = correctintonation; (c) lips = softer or more sensuously; (d) nose = light ‘perfumed’ sound.

(b)(a)

(c) (d)

which the nose has in gestures used by speakers(‘stinks’, ‘odious’, ‘snotty’, ‘snobby’ etc.), theassociation for an orchestra is generally that of apositive sensuous quality. A pursed or graspinghandshape is used, often together with a slight intakeof breath, to indicate that a lightly ‘perfumed’ sound isdesired (Fig. 18d).

(f) Holophrastic ‘Interjections’ = Tempo,Structure, Motivation

Another kind of category of conducting gestures isbased on more culturally encoded gestures used byspeakers for ‘holophrastic interjections’, such asexhortations to the addressee to ‘go on, continue’,or‘be careful’.3 The following are examples of this of

kind of gesture in the conducting data:

A gesture meaning ‘keep moving!’ in which the mostimportant component is a repeated forward circlingmovement of the hand. If tempo of repetitionsis increased, it means ‘move faster’. (Fig. 19)

The vertically extended index finger, which in many culturesmeans ‘pay attention!’ is usually used by theconductor as a preparation for something new orimportant which is coming up in the music. (Fig. 20)

The ‘offering’ gesture seems to have a psychologicalfunction of encouraging the musicians to whom itis directed to ‘take this passage’, in the sense,‘it’s your turn, carry it on’. (Fig. 21). The formof this gesture is the flat hand held with palmfacing upward, the fingertips pointed

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 25

Fig. 19: ‘keep moving!’ = continue playing as you are Fig. 20: ‘pay attention’ = important change is coming up

Fig. 21: ‘offering’ = take it, it’s your turn Fig. 22: ‘pursed’ handshape = focused element

forward,sometimes simply held or combined with slight movement towards the orchestra. Important to thisgesture are the simultaneous eye contact, raised eyebrows and positive facial expression. This ‘offering’gesture is similar to one of the first gestures which young children use in their prelinguistic communications.Adam Kendon (personal communication, Berlin, April 1998) has suggested that in its derived sense (‘it’syour turn’), it is used by speakers as a kind of conversational regulator, which is also how it seems tofunction in the context of the orchestra.

The ‘pursed’ handshape, with palm oriented upward, (Fig. 22) is, according to Kendon (1995) used in someEuropean cultures by speakers to focus upon some aspect of the accompanying speech. Some conductorsuse this gesture in an analogous way to indicate a focus upon some aspect of a musical passage.

26 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

many of the ‘handling’ gestures in which aspects of themusic are metaphorically conceptualized as concreteobjects or and lines to represent musical paths and turningpoints. Instead of the line, some Japanese-trainedconductors prefer gestures, which indicate the turning pointsas dots in a pattern. (Seiji Osawa, for example, is knownamong conducting students as having a ‘painterly’ style.)

Even for conductors from the same culture, there areclearly different styles of conducting, a different selectionof the gestures in the repertoire described above, and adifference in the frequency of use of non-dominant handgestures. These stylistic differences are influenced byseveral different factors in the communication situation:the musical setting, the nature of the audiences, the styleof the work and the personality of the conductor.

The Musical Setting. The conducting style canvary, depending on whether the situation is a concert,rehearsal, radio or TV recording. For example, thegesture of grasping the ear to indicate that intonationshould be corrected is used during a rehearsal but usuallynot during a concert. The acoustic environment is alsoinfluential - different styles of conducting will be useddepending on the room size, its resonance, if the concertis outdoors, etc.

The Style of the Work. Very important is thestyle of the music; the works of Bach, Mozart, Bruckner,Johann Strauss, Webern, Berlioz or Lutoslawski all requirea selection of different gestures from the repertoire.

The Audiences. A conductor has two audiences:the orchestra and the listening public. For the orchestra,not only are the size and nature of the musical ensembleimportant, but also how well the conductor and theorchestra know each other. If the two know each othervery well, the conductor can be much more economicalwith gestures than would be the case with doing a firstconcert with an orchestra. In the older films of the firstgeneration of European conductors (for example, RichardStrauss), a more limited set of gestures seem to be usedas compared to many modern conductors. Although therecould be many reasons for this, one certainly is that inthat time, a conductor did not jet around the world,conducting a different orchestra every week, but stayedin one place and gave regular weekly concerts with one

Another more culturally encoded gesture used by someconductors is similar to the ‘cut-off’, or ‘finish’gesture used by umpires in sport matches. Thisis a two-handed gesture, in which the open flathands, palm down are initially crossed over eachother in front of the torso, then the arms moverapidly out to the side. The conductor uses thisgesture for indicating abrupt endings to musicalpassages.

Most of these gestures can be produced successively tomake gesture strings; for example, a ‘moving through athick substance’ gesture followed by a ‘radiating burst’gesture, finishing with a ‘supporting / sustaining’ gesture.

DISCUSSION

The gestures described above are a representative, butcertainly not exhaustive list of the repertoire of gesturesused by conductors. Further analyses from a widervariety of conductors would undoubtedly add gesturesto the list. However, the added gestures would probablyinvolve one of the limited set of handshapes. Furthermore,they would probably fall into one of the major categoriesdiscussed in the previous section. This is because mostconducting gestures are based on metaphoric/metonymicconnections between aspects of the music and physicalexperiences which human beings have with objects ineveryday life. Some of these experiences have to dowith handling objects (grasping, letting go, supporting,touching, etc.) while others have to do with biologicalfunctions of the body (smelling, hearing), and still othershave to do with describing visible forms (drawing lines,painting surfaces). Or, the conducting gesture would beborrowed from a culturally encoded gesture used byspeakers as a ‘holophrastic interjection’.

Factors Influencing Range and Choice of Gestures Used

Perhaps because many of the expressive gestures ofconductors have so much in common with other aspectsof human experience and communication, they canfunction effectively - with no accompanying verbalexplanation - with musicians from a wide variety of cultures.There very probably are, however, some differencesbetween cultures as to which gestures from the repertoireare preferred. European-trained conductors seem to use

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 27

How effectively the individual conductor uses the non-dominant hand gestures described here depends also onhow well he has, somehow, learned them. The more controlwhich the conductor has over this repertoire of gesturesfor specific musical purposes, the more likely the gestureswill be used spontaneously and appropriately to model thesound and bring out its many meanings. The effective useof these gestures for conducting does seem to be somethingthat has to be learned, as indicated by the sometimesawkward, often inappropriate and distracting gestures ofyoung conducting students. Perhaps the ‘repertoire’ of non-dominant hand gestures, with their underlying metaphoricassociations between experiences in the physical and inthe musical worlds, could be dealt with more systematicallyin the curriculum of conducting courses.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The expressive hand gestures of orchestral conductors,like signs of deaf sign languages and speech-accompanyinggestures, seem to be composed of a limited set of sub-components which can be associated with severaldifferent kinds of meanings. I. Poggi (personalcommunication, Berlin, April 1998) has suggested thatthese conducting gestures might be best classified as‘descriptives, which are used as directives’.

Unlike sign language, the conducting gestures arepolysemous entities whose exact meaning is only clearwhen set in a specific context. At one level, the meaningsof these gestures are accessible through metaphoric/metonymic association with actions, which the body canmake, or with body parts, or like conventionalized gestures(‘emblems’) have more specifically encoded culturalmeanings. At this level of interpretation, these gesturesmight be termed ‘iconic’, in the sense that a broad rangeof persons would be able to associate an appropriategeneral meaning to them (e.g. ‘grasping something’,‘raising something up’, etc.). However, the special derivedmeaning of these gestures (‘tenuto’, ‘staccato’,‘marcatissimo’, ‘stress the sound line’) is only interpretableto persons who know the second target domain of thesegestural metaphors, the playing of classical orchestral music.

Grosjean (1998) has made a comparison betweenimprovisation in music with the creative production ofnew sentences in everyday language use. In contrast,

orchestra. The musicians of these orchestras perhapsdid not need additional indications through gestures,as they knew their permanent and long-time chiefconductor and his styles of interpretation very well.

Another audience factor is whether the ensemble isprofessional or amateur. When conducting an amateurchorus, many more creative, ‘improvised’ gestures areneeded than when standing in front of a professionalchorus, with whom the same effect can be elicited witha small smile.

The public as audience is a factor, depending uponthe personality of conductor. The early conductorsdid not constantly conduct in front of film and televisioncameras and so perhaps did not feel the temptation toconduct for the audience as well as for the musicians.Some conductors seem to conduct more for the publicthan for the orchestra, using gestures, which arecorrespondingly dramatic when viewed from behind.

The Personality and Culture of theConductor. This brings us to another important factor,the personality and cultural background of theconductor. Conductors have different images ofthemselves and of their functions as a conductor. Thedifferent personality types we have observed includethe following: Organizer, Interpreter of the Score,Animator, Hypnotizer, Trainer, Buddy, Self-Realizerand Showman. The strong contrast between the stylesof Bernstein and Celibidache, for example, is probablydue in large part to their basically different personalitytypes. The New Yorker–Bernstein–is a ‘showman’type, using many expressive gestures in his conducting,which are similar in quantity and quality to those heuses to accompany his speech. (A good comparisonof this use of gestures in the two communicativesituations can be found in the videotape of hisrehearsals of Romeo and Juliet with a studentorchestra, during which he often stops the music toexplain some aspect of the story to the musicians.)The Rumanian–Celibidache– on the other hand, wasmore of a Hypnotist type, who relied more on thepower of his eye gaze than on his gestures. Thegestures he did use, both in his conducting and invideotaped conversations, although quantitativelyfewer, do fall within the categories proposed here.

28 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Winterthur, Switzerland: Amadeus. (192-219).

Bräm, Th. & Boyes Braem, P. (1998). Der Versuch einerKlassifizierung der Ausdrucksgesten des Dirigenten.[An attempt to classify the expressive gestures oforchestral conductors] In W. Fähndrich (Ed.),Improvisation III. Winterthur, Switzerland:Amadeus. (220-248).

Brennan, M. (1990). Word Formation in British SignLanguage. Stockholm: University of Stockholm.

Calbris, G. (1990). The Semiotics of French Gestures.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Emmorey, K. & Lane, H. (eds.). (2000). The Signs ofLanguage Revisited: An Anthology to HonorUrsula Bellugi and Edward Klima. Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (p. 143 -167).

Grosjean, F. (1998). Language: From set patterns to freepatterning. In W. Fähndrich (Ed.), ImprovisationIII. Winterthur, Switzerland: Amadeus. (71-84).

Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Kendon, A. (1995). Gestures as illocutionary and discoursestructure markers in Southern Italian conversation.Journal of Pragmatics, 23, 247-279.

Klima, E. & Bellugi, U. (1979). The signs of language.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We LiveBy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G. & Turner, M. (1989). More than CoolReason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Poggi, I. (Ed.) (1987). Le parole nella testa. Guida aun’ educazione linguistica cognitivista. [Thewords in the head. Guide to a cognitive linguisticeducation]. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Poggi, I. The Italian Gestionary. Lexical gestures ofItalian hearing people. Presentation at the

the performance of classical orchestral music is to a largeextent bound to the interpretation of works that have beennotated in a fixed written form. In this context, theexpressive gestures of the conductor become even moreimportant, as they allow the addition of individualinterpretation and spontaneous, even surprising elementsto the pre-programmed structure of the musical work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article has previously appeared in K. Emmorey &H. Lane (eds.). 2000. The Signs of LanguageRevisited: An Anthology to Honor Ursula Bellugi andEdward Klima. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates. (p. 143 -167). We wish to thank the editorsfor permission to reprint this article here.

The authors are also grateful for helpful comments onthis study given by orchestral musicians at a workshopon conducting gestures held at the 3. InternationalCongress for Improvisation in Lucerne (October 1996)as well as by participants at the International Symposium‘The Semantics and Pragmatics of Everyday Gestures’in Berlin, April 1998. An earlier form of this paper hasbeen published in German. (Bräm & Boyes Braem,1998). All illustrations of conducting gestures were drawnby Katja Tissi, based on videotaped demonstrations doneby T. Bräm.

REFERENCES

Boyes Braem, P. (1981). Significant features of thehandshape in American Sign Language.Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.

Boyes Braem, P. (1995). Eine Einführung in dieGebärdensprache und ihre Erforschung (3.Ed.)[An Introduction to Sign Language and Its Research].Hamburg: Signum.

Boyes Braem, P. (1998). Kulturell bestimmte oder freieGesten? Die Wahrnehmung von Gesten durchMitglieder unterschiedlicher (hörender undgehörloser) Kulturen. [The interpretation of gesturesby hearing and deaf members of different Europeancultures.] In W. Fähndrich (Ed.), Improvisation III:

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 29

The Swiss conductor and composer, Thüring Bräm, also heads the conducting program at the Musikhochschulein Lucerne (Switzerland), where he tries to continue the work he started with Max Rudolf during his conductingstudies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1970-1972.

Penny Boyes Braem received her PhD in pycholinguistics from the University of California at Berkeley andfor the past 20 years has been the director of the Research Center for Sign Language in Basel. She is theauthor of numerous publications in English and German about sign languages of the deaf.

Symposium, ‘The Semantics and Pragmatics of Everyday Gestures’, Technical University of Berlin and FreeUniversity of Berlin, Berlin, April 23-26, 1998.

Rozik, E. (1992). Metaphorical Handshapes in the Theater. Tel Aviv: Assoph.

Rudolf, M. (1994). The Grammar of Conducting: A Comprehensive Guide to Baton Technique andInterpretation (3. Ed.). New York: Schirmer.

Sachs, H. (1993). Reflections on Toscanini. Rocklin, Ca: Prima Publishing.

Stokoe, W., Casterline, D. & Croneberg, C. (1965). A Dictionary of American Sign Language on LinguisticPrinciples. Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press.

Sweetser, E. (1990). From etymology to pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Taub, S. (1997). Language in the body: Iconicity and metaphor in American Sign Language. Unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Wilcox, P. (1993) Metaphorical Mapping Metaphors in American Sign Language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

ENDNOTES

1 For the use of metaphors in theater, cf. Rozik (1992).

2 These observations are from the following videotapes: Bernstein–“Taktschlagen kann jeder” (Rehearsals and performance of Berlioz’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Schleswig-

Holstein Music Festival): and Celibidache conducts Bruckner (Symphony No. 6 in A Major), Munich Philharmonic.Recorded at the Müncher Philharmonie am Gasteig, November 26-30, 1991. Sony Classical Production, 1992.

3 We are grateful to Isabelle Poggi (personal communication) for her suggestion of the term ‘interjections’ for thiscategory of conducting gestures. She defines interjections as the only case in spoken language of a ‘holophrasticsignal’. A holophrastic signal ”cannot be separated into sub-signals without completely losing its meaning— [it]conveys all the meaning of a Communicative Act, i.e. both its performative and its propositional content.” (Poggi,1998, p. 8-9). An example of a holophrastic gesture in the Italian culture is one which has an open flat handshape,palm down, fingers forwards, combined with an up and down movement. The meaning of this gestures is ‘comehere’, and includes the predicate (to come), the arguments (hearer should come to speaker) and the performative(a command). (cf. also Poggi, 1987.)

*****

30 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Bernard Shaw was always fond of quoting Wagner’sdictum that the conductor’s primary job was to give theright tempo to the orchestra (or “the right time to theband” as Shaw even more plainly said it). But, actuallyand in usual practice, the conductor has a crucial job,which comes even before this putatively primary one: pickthe work to be played!

To those conductors who look, occasionally, forsomething freshly distinctive, and truly beautiful, to play:consider the works of William Alwyn (born,Northampton, England, 1905; died, near his home inBlythburgh, Suffolk, 1985).

Alwyn, incidentally, was one of the apparently quite fewcomposers who did not feel that conductors are overpaidstars (“mere executants,” as Virgil Thomson regarded thelikes of Toscanini) who play the same audience-pleasingworks over and over. Alwyn regarded conductors asthe cream of the great musicians, second only to the greatcomposers in the history and understanding of music.

Conductors are perhaps even more than the “cream” ofthe great musicians: since they choose what works willbe heard (with the intuited hope that there will be someoneto listen), they have a pretty decisive vote in electing whichcomposers will have the opportunity to sell, to becomebox office—ultimately, which ones become the greatcomposers of their age, which ones, in fact, becomeHistory. This is an important—if, to some, rathermaddening—qualifier to Virgil Thomson’s oft-repeated

saying “The history of music is the history of itscomposition.” In the 20th century, obviously the age ofthe interpretive performing artist, there was alwayssomething a little truculently desperate about Thomson’sstatement.

Thomas Beecham once “essayed,” as he put it, a definitionof “great music”: great music, he said, is “music whichenters the ear with facility and quits the mind withdifficulty.”

Leonard Bernstein’s method of evaluating a new pieceof music was even simpler: will it, he asked, give me anorgasm?

By either standard of judgment, Alwyn’s is great music.This is music which should not be allowed to slip throughthe cracks of history—for the sake of people who needmusic which is inherently interesting, ravishingly beautiful,and which, in quitting the mind only with difficulty, leavesbehind a lingering trace of spiritual affirmation.

