At their best, conductors are like magicians. With a wave of a wand they can entrance and enchant audiences of thousands and stir profound emotions in even the most po-faced of listeners.
Unfortunately the personality cult prevalent among the jet-setting conducting fraternity – though it’s now (very!) slowly also becoming a sorority – has led to a kind of topsy-turvy world in which CD covers and concert publicity can end up looking like this:
Now, while Bloggs may be a superlative interpreter of Mozart, I would have thought (correct me!) that the Mozart was the important thing here, with Bloggs her/himself coming a close(??) second.
Enough of my grousing! 10 weeks on the craft of the maestri…
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as “fair use”, for the purpose of study, and critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of the copyright owner(s).
The Art of Listening 