Alwyn’s kind of beauty—like all beauty, probably—isvery difficult to account for. (Didn’t Mahler say that“interesting” was easy, but “beautiful” was difficult?).Alwyn’s compositional method seems almost withoutmethod at all. He believed in catching and then pursuing“the first fine careless rapture” rather than anything likeformal development. Influenced, he said, by Liszt, his isa rather free-form developmental method; but, so carefulis his avoidance of obvious repetition in favor of thedevelopment of mono-thematic variations, as well as thesubtlest of foreshadowing, that his listener nearly alwayshas that paradoxical sense of discovering something newwhich also seems strangely familiar: as if you foundyourself in a dramatically new emotional landscape—which yet also makes you feel that you have dreamed

Beauty’s Plea:An Introduction to the Music of William Alwyn

By Brian Murphy

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,But sad mortality o’ersways their power,How with this rage shall Beauty hold a plea,Whose strength is no greater than a flower?—Shakespeare (first quatrain of Sonnet 65)

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 31

this, or been here, before. He said that he wanted hismusic to sound logical but not at all constructed.

His language is traditional and tonal. Alwyn always feltthat finding originality in a traditional, even a familiar,language was both more challenging and communicativethan in creating a new one. And he was interestedprimarily in absolute clarity of effect.

Alwyn was a truly—an almost allegorically—Romanticman. In his youth, he was deeply affected by BertrandRussell’s book The Conquest of Happiness and evenmore profoundly influenced by Nietzsche’s work,especially Also Sprach Zarathustra; and his life becamea serious search for beauty. Like Tosca herself, he “livedfor love, he lived for art.” Although he was athoroughgoing musical pro (tell him what you want, whenyou wanted it, and there it would be: obviously, no onecould write 200 documentary and feature film scoreswithout that kind of professionalism), yet, all his life, heloved music like a besotted amateur. Actually, he lovedlove—that is, he loved loving—people as well as worksof art. For example, it seemed to him a perfectly naturalway, one year, to celebrate Robert Schumann’s birthdayby playing through the Dichterliebe of “my adoredSchumann.” My adored Schumann! What a way totalk! He loved loving and even adoring works of art—but not in the manner of a solipsistic egomaniac: rather, inthe way of one who knew his own talents and, intuitingsomething of what he had to offer, wanted to find hisplace in this great tradition and living culture of art andmusic. Of course, he wanted people to admire his talentand love his music. His was a fairly straightforwardambition—in his lifetime, more obviously realized in thecinema than the concert hall. Although temperamentallysomewhat nervous, he was not really a complicated man,certainly neither a neurotic nor a tragic one.

This rare phenomenon of personal clarity and simplicityshows all through his journal, which is an exhilarating andcheering portrait of a life in the service and pursuit ofbeauty and art. What manner of man was he? Well,here are three consecutive entries, chosen almost atrandom, from that journal: [1]

November 6th, 1955Today’s newspapers explain the phenomena in lastnight’s sky—a thunderstorm over south Bucks,

exceptionally violent for this time of year.

Sunday always seems a blank day; a day of unsettledroutine when I feel incapable of relaxing and amconscious of unease and maladjustment. The evening,however, was made memorable by listening to my newrecords of Pelleas et Melisande. Surely nothing morebeautiful has ever been composed; it is the magicalcreation of a super-sensitive genius. This music glowslike moonlight made tangible; its pathos is infinitelytender, a nightingale with a thorn at its breast.

Monday, November 7thMy fiftieth birthday!

Listened to a broadcast of my Festival March,introduced by Lord Harewood to mark the occasion.

November 8thFeeling a little jaded after last night’s celebrations.The happiest moment of the day was listening yet againto the recording of the scene where Melisande lets fallher hair in a cascade of exquisite sounds. This wholescene is masterly; it trembles on the very fringes ofpassion but never does it overstep and forsake itsmagic otherworldliness.

Made a fair copy of the harp piece and am nowsearching for a title —perhaps ‘The Snows ofYesteryear’. [2]

Small wonder that William Mann, the great London Timesmusic critic, described Alwyn as a Romantic composerwho pursued a very lonely path. [3] All this love of the“sensitive” and the “exquisite” seemed out of place in thedreadful Fifties, the very period in which he composedhis most wonderful scores. Here, for example, is thecultural atmosphere of the Fifties: Randall Jarrell, a mostcharacteristic American poet of the age, complained aboutan English poet, “who insists on giving you a pound of hisheart’s blood with every random ounce of sense.” Alwyn’scertainly was a “lonely path.” Like an Andrew Wyethgoing on with his own (more) brooding Romantic visionthrough the triumphs of Abstract Expressionism, Alwyn,through the assumed Historical Inevitability of atonalism,serialism, etc., always stayed true to his Romantic faithand language.[4]

He was equally out of step in the other arts as well: Alwyncollected Pre-Raphaelite paintings long before the current

32 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

revival (when, in fact, he could afford them; indeed, thesale of his collection, in the later 1960s became somethingof an event in the history of taste). He particularly lovedRossetti—again, long before the current revival of interestin Rossetti’s poetry and painting. (In conversation, in1984, he remarked that it has only been since the Sixtiesthat the Pre-Raphaelites have come to be regarded asworthwhile painters; before that, his love for them wasthought to be the very essence of Bad Taste.) Hedescribed a restless evening: “Moved the Burne-JonesAngels with Trumpets to my bedroom and placed theRossetti drawing of Three Sang of Love Together (adesign for his sister Christina’s sonnet) over the studiomantelpiece where the light flatters the delicate pencilling.”

His was the true passion.

November 22nd.

A sentimental journey by car to Kent to search for thechurchyard at Birchington where Rossetti was buried.The grave was overgrown and neglected; the poet-artistforgotten. I bought a small bunch of goldenchrysanthemums and laid them on the grave—a shaft ofsunlight on a drab November day.

And, rather late in his life, he taught himself French wellenough that he ended up as the translator of a major bookof modern—but, again, rather Romantic—French verse.He particularly loved—and caught in his translations—the straightforward simplicity he found in the Prayers andElegies of Francis Jammes, a kindred spirit.

In addition, he was a very talented amateur painter. (Hispainting masterpiece, The Gold Bar of Heaven, adornsthe Chandos cover of his musical masterpiece, the LyraAngelica.) Withal, he spent the whole of his relativelylong life (1905-85) “burning always,” as Walter Paterhad advised, “with this hard gem-like flame.”

The burning, the belief in love, the ceaseless searching fornew shapes of, and routes to, beauty, all show in his music.

No doubt the most dramatic entrée to Alwyn’s mind andmusic is through the most famous of his film scores—forOdd Man Out. His film music always aimed at giving theemotional effect of a scene rather than a pictorial renderingof the action in sound. So inextricably tied was the music

to the film in his mind, he never thought of his film musicas having an independent, concert-hall life; therefore, hewas never interested in creating a suite from any of hisfilm scores. However and happily, after his death, awonderful recording by Richard Hickox and the LSOwas released, the actual scores having been scrapped bythe studio but reconstructed by Christopher Palmer. Tounderstand Alwyn’s sensibility, one should, as well aslistening to this superb Hickox recording, see the film(easily available these days on video and, even moreusefully, especially for purposes of studying the music,on DVD): the whole 1940s look and even the ethic ofthe film are mirrored in the music. In his entertaining bookon music, The Brandy of the Damned, novelist ColinWilson said that the way Alwyn’s music “simply takesover” in the last third of Odd Man Out was, for hisgeneration, the “royal road” to classical music. [5] In fact,nearly the whole of the second half of the film followsJames Mason, as a wounded Irish revolutionary,wandering the foggy, surreal, and dangerous streets ofBelfast. The music, with its tread-like bass and mournfulhorns, takes us not only into the Belfast streets, but alsointo the mind of the doomed man as he tries to find hisway home. There is even a sort of Liebestod at the veryend, which is intensely moving to anyone who gets on thewave length, who can love the slow pace, of this veryEnglish, very “Forties” film.

[For a more in depth presentation of Alwyn’sdramatic and romantic inclinations, look for anaddendum to this article on the Guild’s website:www.conductorsguild.org.]

And, in any case, freed from the constraints of dramaticexpression, Alwyn’s symphonies, vocal and chambermusic are quite free to go about their blissful, lovely,Romantic business. When Debussy was freeing himselffrom the Wagnerian past, he said that he had to thinkabout music differently: first, he complained that the chiefWagnerian invention—fusing symphonic developmentwith opera—was the very thing he had to learn to foregoand undo. Now, although his symphonies are certainly“absolute” music, Alwyn’s chief invention is bringing asort of operatic development to purely orchestralmusic—his last four symphonies and his harp concertoespecially. Alwyn once said (in conversation with theauthor) that he regarded the symphony as an essentiallydramatic form.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 33

Alwyn often said that his three favorite 20th centurycomposers were Debussy, Puccini, and Berg. Berg’sinfluence can be heard in the subtlety of Alwyn’s harmonicstructures. (William Mann’s notes to the Second and,especially, the Third symphonies offer fascinating harmonicanalyses.) Perhaps the most efficient way for acontemporary musician to get inside Alwyn’s music is tolisten to his Sinfonietta for Strings (1970, 26’). Thereare two recordings of this—Alwyn’s own on Lyrita, andHickox’s on Chandos. This is his most “Modern” score:it begins restlessly alternating between 2/4 and 3/8 withdissonances about as prickly as he ever produced.

In the second movement, at bar 55 (5’08” in Alwyn’srecording), there is a quotation from Berg’s Lulu. It hasbeen very subtly foreshadowed by the last two bars ofExample 1 in the leap from B-flat to the high A, whichbecomes a motif used throughout the Sinfonietta.

What is most startling about the quotation (the only suchquote in all Alwyn’s music) is the way it sounds, naturally,like Berg, but also sounds so like Alwyn: the slightly weirdleap from G-flat to E-flat is surely reminiscent of thefamous opening phrase in Wagner’s Tristan. Berg usesthis motif at three most intensely, but ironically, “romantic”moments in the opera: first, it occurs when Lulu (in “Meinesmannes,” Act I, scene 2, bar 615) declares her “love”for Dr. Schoen; it occurs secondly at the very end of thefirst act (bar 1356) when this “love” makes Schoen feelthe axe falling and thus foreshadows his death at Lulu’shands; third, it occurs in the final scene of the opera when,before he kills Lulu, Jack the Ripper sees the lesbianCountess Geshwitz’s obsessive and hopeless “love” forLulu, and he pets her like a dog, saying “Armes Tier”—“Poor old beast.” Surely Berg meant this motif (it alsooccurs in the dramatic last movement of the Lulu-Suite)to represent a sort of dark underside to Wagner’s loftylove-yearning. Alwyn, in effect, turns the phrase over againand finds in it something almost tender, or evencompassionate—poor old humans! It leads into of oneof Alwyn’s characteristically melodically moldedconclusions. It is an extraordinary moment.

The Puccini influence is most obvious in Alwyn’s love ofmelody—but also learned, he often said, from Irish folkmusic. In addition to his beautiful and effective film scores,of his major works (an opera, five symphonies, three

concerti grossi, the Sinfonietta for Strings, two songcycles, and three string quartets) three works in particularabound in great melodies—and would serve as a happyintroduction for anyone new to Alwyn’s art—

(1) Second Symphony in two parts (1953, 30’);(2) Autumn Legend, a one-movement piece for

English horn and string orchestra (1954, 12’)(3) Lyra Angelica, a concerto for harp and string

orchestra in four movements (1953-1954, 31’)

All three of these wonderworks have been recordedtwice. At the beginning of the new century, Alwyn’savailable recorded legacy [see Appendix II] consists of4 Lyrita CDs (re-issues of Alwyn’s own 1970srecordings) plus the two-CD set of Miss Julie, conductedby Vilelm Tausky; and the beautifully and prodigiouslyproduced Chandos series of 18 CDs—all the symphonies,much vocal, and chamber music, including the invaluableCD of his film music.

In all of his music, he aimed always, he said, for clarity ofeffect and simplicity of means.

However, an important distinction must be made aboutAlwyn’s kind of compositional simplicity. His owndescription (in conversation) of the great SecondSymphony makes it sound as if anybody could do it: as anexample of how he wanted his music to sound “logicalwithout sounding constructed,” he said, “So, take theSecond Symphony, for instance: I get that little tune [going]at the beginning, and it goes on building all the way throughthe work until it finally reaches its apotheosis in the longcoda, the summing up of the whole work; after that silence,then comes that wonderful D major chord on the brass,then everybody plays the tune that began it.”

This sounds baby simple—as if it possesses the true,surface simplicity of a Hikare Oe—until you realize thatthis logical but apparently not constructed work actuallyis firmly built. It achieves the often-sought but onlyoccasionally realized late 19th century amalgamation ofsonata-movement form with the multi-movement sonatacycle. Its most illustrious predecessors are the Liszt B-Minor Sonata and the Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3(which was dedicated to Liszt, another of the subtler-than-he-seems masters from whom Alwyn learned so

34 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Example 1: Sinfonietta for Strings,first 13 bars, p. 1Reproduced by permission of copyright holder Alfred Lengnick & Co. [a division of Complete Music Ltd.] Hire from Chester Music: Tel 1 284 705 705;Email adam.harvey@musicsales.co.uk.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 35

Example 2: Sinfonietta for Strings,bar 55 to conclusion of second movement

much). Both Alwyn’s Second and Saint-Saens’s Thirdhave exactly the same design: they are in two parts but a4-movement symphonic design can be discerned:

Part I:Introduction

Dramatic first mvt. (Rehearsal Letter D)Adagio (Q)

Part II:Scherzo (triple meter)

Finale (after AA)Coda (GG)

Because Alwyn gives occasional “Mahlerian advisories,”(sempre vibrante, for example), it is clear that theconductor has both leeway and responsibility forinterpreting and shaping —precisely because the music,in so skillfully burying its scaffolding, is so subtly, buturgently, expressive.

He said this the whole of his Second Symphonydeveloped from the single phrase—a simple, but not“uncatchy” melody—heard at the beginning. A bassoonstarts things off in a simple and straightforward but clearlyvery assured and original way.

The second bar, in particular, suggests an immediatesound, which is as distinctively and uniquely Alwyn’s asis a thumbprint. The violins answer at once, then modifyand subtly reshape the opening theme.

Of course, this is a musical drama. The second partbegins Allegro Molto—Molto Impetuoso and builds toan exciting finale—but this kind of excitement is rarely(though occasionally) what Alwyn drives at. To get rightto Leonard Bernstein’s memorable criterion, at Letter GG,after a long, slow-breathing Allargando is a daring,breathless silence and then comes the climax of the wholework, in a beautiful, passionate sense of release (that“wonderful D-major chord on the brass”) after which

Reproduced by permission of copyright holder Alfred Lengnick & Co. [a division of Complete Music Ltd.] Hire from Chester Music: Tel 1 284 705 705;Email adam.harvey@musicsales.co.uk.

36 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

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the original little tune (Example 3) is played tutti and along undulating coda follows. This is the Alwynian kindof climax: it continues to develop both subtly andpowerfully until the conclusion, when winds at KK, thenbrass at LL, play this wonderful tune again, until thetimpanist, now supported quietly by the strings, has thegentle last word.

Berg, Puccini and Debussy: these three, but the Debussyinfluence is everywhere. Although there is less mist inAlwyn’s music, both composers favor delicacy and quietloveliness. Many of Debussy’s works—not just thePrelude à “L’apres-midi d’un Faune”—seem likeballets, or works describing a drama. Alwyn’s workshave a sort of mistiness within: his music makes you feelquite sure that there is a drama going on, but you cannotquite see it; it is a kind of dream-drama: as with the twolovers whom he silhouetted in the moonlight at the end ofthe first act of his opera, Miss Julie, the drama is in theirminds; it is in their spirits melting together—rather likethe heavenly vision of passionate love in Rossetti’s greatpoem and painting The Blessed Damozel (which Alwyncalled “the picture of my dreams”).

Rossetti’s poem, also called “The Blessed Damozel,” isthe basis of Autumn Legend, Alwyn’s miniaturemasterpiece, and, with this work, he joined a long line ofcomposers who created music for it, beginning withDebussy himself and including many British composers.What makes Alwyn’s version so unusual is that it is notvocal: it is a work for Cor anglais ( Alwyn preferred thislocution to “English horn”) and string orchestra. “Themusic,” wrote the composer, about the time of itspremiere in 1955, “needs no formal analysis; it is a freeimprovisation arising spontaneously from the poet’swords. Unashamedly romantic, Autumn Legend is myown very personal tribute to the memory of Dante GabrielRossetti, the poet who inspired Debussy, the painterextolled by Delacroix.” [6]

However, in the manner of Debussy, who gave titles tohis piano pieces well after he composed them, Alwyninsisted that his first impulse was to write music for CorAnglais and string orchestra: the Rossetti came after—asa help to the listener as to the general mood and feel ofthe piece. His music was, he insisted, always about music.Yet he also said that in composing Autumn Legend, he

had the uncanny feeling that Rossetti was in the roomwith him. Having it both ways? Clearly, there is an wide-armed, Walt Whitman-esque willingness to becontradictory on this important subject: “Very well, Icontradict myself; I contain multitudes.”

In his Treatise on Instrumentation, Berlioz describes theEnglish horn this way: “Its tone, less piercing, more veiledand heavy than that of the oboe, does not lend itself sowell to the gaiety of rustic melodies. Nor can it expresspassionate laments; tones of keen grief are scarcely withinits range. Its tones are melancholy, dreamy, noble,somewhat veiled—as if played in the distance. It has noequal among the instruments for reviving images andsentiments of the past if the composer intends to touch thehidden chords of tender memories.” [7]

This is also a perfect description of Autumn Legend—and a perfect description of much of Alwyn’s musicgenerally. In “The Blessed Damozel,”—both the poemand the painting—there is pictured a heaven where loversare rapturously re-united; the damozel of the title leansher warm bosom on “the gold bar of heaven” and yearnsfor her lover, still on earth, and still thinking of her. Hereare Rossetti’s haunting lines from the poem—lines, whichAlwyn placed at the head of the score—and serving,perhaps, as something more than an ordinary epigraph:

Surely she leaned o’er me—her hairFell all about my face . . .

Nothing: the Autumn fall of leaves.The whole year sets apace.

After these mysterious lines comes music which certainlysounds like Berlioz’s “hidden chords of tender memories.”The Debussy influence certainly lingers; one passage (bar57, 5 bars after letter E) insinuatingly recalls “Nuages.”

To some listeners it may appear that Alwyn has loadedhis great Harp Concerto, Lyra Angelica, with too manyliterary associations (beginning with the very title). If so,these references can be ignored. [8] Others may find themsomewhat helpful as a guide to the general spirit of thefour movements:

1. “I looke for angels’ songs, and heare Him crie.”2. “Ah! Who was He such pretious perils found?”

38 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

3. “And yet, how can I leave Thee singing goe, whenmen incense’d with hate Thy death foreset?”

4. “How can such joy as this want words to speake?”

These lines are taken from Christ’s Victorie and Triumph,(1610) by Giles Fletcher. This is a work known almostexclusively to literary scholars as one of the models forMilton’s Paradise Lost. The line for the 4th movementmay aptly sum up most of Alwyn’s music, and the 3rd mayhint at the truth in the great lines of Shakespeare used asthe epigraph to this essay: “with all this rage, how beautycan hold a plea” is a question that, to a born-again Romantic,answers itself. Yet many may simply find all this far too“pretious.” It certainly reveals Alwyn’s genuine and verydeep love for 17th century literature. [9]

Only the final movement of Lyra Angelica ends fortissimo;all the other movements end very quietly. Although thereis a great rush in the strings at the beginning of the thirdmovement, the general feeling of this work is, almostentirely, quietly ecstatic.

Alwyn’s most characteristic and most beautiful melodiesare in this work. After a slow Adagio introduction and aswirling cadenza-like introduction of the harp, the firstmovement offers this lovely melody—which has, in fact,been foreshadowed by the harp introduction—to the firstviolins and the violas. The first movement is full of lovelyturns and apparent wanderings—such as a charmingsiciliano (at Letter K, near the end). The second movement,possibly the most beautiful of the four movements, has amoment, at Letter C, that will help anyone decide if thismusic is one’s own cup of tea: this section may well bedescribed as “like movie music.” One admits: yes, thissounds somewhat “like movie music,” but for those towhom this is not A Bad Thing, the climax of the movementwill sound like the realization of a great inner drama. Afterthis, the movement ends quietly.

Each of the two inner movements contains a great melody.After the wispy ppp conclusion of the second movement,the beginning of the third movement offers a strikingcontrast with a great up rush in the strings followed bythree almost Beethovenian hammer strokes; however,these are immediately softened (and, later, they becomea shaping influence through to the end of the movement).And, then, a mere 11 bars into the movement comes a

great tune—surely Puccinian, perhaps even specificallyreminiscent of “E lucevan le stele” and the death-marchfrom the last act of Tosca. The final three pages areparticularly wonderful as we go into a typically Alwynianconclusion—ppp, dim. a niente. The final movement isstructured somewhat like the third: the opening, Allegrojubiloso, offers eight truly jubilant bars to the harpist(Example4).

After a brief scherzo-like passage, there comes anextended and reflective coda, and—very dramatically—a return of the lovely melody from the first movement, ina different key and played a little faster. This materialworks its way through the now-familiar series of moltodiminuendi and molto tranquilli to a somewhatsurprisingly decisive, rather than dreamy, conclusion(Example 5).

What makes Alwyn’s masterpiece remarkable is itscombination of the slow enchantments of the musiccoupled with a rhythmic tautness and his equallycharacteristic drive toward a crisp clarity of texture anda succinct simplicity. In fact, his entire oeuvre has amovement toward concision—from the full “grandmanner” (as he called it) of his First Symphony to themere 15 minutes of his final, Fifth, symphony. Here is anapt passage from his Journal:

I once said in a lecture that the ultimate aim of acomposer is the expression of the world in a single note.This has been quoted against me. But it is true. Bachand Beethoven achieved it—I mean this nth degree ofsimplification, which can endow even an innocent scalewith infinite meaning. Puccini actually did it with a singlenote: the single fortissimo staccato ‘A’ as the consulfinishes reading Pinkerton’s letter to Madame Butterfly.All other composers at a similar situation would haveresorted to a dramatic orchestral climax, but Puccinihere conveys a world of drama in a shock and a silence,which makes the heart stand still.

Of all the orchestral works in the standard repertoire,Alwyn’s orchestral and chamber music, aspire, it mightbe said, to the condition of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll.They share with Wagner (at their very best of course) thecombination of the personal, the deeply felt, the free formyet formally interesting, the variety, the climactic lift andthe settling into the languorous ache, the hypnotic, the

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 39

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expression of the inner world of spirit and love. All this—and concision too!

William Alwyn’s very distinct musical world is aninvaluable contribution, both personal and civilized, to(in Virgil Thomson’s wonderful phrase) that “secretcivilization” which is music.

ENDNOTES

1 Quotations are from Alwyn’s journal, titled “Ariel toMiranda,” published in Adam International Review, ed.Miron Grindea, Nos. 316-17-18, London, 1967.

2 The title he finally settled on was “Crepuscule”—a little,3’, work, now available in a recording by Ieuan Jonesmade in 1994 (Chandos 9197).

3 William Mann’s superb notes for the Lyrita recordingsof the Second and Third Symphonies have been slightlyabridged for the CD reissues, but they remain essentialreading for any lover of this music. It is worth noting thatWilliam Mann’s name is probably most famous for acontroversial review he wrote of one of The Beatles’ earlyreleases. His discovery of something important,something of great interest and beauty in mere pop music,and in appearing in a forum no less august than TheTimes, started, according to John Lennon, “the wholeintellectual bit about The Beatles.” In some ways, giventhe intellectual climate, Mann’s championing of Alwyn’ssymphonies was a parallel act of independence of thoughtand of critical courage.

4 Since Alwyn’s death, minimalism and neo-Romanticismhave triumphed in what one can describe only as anAlwynian way. For instance, Canadian composer MarjanMozetich (b. 1948) abandoned the orthodoxies of histeachers (early, approved Modernist works of his hadinstructions in his scores for “the banging of chairs”) whenhe “suddenly embraced Romanticism.” He was, he said,“pounced on” for daring to say “that music is emotion,that it is a medium in which to express feelings.”

Modernism had become sterile: composers weresupposed to “create a hypothesis and realise it musically,like a research paper. I thought this was ridiculous.”[Notes to CD Affairs of the Heart, 2000, CBC RecordsSMCD 5200.] Alwyn had been expressing, and actingon, these very sentiments in the dry 1950s. Incidentally,one of Mozetich’s most beautiful works, The Passion ofAngels, a Concerto for Two Harps and Orchestra (1995)is very like Alwyn’s Lyra Angelica in feel and mood.

5 On a syllabus for a film course about Movies & Music,I called the first half of the course (I hoped provocatively)“How The Movies Saved Classical Music.” (The secondhalf was called “Pop Goes the Movies.”)

6 Reprinted in Alwyn’s recording, Lyrita SRCD.230.

7 Berlioz-Strauss, Treatise on Instrumentation, trans.T. Front (New York: Kalmus, 1948), p 184.

8 Evidently, all the literary associations and referenceswere of some assistance to figure skater Michelle Kwan,who used this music in her free-style competition in the1998 Olympics; to her, as she explained in a TVinterview, it was enough that the music made her thinkshe was not skating but “playing with angels.”) I havealways regretted that it was Prokofiev who came upon atitle, which would have suited many of Alwyn’s worksbeautifully—Fugitive Visions.

9 For example, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682),physician and author—best known for his ReligioMedici— was one his great heroes, whose words, fromUrn-Burial, provide the epigraphs to Alwyn’s final, Fifth,Symphony (1970, 15’), itself a four-movement miracleof concision.

NOTE: The delightful phrase “Mahlerian advisories” is adebt among many I owe to my friend and colleague DavidDaniels, who has conducted Lyra Angelica, and who hasalso contributed generously to this whole essay—advicetechnical as well as suggestions rhetorical—all of great value.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 41

APPENDIX IWILLIAM ALWYN:

FIRST PERFORMANCES OF MAJOR WORKS

Symphony No. 1 Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, Cheltenham; July 6, 1950Symphony No. 2 Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, Manchester; October 14, 1953Symphony No. 3 BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham; October 10, 1956Symphony No. 4 Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, London (Proms Concert); August 26, 1959Symphony No. 5 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, William Alwyn, Norwich; October 27, 1973Lyra Angelica Sidonie Goosens (harp), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, London (Proms Concert); July 24, 1954Autumn Legend Roger Winfield (English horn), Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, London (Proms Concert); September 2, 1955Sinfonietta for Strings Hurwitz Chamber Orchestra, Adrian Sunshine, Cheltenham; July 4, 1970

PUBLICATION DATES OF PRINCIPAL ORCHESTRAL WORKS

Symphony No. 1 (41’), 1949Symphony No. 2 (30’), 1953Symphony No. 3 (32’), 1957Symphony No. 4 (35’), 1960Symphony No. 5 “Hydriotaphia” (15’), 1973

Festival March (8’), 1951Concerto for Oboe, Harp & String Orchestra 20’), 1951Concerto Grosso No. 1 in B-flat (11’), 1952Symphonic Prelude—The Magic Island (10’), 1953Lyra Angelica—Concerto for Harp and String Orchestra (31’), 1955Autumn Legend—for Cor Anglais and String Orchestra (12’), 1956Elizabethan Dances (18’), 1958Overture—“Derby Day,” (7’) 1962Sinfonietta for Strings (26’), 1974

All scores are published by Alfred Lengnick & Co., Ltd., Purley Oaks Studios, 421a Brighton Road, South Croydon, Surrey, England.

U.S. Agent: Theodore Presser

Other addresses:

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/Alwyn

The William Alwyn Society, Andrew Palmer, Secretary122 Vernon Avenue, Old BasfordNottingham WG6 OAL, EnglandTel: +44 (0)115 978 0863Fax: +44(0)115 913 0865Email at waf@innotts.co.uk

42 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

APPENDIX IIWILLIAM ALWYN:

A CHRONOLOGY-DISCOGRAPHY*

1930 Piano Concerto No. 1 [15’] (Howard Shelley, LSO, Richard Hickox, 1993)

1934 Sonata for Oboe and Piano [16’] (Nicholas Daniel, Julius Drake, 1994)

1935 Green Hills, solo piano [2’57”] (Julian Milford, 2000)

1936 Tragic Interlude, for 2 Horns, Timpani, and String Orchestra [8’] (City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox, 1992)

1939-39 Violin Concerto [40’] (Lydia Mordkovitch, LSO, Hickox, 1993)

1938 Rhapsody for Piano Quintet [10’] (David Willison, Quartet of London, 1985)

1939 Night Thoughts [solo piano, 5’] (Julian Milford, 2000)

Divertimento for Solo Flute, (Christopher Hyde-Smith, Lyrita, 1972; Kate Hill, 1994)

Pastoral Fantasia for Viola and String Orchestra [13’] (Stephen Tees, City of London Sinfonia, Hickox)

1940 Overture to a Masque [9’] (LSO, Hickox, 1992)

1943 Concerto Grosso No. 1 in B-flat major for Chamber Orchestra [12’] (City of London Sinfonia, Hickox, 1992)

1944-45 Concerto for Oboe, String Orchestra and Harp [20’] (Nicholas Daniel, City of London Sinfonia, Hickox, 1992)

1945 Calypso from “The Rake’s Progress,” [4’] (arr. Christopher Palmer, LSO, Hickox, 1993)

Suite for Oboe and Harp [6’] (Nicholas Daniel, Ieuan Jones, 1993)

1945-46 Sonata alla Toccata [solo piano, 10’] (Sheila Randell, Lyrita, 1960; Julian Milford, 2000)

1946 “Odd Man Out” Suite [arr. Christopher Palmer, 27’] (LSO, Hickox, 1993)

1948 Fanfare for a Joyful Occasion for Brass and Percussion [4’] (LSO, Hickox, 1992)

“The Fallen Idol” Suite [arr. Christopher Palmer, 21’] (LSO, Hickox, 1993)

Concerto No. 2 in G Major for String Orchestra [14’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1979; City of London Sinfonia, Hickox, 1992)

Sonata for Flute and Piano [8’] (Kate Hill, Julius Drake, 1994)

1949 “The History of Mr. Polly” Suite [arr. Christopher Palmer, 21’] (LSO, Hickox)

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Symphony No. 1 [41] (LPO, William Alwyn, Lyrita, 1977; LSO, Hickox, 1993)

1950 Music for Three Players [16’] (Haffner Wind Ensemble, 1993)

Festival March [8’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1985; LSO, Hickox, 1992)

1951 Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano [14’] (Haffner Wind Ensemble, 1993)

1952 Symphonic Prelude—“The Magic Island” [11’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1972; LSO, Hickox, 1992)

1953 Symphony No. 2 [31’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1975; LSO, Hickox, 1992)

1954 Lyra Angelica—Concerto for Harp and String Orchestra [30’] (Osian Ellis, LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1979; Rachel Masters, City of London Sinfonia, Hickox, 1992)

1955 ‘Crepuscule’ for Solo Harp [3’] (Ieuan Jones, 1994)

String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor [23’] (The Gabrielli Quartet, Unicorn Records, 1971; The Quartet of London, 1982)

Autumn Legend for Cor Anglais and String Orchestra [12’] (Geoffrey Browne, LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1979; Nicholas Daniel, City of London Sinfonia, Hickox, 1992)

1956 Symphony No. 3 [34’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1972; LSO, Hickox, 1993)

Fantasy-Waltzes [solo piano, 35’] (Sheila Randell, Lyrita, 1960; John Ogden, 1985; Julian Milford, 2000)

Overture: The Moor of Venice [arr. Frank Wright, for brass band, 9’] (The Williams Fairey Band, Bryan Hurdley—Brass from the Masters, Vol. I—1997)

1957 Elizabethan Dances [18’] (Nos. 1,2,5,4, LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1979; complete, LSO, Hickox, 1992)

1959 Twelve Preludes [solo piano, 26’] (John Ogden, 1985)

Symphony No. 4 [37’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1975; LSO, Hickox, 1992)

1960 Overture “Derby Day,” [6’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1979; LPO, Hickox, 1992)

Piano Concerto No. 2 [32’] (Howard Shelley, LSO, Hickox, 1993)

1961 Movements for Piano [16’] (Julian Milford, 2000)

1962 String Trio [16’] (The Quartet of London, 1985)

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano [12’] (Joy Farrall, Julius Drake, 1994)

1964 Concerto Grosso No. 3 for Woodwind, Brass, and Strings [15’] (City of London Sinfonia, Hickox, 1992)

44 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

1970 Sinfonietta for Strings [25’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1972; LSO, Hickox, 1993)

Mirages, A Song Cycle for Baritone and Piano [words by Alwyn, 26’] (Benjamin Luxon, David Willison, Lyita LP, 1972)

1971 Naides: Fantasy-Sonata for Flute and Harp [12’] (Christopher Hyde-Smith, Mariso Robles, Lyrita, 1972; Kate Hill, Ieuan Jones, 1993)

1972 Symphony No. 5 “Hydriotaphia” [16’] (LPO, Alwyn, Lyrita, 1975; LSO, Hickox, 1993)

1975 String Quartet No. 2 “Spring Waters” [21’] (The Quartet of London, 1982)

A Leave-Taking, for Tenor and Piano [25’] (Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Graham Johnson, 1984)

1976 Invocations, for Soprano and Piano [20’] (Jill Gomez, John Constable, 1983)

Miss Julie, an opera in two acts [118’] (Jill Gomez, Benjamin Luxon, Della Jones, John Mitchinson, The Philharmonia Orchestra, Vilem Tausky, Lyrita, 1977)

1980 Concerto for Flute and Eight Wind Instruments [18’] (The Haffner Wind Ensemble of London, Nicholas Daniel, 1993)

1984 String Quartet No. 3 [23’] (The Quartet of London, 1985)

NOTE: * This list was compiled in July 2000. (In 2001, a second volume of film music was released by Chandos—CHAN 9959.) All recordings are on the Chandos label unless otherwise indicated; LPO=The London PhilharmonicOrchestra; LSO=The London Symphony Orchestra.

Brian Murphy was born in 1939 in Detroit and educated at the University of Detroit, Harvard, and theUniversity of London. He has taught English at Oakland University since 1969 and became Director of theUniversity’s Honors College in 1985. He is the author of two books, a study of CS Lewis and a novel, TheEnigma Variations.

*****

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 45

The college-community orchestra is a musicalphenomenon that has continued to grow in interest andparticipation throughout the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. It involves “town-and-gown” musicianscombining their creative energies to make music together.Fred Petty, in his article “College-Community Orchestra,”describes the college-community orchestra as “an evergrowing body of instrumentalists open to college students,faculty, and community musicians, performing a richvariety of music from Vivaldi to Ives.”1 With this kind ofensemble comes opportunities for life-long learning forconductors and musicians of all ages.

To understand a college-community orchestra, one mustfirst understand what a community orchestra is. It canbe considered a group of amateur musicians from thelocal community who voluntarily come together to enjoyperforming music as an ensemble. As the Latin wordamare (to love) implies, amateurs do what they do outof a love for that activity. This does not necessarily implya lack of professional standards in amateurs. DouglasSanford mentions that it is not surprising that a greatartistic growth in so-called amateur organizations,combined with a seriously troubled situation among manyprofessional ensembles, has resulted in an environmentin which a few community orchestras are now challengingprofessional orchestras for a share of the audiencemarket.2

College-community orchestras are an extension ofcommunity orchestras in that they involve members ofboth the college or university and the local community.The value of these orchestras is that they bring togetherthe talents of both, thereby fostering a healthy rapportbetween the local and the educational communities.College-community orchestras also provide an orchestral

experience for college students that they might otherwisenot have. Values such as these make college-communityorchestras a valuable part of the cultural climate of anycollege and community.

GETTING STARTED

If no orchestra exists at the local college, university, or inthe community, the situation may be ripe for starting one.In organizing a college-community orchestra, there are afew things to consider. Representatives from the college,preferably the president and the continuing-educationdivision, should be contacted to determine whether thecollege would be willing and able to support such anensemble. Once an agreement has been reached betweenthe college and community representatives to jointlyorganize such an orchestra, there are at least seven areasthat need to be addressed: membership, logistics, funding,publicity, patrons, programming, and a board of directors.

1. Membership: Securing membership is the first thingto consider in starting a college-community orchestra.Whether one is planning on a string orchestra or a fullsymphony orchestra, much depends on what the initialinterest level is. A survey of the community and the collegeshould be done to see if there will be adequate numbersand kinds of instrumentalists for the various sections ofthe orchestra. As is generally the case, there will probablybe a shortage of string players compared to a plethora ofwind and percussion players.

Next comes the challenge of trying to achieve a balanceof instrumentation. This can be done through auditionsand by establishing a waiting list. For example, what doyou do if six clarinets are interested but you can onlyaccept two?

Organizing and Conducting theCollege-Community Orchestra

By Victor Vallo Jr.

46 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

If you do not have enough string players, a possiblesolution could be to ask if anyone in the orchestra plays asecondary string instrument to fill in the missing parts.

The college should concurrently be contacted to see whatinstruments are represented by its interested faculty, staff,and students. If the college agrees to sponsor this newensemble, it could look at the student records to see whohas an orchestral background. These students could thenbe directly contacted to invite their participation.

2. Logistics: Good logistics becomes the next importantstep, especially in locating a suitable space to rehearseon a regular basis. The college should have at least oneadequately sized rehearsal space that can accommodatea group of 25 to 50 musicians. A flat space is preferable,one that is well-lighted, temperature-controlled, and hasgood acoustics. The stage of an auditorium can beexcellent, providing the college would allow its use on aregular basis. Accessibility for larger instruments such asdouble basses and percussion (i.e. timpani) is important,especially since the players need to have easy access toand from the rehearsal area.

The availability of an adequate number of chairs is anotherconsideration. The need for music stands can be resolvedby the players bringing a folding music stand if the collegedoes not have any or enough.

Concerning music, the orchestra has the option ofborrowing music from a local public or private schoolorchestra, college, or another community orchestra.Renting or purchasing the music is another option, whichdepends upon funding, the next topic.

3. Funding: Adequate funding is the next vital area ofconcern in organizing a new college-community orchestra.Sponsorship by the college does not necessarily meanthat the college will fund the orchestra, especially if it isproviding a rehearsal space. Because the orchestracannot rely entirely on volunteer conductors and borrowingall of its music, it becomes necessary to find adequateand consistent sources of funding:

a. Dues from orchestra membersb. Fund-raising activitiesc. Admission fees at concertsd. Donations at concerts

e. Sponsorship of particular concerts bybusinesses

f. Paid promotional advertisements in theconcert programs

g. Grants from arts agencies and foundations

4. Publicity: Good publicity and public relations arevital to the orchestra’s success and positive image in thecommunity. Concerts with effective publicity will helpattract an audience, which in turn will bring in futurepatrons of the orchestra. Effective publicity can be bestachieved by organizing a publicity committee from themembers of the orchestra who can place ads in thenewspaper, conduct a phone marketing campaign, andcontact the local radio stations. There may be a memberof the orchestra who has media connections. Flyers canbe designed and distributed to each member of theorchestra for posting in the community and around the college.

The sponsoring college can help by publicizing theorchestra in its campus newspaper, newsletter, webpages, and campus-wide e-mail. The Chamber ofCommerce may be interested in adding information aboutthe orchestra in their newsletter and calendar of events.If the college-community orchestra is offered foracademic credit, the course listing should also bepublished by the college and the Chamber of Commerce.

5. Patrons: Orchestra patrons can be a vital source ofcommunity contacts, funding, and overall support on astable and continuing basis. Once a patron list isestablished, a mailing list of their names and addressescan be created. The names of patrons can be listed in theprogram, which may encourage other people to becomepatrons of the orchestra.

6. Programming: Well-chosen literature will have avery significant effect on the morale and success of theorchestra. It is crucial that the music not only be withinthe capability of the general level of the group, but that itsimply be fun to play and listen to! If the music is toodifficult or the music is not fun to play, the morale andeventually the attendance at rehearsals may be diminished.It would be helpful to ask members of the orchestra whatpieces they would like to perform. This could onlyenhance the morale of the group by allowing them inputinto the programming for the orchestra.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 47

A variety of music needs to be selected in programmingfor a college-community orchestra (a recommended listof repertoire is at the end of this article). Whereasaudience appeal should be considered when choosingmusic, it is also important that the orchestra as a wholebe considered. An audience will hear the piece onlyonce, but the orchestra will hear the work many timesin rehearsal. A survey conducted by James Van Hornfound that “in music of America as well as with Europe,conductors seem to try to program things that havefamiliarity for their audiences.”3 This “familiarity factor,”as he calls it, has become vital for both audience andorchestra appeal.

Another aspect in choosing literature is whether toborrow, rent, or purchase the music. Budgetaryconsiderations need to be taken into account in thismatter. Borrowing music is successful as long as youare known by the lender, and he or she is not wary oflending music for free. Renting music is anotherpossibility, but sometimes this can be rather costly,especially if not all the parts are returned in time or arenot in their original condition. Renting also puts a timeconstraint on the orchestra because it has to have themusic ready for performance in a limited amount of time.

Finally, purchasing the music is also a possibility and issometimes preferable because it allows the orchestrato be able to rehearse it longer and mark it as needed.It also enables the orchestra to build its own musiclibrary. Purchasing is often only slightly more expensivethan renting.

7. Board of Directors: One of the most importantorganizational steps is to form a Board of Directors toattend to the business and legal matters of the orchestra.4

It should consist of select members of the orchestra,community members, and members from the college/university. Ideally, representation should also be fromthe local schools, media, churches, professionalcommunity, and a lawyer to handle any of the legalmatters. The board should take the leadership role inhandling most, if not all, managerial duties (i.e. settingup by-laws) so that the conductor may focus his or herenergies on the musical growth and direction of theorchestra. The conductor should be ex officio on theboard.

CONDUCTING REHEARSALS

It is up to the conductor to ensure that all rehearsals arewell planned before each rehearsal. As a conductingteacher once told this author, every rehearsal should betreated as a performance. Each rehearsal must be afocused and combined effort by all to achieve themaximum musical results in the limited time available. Inorder to do this, there are a number of areas that aresuggested for the conductor:

1. Rehearsal Schedule: Once a suitable rehearsalschedule is established (at least once each week), theday and time of rehearsal needs to be consistentthroughout the season. This will allow the members toschedule around a set time frame for maximum and timelyattendance at all rehearsals. Publishing a detailed schedulefor each rehearsal can also facilitate good attendance andmorale. It is important to coordinate all rehearsals andconcerts with the academic calendar first to avoid anyschedule conflicts.

2. Rehearsal Climate: The members need to feelwelcome and not pressured to perform perfectly at allrehearsals. No one should ever be embarrassed atanytime in a rehearsal. It’s good for the conductor tohave high expectations of the members and to ask fortheir best efforts, but he or she should never let thoseexpectations get in the way of treating the members withkindness and understanding.

3. Musical Objectives: Each rehearsal needs to haveits own attainable musical objectives. To do this, theconductor should have clear and predetermined goalsfor each rehearsal. If possible, after handing out all of themusic, publish in the rehearsal schedule which pieces orsections of pieces are going to be rehearsed each weekso that the members know ahead of time what is going tobe focused on and practice beforehand. Such a schedulewould also help the woodwind, brass, and percussionplayers know when to be present, especially if they arenot called for in certain works.

Another musical objective is to help the orchestra betterunderstand the music they are rehearsing and willeventually perform. To do this, the conductor mustassume the role of teacher. The enjoyment of the music

48 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

by the orchestra members will hopefully increase as theirunderstanding of the music increases. Malcolm Holmessaid it well when he remarked: “To develop a goodamateur orchestra, the conductor must have had sufficienttraining and experience in the mechanics of his art to enablehim to teach his players, collectively and individually...(he)must be a teacher in the finest sense of the word.”5

4. Rehearsal Breaks: Knowing when to schedulebreaks is another important aspect of rehearsals. Ifrehearsals are more than two hours, a break should bescheduled soon after the first hour. In addition, college-community orchestras tend to have a number of oldermusicians who may appreciate breaks more than theiryounger counterparts.

5. Open Rehearsals: Since a part of the orchestra’ssuccess depends on the support of the college and thecommunity, open rehearsals can help to enhance thatsupport. There may be members of the community (i.e.parents) as well as students who wish to attend a rehearsaljust to see how their children, friends, and colleagues aredoing. Whether the open rehearsals are attended or not,an invitation should still be offered.

PERFORMANCES

The musical efforts of any college-community orchestraneed to culminate with a successful concert. To helpachieve this culmination of combined efforts, it issuggested that the conductor also consider the following:

1. Concert Schedule: Concerts should be scheduledwith the agreement of both the college and communitymembers of the orchestra. The number of concertsshould be based on the time anticipated to prepare themusic. One or two concerts a semester offers the groupattainable musical goals as well as giving the orchestraample time to prepare the music for concert performance.

2. Concert Locations: It is important that concertlocations be strategically selected to allow for maximumaudience attendance and the best acoustics possible.Churches and college auditoriums can be excellentlocations, especially if the acoustics are good and thereis sufficient seating. If there is a special event at thecollege, what better way to say “thanks” than by offering

to perform a concert at that event for both the collegeand the local community.

3. Attire: It is important that the orchestra look asuniform and as professional as possible. Concert blackshould be the acceptable attire, which means a tuxedofor the male members and black dress or pants suit forthe female members. If new tuxedos pose a financialburden, used tuxedos or black suits should be considered.Looking professional will help to enhance the orchestra’sperception of itself as well as the audience’s perceptionof the orchestra.

4. Recording: A good audio and/or video recording ofselected concerts is an excellent way to preserve themusical efforts of the orchestra. With today’s audio andvideo advancements, a respectable digital recording canbe made very economically.

A compact disc would be a great way to archive theconcerts and let the members either have or purchasetheir own CD. Selling or giving away these CDs topatrons at future concerts can also help promotecommunity support.

5. Reception: An excellent way to end a concert wouldbe to host a reception immediately following the concert.This allows the audience to informally meet the membersof the orchestra and hopefully help personalize theirexperience at the concert. Informal conversations withthe players and the conductor at these receptions arealso, from this author’s experience, excellent opportunitiesto recruit prospective members for the orchestra.

CODA

The college-community orchestra is a unique andwonderful kind of musical organization today. One of itsraisons d’être is to be a contribution to the cultural needsand desires of the academic and local communities.Another purpose of the college-community orchestra isto be an opportunity to make music for itself and itsaudiences. Gerard Wolfe says it well by commentingthat “performing in the (college-community) orchestragives a great many people the chance to enjoy classicalmusic in a way formerly not available, and to performpublicly, while enhancing their own musical skills.”6 In

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 49

the long run, the orchestra, the college, and the communityare the musical beneficiaries.

RECOMMENDED REPERTOIRE FOR

COLLEGE-COMMUNITY ORCHESTRAS

Bach, J.S.

Beethoven

Bernstein

Bizet

Borodin

Brahms

Copland

Corelli

Dvorak

Elgar

Gershwin

Gould, Morton

Gliere

Grieg

Handel

Haydn, F.J.

Ives

Khachaturian

Mascagni

Mendelssohn

Mozart

Mussorgsky

Offenbach

Prokofiev

Ravel

Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 & 4

Egmont OvertureLeonore OvertureSymphony Nos. 1 & 2

Selections from West Side Story (arr. Mason)Overture to CandideA Musical Toast

L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2Symphony in C

In the Steppes of Central Asia

Academic Festival OvertureHungarian Dances Nos. 5 & 6Variations on a Theme of Haydn

“Hoe-Down” from RodeoOutdoor OvertureVariations on a Shaker Melody

Concerto Grosso No. 8 (Christmas Concerto)

Slavonic Dances (Opus 46)Symphony No. 8

“Nimrod” from Enigma VariationsPomp and Circumstance Marches Nos. 1-4

American in Paris Suite (arr. Whitney)Porgy and Bess (selections)

American Salute

“Russian Sailor’s Dance” from The Red Poppy

Peer Gynt SuiteHolberg Suite

Water MusicRoyal Fireworks MusicMessiah

Symphony No. 94 (Surprise)Symphony No. 100 (Military)Symphony No. 103 (Drum Roll)Symphony No. 104 (London)

Variations on “America”The Unanswered Question

Sabre Dance from Gayane

Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana

Hebrides OvertureSymphony No. 3 (Scottish)Symphony No. 4 (Italian)

Overture to the Marriage of FigaroOverture to the ImpresarioOverture to the Magic FluteOverture to Cosi fan TutteEine Kleine NachtmusikSymphony No. 35 (Haffner)Symphony No, 36 (Linz)Symphony No. 40

Night on Bald Mountain (arr. Simpson)

Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld

Lieutenant Kije Suite

Bolero

50 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Rimsky-Korsakov

Rossini

Saint-Saens

Schubert

Sousa

R. Schumann

Shostakovich

Sibelius

J. Strauss

Stravinsky

Tschaikovsky

Verdi

Wagner

Von Suppé

ENDNOTES

1 Fred Petty, College-Community Orchestra, p. 1.

2 Douglas Sanford, The Rise of Community Orchestras, pp. 1-2.

3 James Van Horn, The Community Orchestra: A Handbook for Conductors, Managers, and Boards, p. 91.

4 James Van Horn, pp. 5-6.

5 Malcolm H. Holmes, Conducting an Amateur Orchestra, p. 3.

6 Gerard Wolfe, College-Community Orchestras, pp. 1-2.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Holmes, Malcolm H. Conducting an Amateur Orchestra. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951.

Petty, Fred. College-Community Orchestra. Internet article, 1997.

Sanford, Douglas. “The Rise of CommunitOrchestras.” The Podium, March 1997.

Van Horn, James. The Community Orchestra: A Handbook for Conductors, Managers, and Boards. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979.

Wolfe, Gerard. College-Community Orchestras. E-mail article: grw@uwm.edu, January 1998.

Dr. Victor Vallo is an Associate Professor of Musicat Anderson College (SC) where he is theCoordinator of Music Education and Director ofInstrumental Activities. In 2001 Dr. Vallo wasappointed as the new Music Director/Conductor ofthe Anderson Symphony Orchestra.

Russian Easter OvertureProcession of the Nobles from Mlada

Overture to the Barber of SevilleOverture to the Thieving Magpie

Carnival of the AnimalsMarch Militaire Francaise from Algerian Suite

Symphony Nos. 5 and 8Rosamunde Overture

Stars and Stripes Forever (and all concert marches)

Symphony No. 1 (Spring)

Festive Overture

FinlandiaThe Swan of Tuonela

Emperor WaltzRadetzky MarchOverture to Die FledermausThunder and Lightning Polka

Circus Polka

March SlavThe NutcrackerSymphony No. 2 (Little Russian)

Triumphal March from Aida

Prelude to Act III of LohengrinPrelude to Die Meistersinger von NurnbergProcession to the Cathedral from LohengrinSiegfried Idyll

Light Cavalry OverturePoet and Peasant Overture

*****

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 51

The student-community orchestra can be a valuable assetto many institutions of higher education. In order to createand maintain a viable organization, college and communitymust work together to solve problems includinggovernance, seating, solos, number and location ofperformances, social interaction, patronage (i.e., financialsupport), and community service. This study wasprepared under the Research Scholars Program at AgnesScott College in which an undergraduate student and afaculty member may collaborate on a research project.Our project explored a number of issues that affect astudent-community orchestra.

METHODOLOGY

We used the following parameters to define theorganizations:

a. Orchestras had to contain both students and significant numbers of community members.b. Conductors had to be on the college or university faculty.c. Students might or might not receive college

credit for participation in the orchestra.

We developed a survey form which was sent to everystudent-community orchestra we could locate in the U.S. and Canada utilizing the index under “Director ofOrchestra,” in the College Music Society’s (1999-2000)Directory of Music Facilities in Colleges andUniversities, U. S. and Canada. Each school was calledto determine whether its orchestra fit our parameters.Seventy-two schools in the United States and Canadahad such organizations.

Forty, or 56%, of our surveys were returned. Weseparated schools into liberal arts and non-liberal arts

colleges and arranged each category by studentpopulation to create several tables—Comparison Data(Appendix A), Budget Figures (Appendix B), OrchestraNumbers (Appendix C), and General Information(Appendix D). Unanswered questions are blanks in thetables. The following commentary includes quotesextracted from the surveys.

AUDITIONS

According to our surveys, the conductor (and/or artisticdirector) usually runs the auditions.

In our orchestra, the concertmaster and each sectionprincipal sit in on auditions. While we don’t actuallyvote on who is accepted, I always ask for input oneach auditionee, and each one of the players presentsigns the form regardless of whether the individual isaccepted or not. Often the principals know theirsections better than I do and are more capable ofdetermining whether the individual will fit in.

When a community player is hesitant to play alone, Iallow that individual to sit in one night and “audition”by playing in the section. As a retired music teacher,that person may have the power to bring in (ordiscourage) many students and former students whoare quite good. Therefore, having him in the orchestra,even if his playing is not specifically on the technicallevel I want would be a wise political move that wouldgain more than it would cost in terms of personnel.

Audition repertoire varies greatly. Almost all schools allowthe auditionee to choose a solo in addition to otherrequirements. Only about half the schools require sightreading and/or scales. Several schools indicated that theaudition team selected one scale and the auditionee chosethe other. Most organizations require an orchestral excerptas part of the audition.

A Study of Student-Community Orchestrasin the United States and Canada

By Dr. Lyn Schenbeck & Rebecca Jones Rose

52 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

MEMBERSHIP

The survey did not show a correlation between totalpopulation of the institution and the size of the orchestra,nor did total population relate to the proportion ofcommunity and student members. It was evident fromthe surveys that no matter how many violins are in anorchestra, the number of other string instruments wasrarely proportionate. These numbers varied greatly insome places from year to year. “For a couple of years Imight have 8 cellos and 12 violins, and then the tableswill turn and I’ll have 10 cellos and 6 violins.” All but oneorchestra either had a plethora of winds or just enough,while 6% were lacking in one or more brass players, and5% lacked percussionists. (See Appendix C.)

SEATING

Some conductors allow community seats to remainconstant, moving students around as needed. Otherorganizations do placement auditions each year, somerun jointly by the principal chair of each section with theconductor, moving everyone’s seat accordingly. Oneconductor said, “Ours is called ‘seating check.’ All stringplayers are scored on three excerpts from the concertmusic. [They] are scored by hired players (pros), andare reseated for the concert based on [their] scores.”Another approach some schools take, more easily donein a small orchestra, is to allow each section to determineits own seats by consensus.

A number of ensembles rotate seats (in all instruments)with each concert. This gives the community and studentmembers an opportunity to sit in different places and hearthe orchestra from varied perspectives. Unfortunately,many community members, especially the older players,do not like that because they have become comfortablein a particular place. One conductor said, “Some long-time community members are not rotated—this is ourcommitment.”

Seating challenges are addressed in several ways.“[Challenges are decided] on the advice of the studioteacher for that section.” “Music majors who play wellcome first.” “[Challenges] are allowed only for principalchairs.” “[Challenges] are allowed only if it is mutuallyagreeable with the person being challenged.”

In several organizations seats are simply assigned by theconductor. “Community members usually sit toward theback and I try to put weaker students with communitymembers for mentoring possibilities.” Three organizationssurveyed do a combination of assignment, audition, andchallenges so they can place community and facultymembers “where they would help the most,” or “[in the]back of the section—to be supportive, not to replace or‘demote’ regulars.” In one school “paid or facultymembers are placed—students must audition.”

In the woodwinds and brass the problem can be evenmore difficult because much of the classical repertoryrequires only pairs of winds and brass. If the school hasits own wind ensemble or band, the problem is somewhatalleviated since other opportunities for performance exist.If, however, orchestra is the only instrumentalperformance ensemble on campus or in the community,the determination of who will play which parts can bevery complicated. Schools address that problem indifferent ways.

Some tell community members up front that if there arestudents who can play those parts, student instrumentalistswill have priority. Assuming this, the next questionbecomes: When students get priority, what happens tocommunity members, particularly those who have beenwith the orchestra for some time? One school solvedthat problem by creating its own “internal” wind ensembleand using one of the wind players, either student orcommunity, to conduct it. This would be a good task fora retired music teacher whose playing may no longer beon the highest level. That way, when the conductor isworking with the strings, the wind ensemble will bepreparing its own piece(s). Another conductor said, “Iam loyal to long-time community players for filling spotswhere some years there are no students. But when goodstudents come, the community players are always willingto give them a chance to play.” Another suggests, “Askcommunity members how they feel about this issue. Don’tmake any assumptions.”

Other schools audition winds and brass every year andsimply use the best players. The obvious difficultyindicated with this method is that when students graduate,new students may not enter on those instruments, andone must revert to the community for players. Other

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 53

respondents asserted that community competitionbecomes more intense, and they end up with betterplayers. Some use more than one player per part on eachwind and brass part, which allows a number of playersto gain experience on those parts. Several begin that wayand then audition players right before the concert todetermine who will play a particular concert. The rationaleappears to be that rehearsals are always covered, andthose players who are really interested and dedicatedpractice harder for the chance to play the concert.

The issue of assigning principal chairs in the strings is morecomplicated. Many schools simply leave the principalplayer in that seat unless someone challenges. Fourteenschools said that they pay professionals to play principaleven if they have capable students. Several others placefaculty in those chairs. Most schools, however, auditiontheir own orchestra members for principal chairs and leavethese people in place until they either graduate or chooseto leave. All orchestras that do not pay professionals saidthat they give students priority in principal chairs. In orderto maintain sound leadership, particularly if the principalchair is an inexperienced student, a faculty member orstrong community member is often placed on the insideof the first stand. This allows the student to get theexperience of leading with help from another strong player.One conductor said, “I always use students as principalplayers, give them the responsibility of bowing the parts,leading the section, playing the solos, but the facultymember [or community person] who sits beside him orher becomes a mentor who is ultimately responsible.”

ORCHESTRA GOVERNANCE

An ensemble that interacts positively will produce muchbetter music than one pervaded by strife and negativity.The personality of the conductor and the governance ofthe orchestra can have an enormous effect upon members’attitudes. “One comment on my teaching evaluations was‘Now that we [students] have input into the orchestra Ienjoy playing more because I feel like my opinions reallymatter.’” Another commented, “Some of my communitypeople just want to play, while others are really interestedin lending their experience and wisdom to the board. Allmy students, however, want a say in how the orchestra isrun. They’re not interested in artistic control, but just wantto help with PR and ideas for different kinds of concerts.

All of them feel that having input in the form of committeesand an elected Board makes the ensemble moreeducational and challenging.”

The conductor/artistic director, alone, governs 77% ofthe orchestras surveyed. The only remarks made byconductors who assumed sole leadership were: “I havean instrumental handbook that I wrote,” and “as aUniversity course, we do have a syllabus.”

Most of the other 23% (those that do have boards) areliberal arts colleges. Few have constitutions that structurethe government. All have at least a president and theconductor/music director on the board. Four have at-large community members and no at-large students. Twoschools include at-large students and no at-largecommunity members; two other schools have both. Oneschool has a chaplain and a student conductor on its boardin addition to a full slate of officers. Some boards meetmonthly, others twice each year, and still another, twiceeach semester. Length of meeting time ranges from oneto three hours.

The thing I like best about the board is that I don’t have to

worry about whether problems exist. My board members keep

me apprised of any problems so we can take steps to solve them

before any major issues arise. Many times an orchestra does

not feel comfortable talking directly with me about something

of concern, but most are very comfortable with their peers.

They especially like the at-large members because these people

are there primarily to foster good communication. [A] member

can share anything with them and I become aware of potential

conflicts.

General tasks of the various boards include publicrelations, fund raising, social events, conflict resolution,music selection, and budget. Another conductorcommented, “The most important aspect of myorchestra’s governing body is the communication comfortlevel when the members don’t have to talk to theconductor directly. They are more comfortable givingsuggestions to their peers.” From these two statements,perhaps the main responsibility of the governing body is

54 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

to help maintain good communication between conductorand members.

Of the conductors surveyed, 45% ask for input regardingrepertoire, 30% allow “some” input, and the rest do not.Some comments follow: “I generally ask for input duringone year that will be used for the next academic year. Itry to vary the repertoire so that it challenges differentsections for each concert.” “I want them to like therepertoire, but I must choose based on its educationalvalue as well.” “My orchestra often comes up with bettersuggestions than I do because many of them, especiallythe community people, have played longer than I have.”It would seem that encouraging suggestions is important.

Many factors are involved in the choice of repertoire,some of which, such as budget restrictions, the conductormay not be willing to share with the group for appropriatereasons. One conductor whose yearly budget forrepertoire was $500 said “I hesitate to share the amountof my budget with the orchestra or they might think wecan’t afford to perform good music. They know we havea small library.” This can be particularly true in anacademic setting.. “One program I chose turned out tobe too easy for the orchestra. They learned all the musicso quickly that I had to add a piece or two. I asked themfor suggestions and got several good ones. When I addedthe extra piece, several community members told me thatthey were excited and challenged by the new pieces andwere glad I had asked them for help. The same peoplealso said that they were glad all the music was not thisdifficult.”

RECRUITING AND RETENTION

Seventy-six percent of the schools indicated the constantneed to recruit strings. In surveyed community colleges,the turnover of students is so great that they indicated theneed to have a very strong community base, particularlyin the string area. One school indicated concern over lackof quality as well as quantity among string players. “Wenot only have trouble getting strings, but I am concernedabout the quality of the ones we do get.” Only 10% ofthe schools needed to recruit woodwinds, 3% neededbrass, 11% needed percussion, and 10% indicated thattheir needs vary significantly from year to year. “The

inconsistency of percussion needs presents a problem.We have no solid core of regular percussionists exceptour own timpanist. We fill the section ad hoc.” “Percussionneeds vary greatly from concert to concert. We almostalways need a timpanist, but not all timpanists can playother instruments so I tend to shy away from music withmany percussion parts. It is also difficult to know how toredistribute the parts if we don’t have enough players tocover all of them.”

Lack of academic credit was another concern. Over thepast decade many schools that had never given academiccredit for ensembles have begun to do so. Those schoolsthat do not yet offer credit are finding that current studentsmay not become part of an ensemble without it. Oneconductor said, “When our school began to offeracademic credit six years ago, the size of our ensemblesalmost doubled. I also believe that today’s society is oneof rewards. Students feel that if there is no externalreward, the internal one is not good enough to satisfythem. It is sad.”

Competition among colleges and lack of scholarship fundswere two other repeated concerns among conductors.“More and more, it’s not about how good you are, buthow much money you can offer the student. Schools arefinding it necessary to ‘buy’ students.” In urban areaswhere there may be as many as twenty or thirty schools,competition for talent is often fierce. Several conductorsin schools with populations less than 2000 indicated thatlarger schools with bigger orchestras seem to be attractingmore students, especially strings.

Schools are addressing recruitment needs in a number ofways:

75% used word-of-mouth,65% contacted high school teachers,60% made telephone calls30% ran ads in community newspapers23% ran ads in campus newspapers 3% did nothing

Some suggestions to enhance recruiting were: creatingchamber groups within the orchestra, sending outinformation packets to incoming college and area highschool students, having faculty and/or the orchestra itself

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 55

visit area high schools and area festivals, telephoningcommunity musicians, and creating and distributing flyersin the community.

Of recruiting quality string players, one conductor said,“We also teach pre-college students [in order] to raisethe standards of string playing in the area.” A number ofschools are beginning preparatory programs for children.Some sponsor Suzuki programs, others haveneighborhood music schools, where children in urbanareas can come to the college on Saturdays forinstruction. The instructors for these lessons rangefrom graduate and exceptional undergraduatestudents to adjunct and sometime even full-timefaculty. The experience for student instructors isinvaluable, particularly those who want to teach aftergraduation. If a high school student, for example, istaught by a current college student and is goodenough to play in the orchestra, the fact that thecollege student is also in the ensemble will stimulatea child’s interest in joining the orchestra. The feesfor these lessons are graduated according to parentalincomes, and the schools often make specialarrangements with a local music store to rentinstruments. This helps both school and communityto make yet another connection.

Two conductors solved the problem of scholarshipneeds by establishing patron committees that createdan endowment fund. Another worked with thedevelopment office at his college to target specificdonors for endowed chairs.

Although all these issues are important in therecruitment process, it is often the personalities ofthose doing the recruiting that can make the mostdifference. “If they like and trust the conductor,recruiting is much easier. If the membership is upbeatand positive, they will attract more people.” “I findthat the more accessible I am to the membership, themore they will recruit on their own for the ensemble.It is definitely word of mouth that makes the mostdifference.”

The level of repertoire affects retention. If the musicis too easy, the membership is bored; if it is toodifficult, some people become discouraged. Many

conductors commented on this issue with variousperspectives: “I come here to play. I have arthritisand I can’t practice too much. I’m willing to do whatI can, but if the music’s too hard I won’t stay in [theorchestra].” “It is often difficult to choose repertoirethat is challenging enough to keep the students happy,but easy enough that the community people don’tneed to put in hours of practice.” “Students resentthe community players that show up once in a while anddon’t practice their parts.” Another related comment was“I can’t build the quality of the orchestra if the communityplayers don’t practice.”

How do we deal with the people in the orchestra thatdon’t practice? Several conductors indicated that, for thestudent, the grade helps that process. The communitypopulation must be inspired to practice. In the area ofstudent resentment for community players who don’tpractice and whose attendance is not good, oneconductor said “Therefore, students and communityplayers [together] decide whether or not [the recalcitrantplayers] can continue to stay with the orchestra.” Anothersaid, “I make sure to have community as well as studentson the Board of Directors. These issues have beenaddressed in our Constitution, a document that is givento each member upon entrance into the orchestra.” “Ibelieve that repertoire can make all the difference [in theretention process], so I ask for input from both communityand student members.” “I have found that by making thecommunity people active in the organization, either byhaving representatives on the Board, or by setting upcommittees in which they can participate, they come moreregularly.” “We have an attendance policy for all members.There is some leeway for work, but our players all mustfollow the rules or may not remain in the orchestra.”

The subject of adjunct faculty was also a concern. “Wehave few full-time instrumental teachers on ourfaculty.”1Another pertinent comment was: “The adjunctfaculty will not play in the orchestra unless they get paid.The full-time faculty members don’t have time to play inthe orchestra. If we had more faculty in the orchestra, Ithink more of our students and community people wouldstay.”

Some general suggestions for retention were also made

56 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

“I take my orchestra on an outing each semester. Whenthey bond with one another it’s easier to keep them yearafter year. Sometimes we go to a concert; other times toa local master class.” “I bring in guest conductors.” “Ihost workshops and master classes on my campus.” “Wetry to have professional meetings on campus that concernstring players.” “I try to be as flexible as possible with theschedule for non-majors and community personnel.”

PROGRAMING

Since most orchestras play a variety of music writtenbefore the twentieth century, the only style period thesurvey addressed was the twentieth century. Of theschools surveyed, 58% perform twentieth-century musicon a regular basis. Conductors indicated that 15% of therest perform it sometimes and 27% do not perform it atall. Sixteen schools (70%) of the fifty-eight percent thatperform it regularly are liberal arts colleges. Oneconductor who regularly performs twentieth-centurymusic added, “. . . and we regularly do works by livingcomposers, very important.”

The biggest stumbling block to the performance oftwentieth-century music appears to be budget. A greatdeal of that music is rental-only and the fees tend to behigh. Fees usually depend on the length of the piece,seating capacity of the venue, whether or not it is open tothe public, whether or not there is an admission charge,and how many performances will be done. In the popand musical theatre realm, that fee goes even higher. Asone conductor from a small liberal arts college said, “Yourlibrary hasn’t gained anything and you must rent again toperform the piece at some future date.” An even strongercomment was also made, “Why should I have to rent apiece of music and pay extra fees when my school isalready licensed, as it should be, by ASCAP, BMI, andSESAC? Those blanket licenses are very reasonable andI have no problem with that, but I feel that I am beingcharged twice for the privilege of playing music that Iconsider important.” Another said, “If conductors don’tchampion and commission new works by livingcomposers, who will? But I am disappointed to hearabout a new work, or even to commission one, and thendiscover that I can’t perform it, or can’t perform it againwithout a rental fee.”

Many living composers are sensitive to those issues. Atthe recent Southeastern regional Conductors Guildmeeting in Atlanta, composer James Oliverio made a pointto tell conductors that he is self-published and has a slidingfee scale for all his pieces. He stressed that he will workwith any school to help make it possible for them toperform his music. Other composers are also beginningto do that. With the creation of computer-notationsoftware, it is much easier to be self-published, so partsare easier to generate and maintain. This can substantiallyhelp to reduce fees. One conductor’s comment that seemsvitally important was, “I used to make assumptions thatall rental fees were outside my budgetary capability. I amoften wrong and so I now don’t rule anything out until Icheck it out.”

BUDGET

Total budget figures reported in the survey range from$300 to $100,000 per year. No correlation between sizeof school or type of institution and the yearly budgetamount was evident from the numbers (Appendix A).The orchestra with the highest number of paid players(54) has an annual budget of $18,000. In the case of anorchestra with a $17,000 annual budget, regular salaries(10 paid players) account for 60% of that ensemble’sexpenses. The orchestra with the largest budget($100,000) has only 7 paid players. Soloists account for20% of its total expenses and extra salary for theconductor (beyond that which the college pays) accountsfor 33%. Music rental and purchase combined are only3% of that orchestra’s budget and players’ salariesaccount for 18%.

Conductors indicated that revenues were often obtainedfrom multiple sources. Some schools got revenues fromeach category, while others got all revenue from onecategory. Most obtained funds from at least two of thesources below:

college funds: 98%corporate sponsors: 28%private donors: 28% arts grants: 18%endowed funds: 15%fund raising: 10%other grants: 2%member dues: 2%

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 57

See Appendix B for a table showing the relationship between revenue origins and the population of the institution.Expenses included everything from players’ salaries to scholarship aid. Several conductors indicated that their fundswere simply part of the general music department budget and they didn’t know exactly how much they had to spend.One conductor said, “[It is] difficult to identify as we are a university orchestra, so, for example, office supplies aresupplied as needed, as are publicity, travel, house management, instrument maintenance, and recruiting activities.The only ‘budget’ item I can refer to is music purchase/rental.” “Funds are spent in [the areas of recruitment andretention, publicity, and office supplies] but they come from the General Music Department budget and not theOrchestra Budget.” Others had “separate budgets for each category.” Expenses that were listed under “other” weresalaries for conductors and business managers.

Music purchase and rental represents a high proportion of many budgets. It would be helpful in smaller towns if alibrary could be created that is central to a group of member schools and maintained by fees from each institution ororchestra from which parts could be borrowed. For those of us in areas where there is a regional or state orchestrathat has a good library, perhaps arrangements could be made to pay them the fee and use their resources. Themoney would help with upkeep of the library, perhaps even hiring an extra librarian just to help fill the needs of theborrowers.

CONCLUSION

We initially assumed that schools with larger student populations would have larger orchestras and budgets. We alsothought that non-liberal-arts schools would most likely have larger orchestras and budgets than liberal arts colleges,particularly because many of these institutions have schools of music or conservatories from which to draw students.Yet our data revealed no differences between liberal arts and non-liberal arts schools in terms of anything surveyed;however, since our study excluded orchestras made up only of students or students and faculty, it presumablyexcluded many institutions in the conservatory or large school-of-music category. Such institutions may well fit ouroriginal assumptions.

Issues faced by student-community orchestras are unusual in many ways. These groups can bring their communitiesand colleges together like no other activity. Our goal was to assess the status of these ensembles regarding specificissues, using our findings to suggest ways they could be improved. Respondents’ commentaries turned out to bemore useful than the statistics, since the quantitative data we gathered yielded few significant correlations. Manyanecdotes, however, contained helpful suggestions in matters such as personnel, scheduling, and repertoire.

Rebecca Jones Rose is currently a Social Studies Teacher and Music Ministry Co-Moderator at St. Pius the XCatholic High School, Atlanta, GA. She also plays in the Agnes Scott College Community Orchestra.

Lyn Schenbeck has her doctorate in both Instrumental and Choral Conducting from the University ofColorado-Boulder. Her many accomplishments include conducting choirs and orchestras around the country,writing liner notes for 5 different record labels, and serving on the Board of Governors of the NARAS/Atlanta. Dr. Schenbeck is currently Director of Choral and Orchestral Activities at Agnes Scott College inDecatur, Georgia, where she conducts the Orchestra, two choirs, and teaches voice and opera/musical theatre.

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One of the most rewarding and challenging pursuits aconductor can undertake is directing and conducting anamateur community choir. The singing membership ofthese ensembles presents the conductor with an array ofabilities, backgrounds, and ages as they express a loveof music making that drives and enlivens their pursuit formusical excellence. Robert Shaw addressed thisparticular aspect of amateur music making in a letter tothe Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, “I have felt forsome years that the arts were too important to be leftentirely to the professionals...Even with the ‘best ofintentions,’ the things that people do ‘for love’ are likelyto undergo modification when done only ‘for money.’”1

Aside from the challenges of governance, marketing, andfund-raising, conductors of amateur community choirsmust address the problems resulting from the “blended”vocal abilities of their ensemble. Unlike most othercommunity music organizations where private lessons orschool study were necessary for members to learn toplay their instruments, the membership of these ensemblesis a confluence of singers who have never studied voiceand singers who are well trained. Often, a commonmusical and vocal technical languages may not exist. Thequestions of whether the conductor should be teachingvoice, of the effectiveness of group instruction, or evenof whether choral demands on the voice versus solodemands on the voice are compatible will not bediscussed in this article. The voice is, however, the

instrument with which the conductor must work withinan ensemble of “blended” abilities often without the benefitof a common vocabulary.

Group vocal challenges are as numerous as the articlesand books on vocal pedagogy. This article will addressonly one issue, the utilization of the head voice with thegoal of correcting some vocal problems common to mostamateur community choirs. Specifically these problemsare: the soprano and alto voice between G4 and C5,inflexibility and pitch obscurity in the bass voice belowD3, and strident singing beyond, or inability to accessnotes above, the upper passaggio for sopranos andtenors. Simple exercises that require little technicalexplanation will be suggested to correct these problems.These suggestions are not intended to be a panacea.Thomas Hemsley writes, “In practice, if singers are todevelop the ability to respond with accuracy and subtletyto all shades of feeling and meaning, the head-voice ormezza voce must be an essential ingredient in all theirsinging.”2

It must be stated here that there are differing opinionsamong voice professionals on the number of vocalregisters. James McKinney, and many voice-scienceprofessionals, identify three registers: modal, fry, andfalsetto (for men) or whistle (for women). McKinney statesfurther, that it is in the modal register where the majorityof singing occurs. It is the non-static nature of the larynx

ENGAGING THE HEAD VOICE:SIMPLE EXERCISES FOR AMATEUR COMMUNITY CHOIRS

By Welborne E. Young

VOCAL RANGES

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 67

and the thinning or thickening of the vocal folds that allowsevenness and transition of the singing voice from lowestnotes to highest.3 Richard Miller, on the other hand, writesthat the terminology used by “speech investigators”(McKinney may be included) is too limiting and ignores“the subtle differences in a number of register timbresrecognized in traditional schools of singing.”4 He furtherstates, there are two transition points or passaggi, theprimo passaggio and the secondo passaggio, that definethree registers: the chest voice, the mix or middle voice,and the head voice.5 Miller relies on historical writing,recognition of aural cues in timbre, and singer sensationand vibration to support his statement. The untrainedsingers especially need the timbre and sensation indicatorsto improve their singing. It is Miller’s vocal registerterminology that will be used here.

Because of their vital connection to engaging the head-voice, two topics specific to the entire ensemble need tobe discussed before proceeding to the main body of thepaper, 1) the steps to producing the singing voice and 2)vowel production. First, untrained singers and theensemble in general need a systematic and consistentapproach to creating sound. Appropriate space precedesan energized breath, which precedes sound or, basically:space, air, and then sound. Appropriate space includesboth pharyngeal space and aperture (mouth opening)space. This brings to mind the often-used expression,“Breath in the vowel.” If the singer can re-create thesensation, then the vocal tract and the aperture will be inthe correct position to produce the desired sound. Whilethere are several differing views on breathing, JamesMcKinney outlines the process in four steps: inhalation,suspension, exhalation (singing), and recovery.6 It is inthe transition from the suspension phase to the exhalationphase that many amateur singers have trouble. Thetendency is to mistakenly use too much tension inpositioning the vocal folds as a valve to hold air in thusmaking them rigid. This rigidity affects onset and allsubsequent sounds. Glottal onsets, ragged starts, andoverly weighty, dull, and inflexible singing are indicatorsof this problem. Two exercises applied in warm-ups canassist the singers in becoming aware of the vocalmechanism without undue technical explanation from theconductor. During breathing exercises, reduce or eliminatethe suspension phase by immediately and gently reversingthe airflow after inhalation. This will help keep the vocal

folds open and pliable. Miller writes of an aspirate onsetto help correct this problem as well.7 Have the choirperform Exercise 1. Request that the ensemble sustainan aspirate sound on the first pitch and slowly allow thevocal folds to engage until the most vibrant singing tone isachieved before completing the exercise. Begin theexercise in the key of D and ascend by half steps. Do notexceed the key of B-flat. This range of keys aids thesinger in strengthening the middle voice by mixing the headvoice down.

Second, finding the correct gradation of vowel or vowelcolor for the pitch to be sung is frequently difficult foruntrained singers. What may be the most vibrant vowelproduction for the alto section at a specific pitch mayneed to be modified by all other sections because of thepitches those sections are singing or singer ability. Millerstates, “In the historical Italian School concentration ison graduated vowel modification. Flexible adjustment ofthe vocal tract must be permitted in order to define allvowel forms.”8 This implies that a unified ensemble vowelmay require simultaneous adjustments of that vowel fromsection to section based on range. It is, therefore, notcontrary to state that conductors must strive for vowelunification throughout the ensemble especially when thatmeans a variety of vowel colors are necessary to unifythe group vowel sound. Below, Chart 1 illustrates thecontinuum of vowels using the International PhoneticAlphabet (IPA).

Given the fluid nature of vowel color in relation to pitch,this investigation will address only the most common issuewith the [a] sound. Frequently, the untrained singer cannotsense the pharyngeal space needed to correctly producethe vowels at any given pitch. A most common erroroccurs when the open vowel [a] becomes [^] in the

CHART 1

EXERCISE 1

68 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

singer’s voice. The pharyngeal space has collapsed andthe soft palate has dropped. The untrained singer needsto feel the sensation necessary to correct this problem.Ask the ensemble to repeat after you while you vary the[a] sound in brightness and pitch in rapid succession. Oncethe ensemble achieves the vibrancy and space you areseeking, immediately apply that sound to Exercise 1above. If there is a particular place in the music you areworking on that requires that sound apply it there as well.

Many untrained singers inadvertently isolate vocalregisters. One common example of this is found in thesoprano and alto voice in the range G4 to C5. At oneextreme there is the upper limit of the chest voice and atthe other extreme there is the lower limit of the head voice.When isolated, the untrained chest voice will have strengthto about G4, while the untrained head voice will havestrength beginning about C5. Singing with pure head-voicebelow C5 produces a weak unfocused sound, whileforcing the chest-voice above G4 produces a loud, rawsound. Both lack focus and pitch integrity. A mixture ofthese two voices must occur to create evenness andflexibility in this range. Singers should try to strengthenand integrate the head voice down. Hemsley states, “Onething is certain...the head-voice must always be part ofthe mixture, and should always lead.”9 To achieve thismixture in women’s voices the [u] and [o]sounds tend toprovide the most pharyngeal space. These closed vowelscan also aid in reducing the amount of chest voice a singermight tend to engage. In Exercise 2 below, the singersshould be encouraged to create the necessary space,accelerate the air, resist getting louder as they ascend thefirst interval of a perfect fourth, and maintain a pianodynamic. Further, they should maintain the openness andlight production they achieved as they descend. Beginthe exercise in the key of D and ascend to the key of F orF-sharp. Work your way back to the key of D. Again,this range of keys develops the middle voice by integratingthe head voice down.

When done correctly, the singers will feel the lengthening

of the vocal tract as they ascend without losing the forwardfocus of the [u] sound. Used in warm-ups this aids thesinger in exploring the head voice.

Whether it is a reflection of current cultural influences ora misunderstanding by singers that what they feel as theysing is necessarily what is heard, many amateur basssingers overly darken vowels and overly engage theirchest voice. This practice renders the voice inflexible,obscures the pitch, and actually reduces the volumeproduced. Bass singers should not falsely add to thetimbre they naturally create. Most often, the singer makestoo much space too low in the vocal register and singstoo loudly creating a faux bass resonance. This may causean abundance of vibration in their heads, but the actualsound is trapped in the mouth and throat and lacksvibrancy and direction. Inability to move notes in tempo,to accurately sing correct intervals greater than a third,and to sustain pitch integrity are all symptoms of a lack ofhead-voice integration. To correct this, begin with afalsetto exercise that has two stages. Singers should singa descending five-note major scale from dominant to tonicon either [u] or [o] beginning high in the falsetto. Eachsuccession of the exercise is a half step lower. Singersshould carry the falsetto as low as possible. This providesthe singer with a pharyngeal sensation that they shouldbe able to re-create in the head voice. Ask the singers tonow sing the same exercise beginning on B3 utilizing thepharyngeal space and lightness of production theydeveloped from the falsetto stage of the exercise. Thehead voice will probably be weak but should develop.Exercise 3 illustrates another exercise to integrate the headvoice down. On the lowest note, the singer changes tothe [u] sound and is encouraged to create the necessaryspace and accelerate the breath prior to negotiating theoctave leap. Further, the pharyngeal space and light vocalproduction should be carried down the scale.

For greatest effectiveness, this exercise should be carriedno higher than the key of E and no lower than the key ofA. For all sections, rapid scale and arpeggios should be

EXERCISE 2

EXERCISE 3

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 69

scheduled regularly into the warm-ups to improve vocalflexibility, breath management, and integration of the headvoice.

Sopranos and tenors frequently encounter troubleaccessing notes in the highest part of their range andmaking them beautiful within the context of the ensemblesound. The more extreme the note or the more demandingthe tessitura, greater is the need for the singer tounderstand how vowel modification, integration of thehead voice, and breath energy affect the voice as itapproaches the upper notes. Sudden shifts in space, bothpharyngeal and aperture, or inappropriate adjustmentsin breath energy at the apogee of the vocal line defeatbeautiful singing. Above all, the conductor must help thesinger sense the subtle changes in vowel, breath energy,and pharyngeal space prior to arriving at the moment.Exercise 4 couples an energized breath with vowelmodification exercises as the singer moves from a closedbright sound [i]or closed dark sound [o]to the open [a].Again, it is the more closed vowels that encourageutilization of the head voice. Begin the exercise with the[i] sound. As the singers ascend, the vowel should modifyslightly (open) as they reach the top and sing [a]. Eachrepetition of the exercise should be a half step higher. Atthe key of E or F change the beginning sound to [o]. Thischange should allow for more pharyngeal and aperturespace for the higher notes.

It is important that the conductor listens for and correctsany [a] sound that is too spread or too dark as this willimpede the singers’ ability to access the highest noteswith any grace. A more legato exercise that focuses onspace and vowel modification to encourage the utilizationof the head voice is below in Exercise 5. This exercisecan be sung on [i], [o], or [a] with modification as thesinger approaches the perfect fifth. Modify the [i] soundwith the aid of a closed German mixed vowel, “ü” [y](this vowel is considered mixed because the lips, aperture,and pharyngeal space are placed for the [u] sound but

the tongue is placed for the [i] sound), modify the [o] to[U], and modify the [a] to [É].

This exercise, like the others, ascends by half step. Thesingers should become aware of the space and breathneeded to sing beautiful vowels above the staff. As hasbeen mentioned before, the use of rapid scales andarpeggios extends the vocal range, encourages anenergized breath, requires vowel modification, and aidsin integrating the head voice.

Shaw has written, “It is clear to anyone who has workedwith choruses of both ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ voices,that well-taught voices can make a better choral soundthan un-taught voices. The teaching of voice has to beone of the most difficult and complicated of musicalendeavors. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it – and, ifyou’re the one doing it, you have to depend upon someoneelse even to hear it.”10 Developing the head voice is oneelement necessary for the conductor to successfullycombine the “blended” abilities of an amateur communitychoir. It can strengthen the soprano and alto middle voice,lighten and add vibrancy and accuracy to the bass voice,and assist the soprano and tenor voices into their highestpitches. This will in-turn improve ensemble intonation,blend, balance, vibrancy, and open avenues to moreexpressive, dynamic singing. The suggestions given hereare by no means intended to be all encompassing. Theyare what many amateurs need; simple and to the point,related to sensation, and fairly easy to execute.

One final word about amateur community choirs. Whenthe ensemble is confident of the technical work andtherefore free to give heart, personal experience, and spiritto their performance, the music lives in a special way.This type of performance transforms the individual singer,the conductor, and the audience alike. Humankind isrewarded with the lofty ideas that sustain the soul. Thischoral work is rewarding.

EXERCISE 4

EXERCISE 5

70 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

ENDNOTES

1 Robert Shaw, Letter to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, November 9, 1983.

2 Thomas Hemsley, Singing and Imagination: A Human Approach to a Great Musical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 52.3 James McKinney, The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults, p. 97.

4 Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing, p. 115

5 ibid.

6 McKinney, p. 51.

7 Miller, p. 8.

8 Miller, p. 155.

9 Hemsley, p. 54.

10 Robert Shaw, Letter to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, September 20, 1984.

WORKS CITED

Hemsley, Thomas: Singing and Imagination: A Human Approach to a Great Musical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

McKinney, James C.: The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1982.

Miller, Richard: The Structure of Singing. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986.

Shaw, Robert: Atlanta, to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus. (Provided through the generosity and kindness of Randy Price, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.)

Welborn Young, formerly the Artistic Director and Conductor for Windy City Performing Arts in Chicago, ison the choral faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is the Director of the ChoralSociety of Greensboro.

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JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 71

Originally published in 1960 by Editions Salabert, the first edition of Poulenc’s Gloria included a full score, a piano/vocal score, a choral score, and orchestral parts (available on rental only). As pointed out in several earlier publications,the materials of this first printing contain several hundred errors, from missing markings to incorrect notes andrhythms.1 In addition, the three scores and the parts conflict in dozens of places.

In 1996, Salabert issued a new printing of the three scores (but not the orchestral parts). The new piano/vocal andchoral scores are not corrected—they are simply reprints of the earlier scores with new covers. The full score,however, is newly engraved, and many of the errors found in the first edition have been corrected.

The new full score is a welcome improvement with many enhancements (such as measure numbers), but over ahundred errors and conflicts remain. The job of identifying and correcting the remaining mistakes is a long andlaborious process.

The first step in solving the problem of the errors in the performing materials is to assure that you receive the 1996 fullscore.

Below is a list of the errors appearing in the new full score, along with a some clarifying discussion.

GENERAL COMMENT

The Bass Clarinet always transposes a second rather than a ninth, even when written in treble clef.

By Lee G. Barrow

FRANCIS POULENC’S GLORIA

CORRECTIONS TO NEW (1996) FULL SCORE

ABBREVIATIONS

A Alto Hn Horn T TenorB Bass Hp Harp Tbn TromboneBCl Bass Clarinet l.h. left hand Timp TimpaniBsn Bassoon MS manuscript Tpt TrumpetCb Contrabass Ob Oboe Vc ‘CelloCl Clarinet r.h. right hand Vla ViolaEH English Horn S Soprano Vln I 1st ViolinFl Flute Ssolo Soprano soloist Vln II 2nd Violin

72 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

I. GLORIA

MEASURE # REHEARSAL INSTRUMENT CORRECTION

1 4 before 1 EH remove slur from 3rd to 4th notes* 5 1 Bsns,Vc,Cb remove slurs from 3 rd to 4 th notes ?2

* 9 2 Brass remove slurs from 3 rd to 4 th notes ?2

12 3 before 3 All add ’ at end of measure 15 3 B change dynamic to mp 15 3 Vln II add unis. 22 4th of 4 Bsns remove sans sourd.* 22 4th of 4 Harp remove notes, insert rest3

33 4 before 7 Bsns change dynamic to p 35 2 before 7 Cl,BCl change dynamic to mp 41 2 before 8 Tbn 2(3) this measure is for 3 rd Tbn, not 2nd

46 3 before 9 Tbn 2 change last note from A# to B47-48 2-1 before 9 Ob 2 add accent on downbeat of both measures (note that in

Ob 1 the first accent is placed in the staff above)* 55 1 before 10 T raise all notes in this measure up one octave4

* 61 1 before 11 Fl change measure to read: 5

* 62 11 Bsns Add a2

II. Laudamus te

10 3rd of 13 Vln I be aware that the parts have:

15 5 before 15 A add dynamic f 15 5 before 15 B add dynamic mf* 17 3 before 15 A, B remove syllable “-a” and add tie?6

23 4th of 15 Fls MS has no dynamic indication; could be f 24 16 Vln I add div, (tutti refers to la moitié in previous measure) 32 18 Fl 2 low C at forte is correct* 32 18 Vla (lower) change last note from B to C7

* 34 3 rd of 18 Ob 1 change B to A?8

34 3 rd of 18 A,T change word fragment from “a-mus” to “ca-mus” 36 19 Bsns change dynamic from f to ff 41 6th of 19 Obs change 1. to a2 41 6th of 19 S change dynamic from f to mf 46 20 All change time sig. to 4/4, remove Alto’s final quarter rest46-48 1st 3 of 20 S,A this line (“Gratias agimus tibi”) is for Alto, not Sopr.;

extend each slur to cover all notes in its measure

(the manuscript has:)

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 73

49 21 Vla add unis. 50 2nd of 21 Vln II clarification: last note of upper part is C-flat 52 4th of 21 Vla Add divisi

58 4 before 23 A,B add dynamic mf

58 4 before 23 Cb add pizz.71-72 3-2 before 24 Vla add divisi in m. 71, unis. in m. 72 80 2 before 26 Vlns add divisi 81 1 before 26 Vla add divisi at end of measure

III. Domine Deus

1 27 All strings add sourdines (for entire movement) 8-9 1-2 of 28 S solo add slur to “Domine”10-11 3-4 of 28 S solo add slur to “Domine” 16 2 before 29 T add breath mark between “Deus” and “Pater” 18 29 Vln I change dynamic to ppp (other strings retain pp) 18 29 Vla add unis.18-19 1-2 of 29 S solo add single slur to “Pater omnipotens”* 20 3 rd of 29 Bsn change to read:

20 3 rd of 29 B change dynamic to ppp20-21 3-4 of 29 S solo add slur to “Domine” 22 5th of 29 S solo add dynamic mf at beginning22-23 5-6 of 29 S solo add slur to “Domine” 23 6th of 29 S solo add dynamic f on 2nd beat24-25 1-2 of 30 S solo remove slur from “Rex coelestis”, both measures 28 2 before 31 Vln I change dynamic to p (other strings retain mf)29-30 1 before 31 S add single slur to “Pater omnipotens”* 30 31 Vlns,Vla add divisi30-31 1-2 of 31 S solo, T add slur to “Domine”* 32 3rd of 31 Vla add unis.38-39 1-2 of 32 B change both measures:

41 1 before 33 A change last note to 16th note followed by 16th rest* 42 33 Vlns,Vla add unis. 43 2nd of 33 Ob change to read:

45-46 1-2 of 34 S solo add slur to “Domine”47-48 3-4 of 34 S solo add slur to “Domine” 51 35 T moitié, not tous51-52 1-2 of 35 S solo add single slur to “Deus Pater”

74 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

53-54 3-4 of 35 S solo add single slur to “Pater omnipotens”

IV. Domine Fili unigenite

8 3 before 37 Trp 2-3 add 2. (2nd trumpet only) 13 3rd of 37 EH dynamic f is not in MS; still fff?* 14 4th of 35 Obs add accents on beats 2 and 3 as in EH9

22 39 Bsns first and last notes are C# (add sharp)* 38 3-4 of 35 Vla 1 add arco on 2nd beat, as in Vln II 39 3-4 of 35 T,B add dynamic ff

V. Domine Deus

1 42 All in MS, tempo indication is Très lent, not Bien lent 1 42 Bsns add dynamic ff 2 2nd of 42 Harp Change lower note in r.h. to A-flat to avoid G-nat.-G#

(MS) has Fx-G#

4 43 All “sans presser” does not appear in the MS; piano/vocalMS has “plus allant”, MS has nothing

4 43 Fl,Picc add solo 14 1 before 45 All dynamics: NIS has f for upper woodwinds, no marking

for bassoons, mf for horns, no marking for harp andstrings; decrescendo begins in middle of measure for all

15-16 1-2 of 45 S solo add slur to each “Domine Deus” 21 5 before 46 Cls remove ties, last two notes (EH and BCI ties remain) 21 5 before 46 B raise last note (“-tis”) up one octave 22 4 before 46 S solo add dot to first note; subsequent notes in measure are

misaligned22-23 4-3 before 46 S solo add slur to each “Domine Deus” 23 3 before 46 T remove mf (maintain pp; mf is for T solo only)* 23 3 before 46 Vla change last beat to eighth note + eighth rest 33 3rd of 47 S solo add one slur to “deprecationem” (MS: S solo but not B) 33 3rd of 47 All dynamics?10

34 2 before 48 Vln II remove arco and slur (still pizz.) 35 1 before 48 Vln II add arco 36 48 Vla1-2,Vc add solo on last note of measure 38 3rd of 48 Vc change 6th note from C# to D#

* 39 4th of 48 Vla 1-2,Vc add solo on last note of measure* 42 1 before 49 Vc,Cb raise last note of measure up one octave?11

43 49 S solo add slur to “deprecationem” (MS: solo only, not chorus) 43 49 Cb change dynamic to ff (retain f for other strings) 44 2nd of 49 S solo,S add slur to “nostram” (MS: both solo and S chorus)* 45 1 before 50 Vc,Cb raise last note of measure up one octave?11

48-49 3-4 of 50 S solo add slur to each “Domine Deus”

Note: pickup is numbered as measure 1, first complete measure is numbered as measure 2.

Note: pickup is numbered as measure 1, first complete measure is numbered as measure 2. This caused theopening measures in the Oboe II part to extract incorrectly as two measures rest rather than a quarterpickup followed by one measure rest.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 75

50 5th of 50 S solo add slur to “Agnus”, add slur to “Dei” 51 6th of 50 Vln II change last note from F-flat to E-flat 52 7th of 50 Cls note that Cl2 part is written on Cl1 staff 53 51 Strings change rhythm to read:

55 52 Tpt 1-2 change dynamic from mf to f 60 53 Vln I one too many notes - change to read:

* 60 53 Vla upper part: change 2nd & 6th notes from C to D-flat12

60-61 1-2 of 53 S solo remove slur on “peccata mundi”* 62 3rd of 53 Tpt 1-2 add ties 13

65-66 1-2 of 54 S solo add slur to each “Domine Deus”67-68 3-4 of 54 S solo add slur to each “Agnus” and to each “Dei” 72 55 Vla add pizz.* 72 55 Vc add pizz.

VI. Qui sedes

4 4 of 57 Hn3-4, Tuba, remove dot from half note, add quarter rest at endTimp of measure (woodwinds and strings retain dot)

11 4 of 57 Hn 3-4 change last note from written D to E11-12 4-5 of 57 T &B add octave D’s:

13 58 All change metronome marking to q = 96* 14 2nd of 58 Obs,EH extend slurs to include one more note 15 3rd of 58 Vla,Vc first 2 beats pizz., last 2 beats arco (Vlns arco all beats) 18 6th of 58 Fl change last note from G# to B 24 3rd of 59 B change dynamic from f to ff31-32 1st 2 of 60 Vla add 16th note slash on each note (as in Vlns)* 34 4th of 60 Picc add 1. (1st piccolo only) 34 4th of 60 Vla add 16th note slash on each note 41 2nd of 61 EH change 4th note from written B-flat to A (E-flat in Tenor is

correct)* 46 1 before 62 Vlns,Vc,Cb add divisi49,51 3-4 of 54 Vlns,Vlas no further divisi-upper parts play upper note only, lower

parts play lower note only, remove other notes49-51 3-4 of 54 Vc add divisi in m. 49, unis. in m. 50, divisi in m. 51* 52 1 before 63 Strings add unis. for all 53 63 Cb add sourd. 57 1 before 64 A,B add “molto” above decrescendo 62 3 before 65 Vln II,Vc add natural

76 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

* 62 3 before 65 Hp raise last 4 notes in l.h. up an octave14

* 63 2 before 65 Hp raise last 3 notes in l.h. up an octave14

65 65 Vla,Vc add de la pointe 67 4 before 66 Vla raise first 3 notes up an octave 68 3 before 66 Vla,Vc add natural* 68 3 before 66 Hp raise last 4 notes in l.h. up an octave14

* 69 2 before 66 Hp raise last 3 notes in l.h. up an octave14

71-72 1-2 of 66 Vla,Vc add de la pointe; add tremolo slashes on each note 73 3rd of 66 Vla move alto clef one measure earlier (notes in m. 73 are

correct as printed once clef is moved) 73 3rd of 66 Vla,Vc add natural 75 3 before 67 Chorus add crescendo (appears only in Alto in MS)75-77 3-1 before 67 Vla,Vc add de la pointe and tremolo slashes 80 3rd of 67 B add tous 86 68 Hp Add ff at beginning of measure 86 68 Vla,Vc add natural 88 3rd of 68 Hp change l.h. to read: (nothing in r.h.)

* 88 3rd of 68 Vla solo remove lower note (D)

ENDNOTES

1Joe Hickman and Jeffry Moyers pointed out many errors in the American Choral Foundation Research Memorandum#143, November 1986. The author identified additional errors in the Research Memorandum #146, November1987, and discussed several problem areas in the July 1988 issue of the International Choral Bulletin. Joe Hickmanpublished a new list of corrections in the November 1999 Choral Journal.

2In the first measure of the work, the 3rd and 4th notes in the English Horn and the strings were originally slurred, butPoulenc crossed out the slurs. It is possible if not likely that he intended for them to be removed here as well. In thepiano/vocal manuscript, the slurs do not appear in any of the three statements of this figure.

3In this measure Poulenc wrote repeat signs (./.) on all instrumental staves rather than copying out the previousmeasure, a practice which created some errors elsewhere. Since the Harp plays in m. 19 but not in m. 20, it followsthat, for this virtually exact repeat, it should play in 21 but not 22. This is how the 1960 score reads.

4Both manuscripts originally had the Tenors as shown in the new score, but in both, [80—] was added above all notesin the measure. This is scratched out in the piano/vocal manuscript but not the orchestral manuscript. In the composer-supervised recording, the Tenors appear to be singing the upper octave.

5In the manuscript, the English Horn and the Flute originally had only one note on the downbeat of both this measureand the previous measure. In the English Horn, the final rest was erased and the second note added in both measures.This is also the case in m. 61 of the Flute; in m. 62, the rest was erased but the second note is missing.

6At two before 17 both manuscripts originally had “Glo-ri-a”, but in both Poulenc erased the final “-a” and added a tiebetween the last two notes. At 3 before 15, the last two notes of the Bass are also tied, so it is likely that the “-a” should

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 77

be removed here as well. Since the word “Gloria” is not apart of this portion of the text, perhaps Poulenc intendedthis as a fragment of the word “glorificamus.” Note thatanother fragment of this word appears just before 18.

7The manuscript does have a B here, but the piano/vocalmanuscript, the Viola part, and the doubling Horn all haveC. The C also creates a match with the other statementsof this figure.

8The manuscript clearly has G for Ob 2 (which Salaberthas changed to F) and B for Ob 1. The piano/vocalmanuscript has F-A here but no G or B. The cluster F-G-A-B (plus D-C in bass and E above) seems unlikely.A more likely possibility is that the G and B were intendedfor the transposing clarinets; note that this exact G-Bfigure, along with the same underlying harmony, appearsin the Clarinets at 4 before 15 and 6 after 19.

9In the manuscript, the accents are between the Oboe andEnglish Horn staves and are probably intended for both.

10In the manuscript, each staff was originally marked fhere except for the Contrabass, which had ff. These wereall changed to mf in red. In addition, large red p’s appearin two places (above the Flute and Violin 1 staves),butnone of the mf markings were removed. The piano/vocalmanuscript has f for the Soprano Solo andaccompaniment, mf for the Basses.

11The word “suscipe” appears seven times in this movement,almost always the same except for pitch. In the piano/vocalmanuscript, the accompanying bass line moves up oneoctave with each successive beat, each of the seven times.In the orchestral manuscript, the final note of the ‘Celloand Contrabass moves up the octave 3 times and staysdown 4 times, one of which Poulenc corrected with [80—]and one of which Salabert has raised. These corrections,along with the consistent piano/vocal manuscript, bring upthe possibility that all should move up.

12The manuscript does have C’s here, but in the piano/vocal manuscript the C’s were changed to D-flat. Withthis change, the measure matches all other appearancesof this figure between 50 and 55.

Lee G. Barrow, Professor of Music and Head of FineArts at North Georgia College & State University inDahlonega, has conducted college, church andcommunity choirs and orchestras for 25 years. He hasbeen researching Poulenc’s Gloria for two decades.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrow, Lee G. Errata in the Scores and Parts ofFrancis Poulenc’s Gloria: A Second Look.American Choral Foundation ResearchMemorandum #146, November 1987

___. Francis Poulenc’s Gloria: Clearing UpDiscrepancies Among the Published Scores.International Choral Bulletin, April 1988

Hickman, Joe and Jeffry Moyers. Errata in the Scoresand Parts of Francis Poulenc’s Gloria. AmericanChoral Foundation Research Memorandum #143,November 1986.1

Poulenc, Francis. Echo and Source: SelectedCorrespondence, 1915-1963. Translated and editedby Sidney Buckland. London: V. Gollancz, 1991.

1Joe Hickman and Jeffry Moyers identified many of theerrors in the American Choral Foundation ResearchMemorandum #143. Additional corrections appearedin Research Memorandum #146, and several of theproblem areas were discussed in the April 1988 issue ofthe International Choral Bulletin.

13Not in the manuscript, but the notes are tied in the partsand the piano/vocal manuscript has whole notes. Notethat the clarinets are tied at two before 49.

141n the manuscript, the last group of notes in the righthand were originally an octave lower (i.e. identical tothefirst half of measure), and Poulenc added [80—] above.Its placement opens the possibility that he intended forboth hands to be raised one octave.

*****

78 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

Books in Review

Craig Kirchhoff, Series Advisor, Windependence: A Repertoire Series For Wind Bands, (New York, NY: Boosey& Hawkes,2001).

Reviewed by Tom Erdman

Designed as a series of accessible and serious original compositions and orchestral transcriptions for concert band,Windependence is a graduated collection of music intended for concert and festival performance. The newly composedor transcribed pieces in the series are placed into three performance levels: Apprentice, Master, and Artist. Therepertoire in the apprentice level is aimed at less-experienced instrumentalists with limited technical proficiency. Themaster level pieces are intended to challenge high school bands as well as some collegiate ensembles. Artist levelmaterial is designed to be performed by only the best high school, university and professional ensembles.

The series is overseen by Craig Kirchhoff, familiar to wind directors as Professor of Conducting and Director ofBands at the University of Minnesota and Principal Guest Conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Previous tohis appointment at Minnesota, Kirchhoff was Director of Bands at Ohio State University and is widely called upon asboth clinician and guest conductor throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.

The initial nine releases in the series are by Kenneth Amis, Timothy Broege (2), Jeffrey Brooks, Alan Fletcher, ShellyHanson, Joseph Kreines (2), and Shafer Mahoney. All are well-respected musicians who have yet to leave their markin the field of band writing. Along with the score and parts, a companion CD containing a full-length performance ofeach piece by excellent semi-professional and collegiate ensembles is provided.

Air from County Derry (3’20”), transcribed by Kreines, apprentice level, is a truly excellent transcription for youngerensembles of the familiar Grainger setting. The opening woodwind passage contains cued notes for euphonium andtuba should bassoons and b-flat contrabass clarinet not be available. The work is lushly scored, mostly for full ensemble,but fair warning is given to developing ensembles where students don’t have a strong command of breath control.This is best illustrated by the first b-flat trumpets going to a” in measure 66 of this sixty-eight bar arrangement, whichis the 26th measure of a 28-bar continuous phrase.

Amis’s arrangement of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance, No. 7, Op. 72 (3’30”), is appropriately placed in the master levelcategory, as it will challenge good high school and collegiate bands. Crisp articulation of the many varied placementsand scorings of dotted-eighth – sixteenth note phrases is essential to success. Light and clean air control is requiredin order for the work to avoid bogging down in both tempo and clarity of line in full-ensemble passages.

Mahoney’s Sparkle (4”13”), artist category, is a mildly amusing composition that opens with some extremely difficultcontrasting flute and clarinet runs at a moderate tempo, later doubled by piano. The piece transitions to easy brass andsaxophone lines punctuated by an easy low-brass rhythm first introduced in the lower woodwinds at the beginning ofthe piece. The percussion parts are full, requiring a lot of different instruments, but are not technically challenging.

While this review only spotlights three works from the initial publication run, they serve to point out early trends of theseries: conductors must scan the scores carefully to see if the works are truly playable by their ensemble, as the worksdo not neatly fit into the three listed categories; and there are some great pieces contained within, but not every work isa gem. Overall, Kirchhoff and Boosey & Hawkes are to be highly commended for making an effort into providing newliterature of a serious nature for bands, when so much of what is newly composed and published for bands today is drivel.

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 79

The reviewer, Dr. Thomas R. Erdmann, is currentlyDirector of Bands and Associate Professor of Musicand Education at Elon University, in Elon, NorthCarolina. He has published two books, and over 30papers in a variety of journals.

*****John Canarina, Uncle Sam’s Orchestra, Memories OfThe Seventh Army Symphony, (Rochester, NY:University of Rochester Press, 1998); 205pp.; ISBN: 1–58046–019–4.

Reviewed by Henry Bloch

I happily welcome a book that many conductors and othermusicians will enjoy. Uncle Sam’s Orchestra reads like“shoptalk” among conductors and musicians whoparticipated and fondly remember an intriguing venturewithin the U.S. Army after World War II. That the Armywould recognize the public-relations potential of such acultural endeavor and support it is indeed remarkable. JohnCanarina, a long time active member of the ConductorsGuild, affectionately compiled the story through interviewsand correspondence with former members, administrators,and other involved parties. Canarina deserves additionalthanks for the splendid idea of mentioning the post-Armywhereabouts and careers of the erstwhile members ofthe Seventh Army Symphony. The memoir would havebeen even more valuable from a historian’s point of view,if the collected information had been documented byreference to the records of the U.S. Seventh Army andother relevant sources.

Samuel Adler, now a well respected composer and teacherwho recently retired from the Eastman School of Musicin Rochester, was asked to establish the Seventh ArmySymphony. In the early 1950s, he was succeeded by JamesDixon who, as one of the first conductors of the orchestra,set enviable standards of performance at concertsthroughout Germany. Eventually the tradition ofremarkable music making was carried on by KennethSchermerhorn and a long line of conductors many of whompursued careers in music after service in the army.Likewise, many of the players moved on to distinguishedpositions in the finest orchestras.

At a time of declining morale, in 1953, Dixon invited hisformer teacher and mentor, Dmitri Mitropoulos, to visit theorchestra and, with his inspirational personality, help to returnthe orchestra to a purposeful course of action under thesupervision of Seventh Army Lieutenant General AnthonyMcAuliffe. Still, the discipline of the Army and the discipline

of an orchestra are not the same and accommodationsfrequently were necessary. According to Canarina, DavidAmram tells irreverent anecdotes related to his“unacceptable” haircuts. The logic of the Army’s way ofthinking also seems to have led to a variety of amusingways of convincing the superiors of the needs of anorchestra. At one time, the orchestra had only one clarinetist,but most scores call for two clarinets. This did not seem tooserious to the Army. They wondered of the one clarinetistcould play a little louder to cover for two! Similarly, whenthe young Charles Rosen who was not a member of theArmy, was invited to appear as guest soloist, he did notknow that customary pre-concert arrangements could notbe taken for granted. Nor was it easy to convince the Armythat their readily available baby grand piano was inadequatefor performances of a Brahms or Bartok piano concertoand that a suitable instrument had to be found in thecommunity in a hurry.

In the summer of 1959, John Canarina arrived in theSymphony as a bassist. Soon thereafter he was givenconductorial responsibilities and was introduced to thevagaries of a musical organization in the Army. Hiscomments on the serious aspects of the task are interesting.His comments on funny situations are entertaining. Withdelightful candor, he describes the unexpected call of theorchestra members to a rifle range qualification exercise.Usually they were excused from such drills. They did noteven have guns! The account of the drill and its ultimately

successful outcome is hilarious!

On the more serious side, Canarina has helped to createan image of the Seventh Army Symphony as ahumanitarian, cultural ambassador of the United States.Its success can best be measured by the response of itsaudiences all over occupied Europe and elsewhere.Inevitable or not, it left a lasting impression on its audiencesand those who participated in its mission.

Carl S. Leafsteadt, Inside Bluebeard’s Castle, (Musicand Drama in Bela Bartôk’s Opera); (New York,NY:Oxford University Press, 1999); 246 pp.; $45; ISBN: 0-19-5109 99-6.

Reviewed by Henry Bloch

Bela Bartôk’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle (1911) has metwith a varied fate on the stage of the important opera housesof the world. The libretto by Bela Balazs was greeted with

*****

80 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

enthusiasm as a novelty in the opera house by some andwas rejected for its lack of drama by others. At the sametime, Bartôk’s efforts to create the first national opera inHungary met with a mixed reception. The setting of thetext in the manner of magyar folk songs, which he hadrecently discovered, was not recognized as such. Also,the minimal use of lyrical passages was looked upon as aweakness by an audience which was accustomed to amixture of Italian, French, and Wagnerian repertoire. Inview of many questions that might arise in this context, thepainstaking study of the subject by Carl S. Leafstedt ismost welcome. The author examines not only therelationship and cooperation of Balazs and Bartôk in thecreation of Bluebeard’s Castle, but he also analyzesBalazs’s unusual literary background and relationship to thesymbolists including Maurice Maeterlinck. He then goes onto study the musical features - tonal and motivic - and thework’s musico-dramatic symbolism.

According to Leafstedt, Balazs recalled his own andBartôk’s goal to write a truly Hungarian opera but he neverignored Maeterlinck’s work Balazs aimed to create a playrelated to modern symbolist style for dramatic reasons. Inaddition, the works of Ibsen, Strindberg, D’Annunzio,Hofmannsthal, and Maeterlinck were part of his artisticheritage. Hence the influence of dramatic realism,psychological logic, and other contemporary trends. ButMaeterlinck’s symbolism exerted the strongest impact onBalazs’s work. Together, Balazs and Bartôk were alsodrawn to influences from Eastern European folk art,notably from that of the Magyars of Transylvania.

Leafstedt maintains that Bluebeard was a deliberateattempt to supplant dominant Wagnerian tradition with aHungarian style based on native folk music. Contrary togrand structures devised by Hofmannsthal for RichardStrauss in Salome and Elektra , Balazs’s Bluebeardcentered around seven clearly defined “pictures,” whichoffered Bartôk the opportunity for smaller musicalstructures. His libretto represented a departure from thetraditions of symbolist drama as, for example, Maeterlinck’sPelleas et Melisande . In place of the extended sequences,he supplied a series of shorter units which lent themselvesto non-Wagnerian techniques of composition. Indeed, thesetting of the Seven Doors, each representing one episodeof the play, served Bartôk’s talent for musical imagerywell. Dramatic effects were hightened by intense use oflights or the lack thereof, and in the music, different aspectsof the story are centered around the tones of C and F#.

In Bluebeard Bartôk experimented with a new vocalstyle derived from folk idioms found in Transylvania, now

Romania. The vocal parts reflect a remarkable blend ofthe folk rhythms with speech patterns of the Hungarianlanguage. Such a hybrid reflects Bartôk’s much admiredmodel, Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande. In performance,a rubato element is blended into the subtle declamationlending it considerable rhythmic elasticity. However, theorchestra owes little to Bartôk’s French model. Rather, itunderlines dramatic elements and supplies power when itis needed, a technique reminiscent of Wagner and Strauss.Indeed, certain musical ideas undergo transformations toamplify the progress of the story. Chapters devoted todetailed analysis of individual scenes and to Bartôk’srevisions of the opera between 1911 and 1917 help thereader to gain a deeper understanding of the composer’sintentions. The additional fact that many of the relevantmanuscript scores and first published editions are kepttogether in Peter Bartôk’s collection in Homossen, Florida,facilitates close examination of the sources.

The limited success of Bluebeard in the opera houseinvites speculation . Leafstedt cites a study by themusicologist Carl Dahlhaus who describes a musico-dramatic genre based on a play which is set to music withoutsignificant adaptations. He calls it literature opera andcites as outstanding examples Debussy’s Pelleas etMelisande , Strauss’ Salome , and Elektra .In similarfashion, Bartôk set Balazs’s Bluebeard to music withoutconsidearable changes. Dahlhaus suggests that such aunion of a play with music need to be studied closely tounderstand its potential for success as an opera.

Indeed, in recent decades composers have chosen playsor novels by outstanding writers as libretti. They appear tofollow the example of symbolist writers and composers topreserve the literary text as best they can. But that requiresmusical considerations if not concessions. Dahlhaussuggests that a successful formula was found by Debussyand Richard Strauss. More recently, Carlyle Floyd (OfMice and Men), and John Corigliano (The Ghosts ofVersailles) are among the few who achieved success. Onthe other hand, John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby seemedto move along very slowly despite some charged dialogues,brilliant ensemble scenes and colorful orchestrations.Similarly, William Mayer’s A Death in the Family got offto a good start, but, perhaps too much respect for thebeautiful lines of James Agee is responsible for some tediousmoments in the dramatic progress of the action. Someother new operas were plagued with similar difficulties.

Leafstedt’s book is thoughtful from many points of view.It is particularly valuable to anyone wishing to perform

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 81

Edited by Michael Stern, Max Rudolf: A Musical Life, Writings and Letters. (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press2001);530pp., $46.00 (with Guild Member Discount: $41.00); ISBN 1-577647-038-5.

Reviewed by John Canarina

Of all the major conductors active in the worlds of symphony orchestras and opera companies, Max Rudolf was theonly one who took an active interest in the Conductors Guild. He was also one of the very few who could be accuratelydescribed as a scholar, even though he himself did not exactly endorse that term as applied to himself. If one requiresproof of his great scholarship, it will certainly be found in this book.

Long-time members of the Conductors Guild will perhaps be familiar with some of the contents, for many of the essaysincluded originally appeared in our Journal. Thus we have his thoughts on “Authenticity in Musical Performance,” “TheMetronome Indications in Beethoven’s Symphonies,” “Inner Repeats in the Da Capo of Classical Minuets and Scherzos,”and many other topics. The question of those inner repeats continues to be a controversial subject among critics,conductors, and other musicians. Max Rudolf was in favor of them, and offers convincing evidence for their observance,even though such observance can still be a matter of one’s personal feeling.

Of equal importance to the articles are the many letters written to fellow conductors, such as George Szell and ErichLeinsdorf, instrumentalists such as Rudolf Serkin and Isaac Stern, and musicologists such as Bathis Churgin andMaynard Solomon. In many instances we are given all or part of the letter that prompted Rudolf’s response. Thequestion of tempos in various Mozart arias is a frequent topic of discussion between Rudolf and Jean-Pierre Marty.

Malcolm Frager is another instrumentalist with whom Rudolf had frequent correspondence, especially in the matter of thetempo for the trio of the scherzo of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, about which Frager seemed particularly obsessed. Inone instance (January 26, 1986) Rudolf finds it “a bit tedious” to reply to Frager’s comments, and later chastises him evenfurther. (It should be mentioned, however, that Rudolf and Frager were always on the very best of terms.)

As for being “a bit tedious,” one could apply those words to Rudolf’s rather lengthy essay on “Storm and Stress inMusic.” This, however, is an exception to the remainder of the contents, which are absolutely fascinating to read—theworkings of the mind of a great musician who cared enough about music to want desperately to perform it to the verybest of his ability according to the information left by the composer. As Max Rudolf himself said, “The great composerswere giants, while we performers are dwarfs. As for myself, I am content with being a very small dwarf, since I deriveall the satisfaction I need from serving the giants.” This book is highly recommended. After all, Max Rudolf, the firstrecipient of the Guild’s Theodore Thomas Award, was one of us.

One word of caution: Since the book contains so many references to musical examples, it is helpful to have theappropriate scores at hand while reading it.

John Canarina is Director of Orchestral Studies at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. A former AssistantConductor of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein’s direction, he has been a guest conductorof various orchestras in the United States and Europe. His biography of Pierre Monteux will be published nextyear by Amadeus Press.

*****

Bluebeard , but it raises questions in relation to the creation of other new operas as well.

Henry Bloch is a member of the Board of Directors and Archivistfor the Conductors Guild.

82 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2 83

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Directory-published annually, hard copy mailed to all members-downloadable electronic version available on website to membersBusiness Card 2 in. x 3 ½ in. $188 $151Quarter Page 3 ½ in. x 4 ¾ in. $350 $280Half Page 4 ¾ in. x 7 in. $600 $480Full Page 7 in x 9 ½ in. $1,200 $960

Credit Card Orders:

VISA / MASTERCARD : __ __ __ __ - __ __ __ __ - __ __ __ __ - __ __ __ __ EXP: __ __ / __ __

Cardholder’s Name _________________________ Cardholder’s Signature _________________________

84 JCG Vol. 22, Nos. 1 & 2

GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

The manuscript should be for readers who have expertise in diverse areas of music and conducting, and are interestedin broadening their knowledge of current research and writing in the field.

The manuscript must be double-spaced with 1.25" margins on top, bottom and sides, including endnotes/footnotesand references, and should follow the style recommendations as set forth in the Chicago Manual of Style or theModern Language Association (MLA) style manual.

The type size of the manuscript should be no smaller than 12 point.

The entire manuscript including abstract and any pictures, graphs, or musical examples should not exceed 20 pages.

Graphs, musical examples and pictures should be on separate sheets accompanied by texts and captions as they areto appear in the articles. All material submitted should be camera-ready.

To preserve anonymity in the review process, the authors name must not appear anywhere on either the abstract orthe article.

Manuscripts submitted simultaneously to other journals will not be considered.

THE PUBLICATION PROCESS

1. Submit three copies of the manuscript and a 100-word abstract to the Publications Coordinator (PC). Manuscriptsshould be submitted as hard copies and may be accompanied by an ASCII text document or MS Word file on a 3.5diskette following the guidelines listed above.

2. The PC sends copies of the manuscript and abstract to the Editor and two other members of the editorial board(based on expertise) for blind review.

3. The editorial review committee determines whether the manuscript: a) is not accepted for publication; b) isaccepted for publication with suggested revisions; or c) is accepted for publication as is.

3a. Editorial Reviewers sends article back to PC with comments (from 3.)

4. If revisions are needed, the manuscript(s) will be returned to the author for corrections. The author then resubmitsthe manuscript to the PC with the appropriate revisions.

5. The PC will format the corrections complete with pictures, graphs, musical examples, etc., and send to the Editorfor final approval.

6. The formatted proofs are sent back to the author for final approval.

7. The manuscript is then published in the Journal of the Conductors Guild.

CONDUCTORS GUILD

...Advancing the Art and Profession

Mission of the Conductors Guild

The Conductors Guild is dedicated to encouraging and promoting

the highest standards in the art and profession of conducting.

The Conductors Guild is the only music service organization devoted exclusively to the advancement of the art

of conducting and to serving the artistic and professional needs of conductors. The Guild is international in

scope, with a membership of over 1,900 individual and institutional members representing all fifty states and

more than thirty countries, including conductors of major stature and international renown. Membership is open

to all conductors and institutions involved with instrumental and/or vocal music, including symphony and chamber

orchestra, opera, ballet/dance, chorus, music theatre, wind ensemble and band.

History of the Conductors Guild

The Conductors Guild was founded in 1975 at the San Diego Conference of the American Symphony OrchestraLeague, and it continued for a decade as a subsidiary of that organization. In 1985 the Guild became independent.Since then, it has expanded its services and solidified its role as a collective voice for conductors’ interesteverywhere. It is supported by membership dues, grants, donations and program fees and is registered with theInternal Revenue Service as a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit corporation.

Purposes of the Conductors Guild

1. To share and exchange relevant musical and professional information about the art of conductingorchestras, bands, choruses, opera, ballet, musical theater and other instrumental and vocal ensembles;

2. To support the development and training of conductors through workshops seminars, and symposia on theart of conducting, including, but not limited to, its history, development and current practice;

3. To publish periodicals, newsletters and other writings on the art, history and practice of the profession ofconducting;

4. To enhance the professionalism of conductors by serving as a clearing house for knowledge and

information regarding the art and practice of conducting;

5. To serve as an advocate for conductors throughout the world;

6. To support the artistic growth of orchestras, bands, choruses and other conducted ensembles; and

7. To communicate to the music community the views and opinions of the Guild.