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Music to shake a stick at
Conduct becoming: Adrian Jackson knows the score when it comes to conducting
CONDUCTING is probably the easiest job in the world -
money for old rope.
We have all done it. Stick on a CD, (LP for more traditional readers) or
turn on Classic FM, wait for a bit you know (TIP: It is more
difficult with bits you don't know) and then wave the baton about -
that is the conductor's stick - in time or thereabouts to the music.
Simple.
It is hardly worthwhile buying a real baton for the kitchen or living
room, a wooden spoon, ruler or, an excellent choice, a knitting needle,
will all do the job. And that is it.
You can add flourishes and facial gestures and wave more expressively
for emotional bits or put in bigger arm movements for loud dramatic bits
as you get a bit more confident. If you find yourself, for some reason,
with a real orchestra you have to start them off as well, remember, so
they are all on the same page but really that is all there is to it. Or
is it?
If finding someone who could read a score and beat time to keep everyone
together was all that was required then there would be no rush to pay
£25,000 or more a concert for a maestro - or even a few hundred a pop
for a lesser mortal to flourish the baton every time an orchestra
trooped on stage.
There are those who see the conductor as vastly overpaid against the
members of the orchestras they conduct when, after all, it is the
performers not the man with the baton who provide memorable
performances. Rather like the starter taking all the bows for a stunning
Cheltenham Gold Cup win. Others see the orchestra as being the instrument of the conductor, played, just as any other instrument, to obtain the tone, emotion, pace and feeling that the conductor wants.
The majority of people though, the proverbial bums on seats, see the
conductor as the bloke who comes out last, waves a baton
enthusiastically, milks all the applause and leaves without having
played a note. Money for old rope.
Next month Adrian Jackson, the executive and artistic director of Lichfield Garrick returns to his day job when he brings his City Concert Orchestra to the theatre for A Night At The Proms. It is a
black tie gala affair which will have popular music including
The Battle of Britain March, The Dam Busters March, Aces High, 633
Squadron, RAF March Past, The Hebrides Overture, Land of Hope and Glory,
Rule Britannia, Henry Wood's Sea Songs, Radetzky March
and Jerusalem in the programme as well as a selection of well
known arias from soprano Elizabeth MacDonald and tenor Victor Michael.
Although they do not play in the orchestra, conductors invariably have
formal training on at least one musical instrument. Adrian's is the
trombone, the same, incidentally, as Gustav Holst.
Although not someone who knows much about sport he sees football
as a simple way of explaining the role of the conductor.
“The conductor's job is about interpretation, It is a bit like a
football captain or coach who has a team of footballers who are all
superb in their own right but they have to work together as a team
to win.
“You have an orchestra full of highly competent musicians who in their
own right are all virtuosos or soloists or whatever and it is the
conductors job to pull them all together to make them work as one.
“If you give someone a book and said read that paragraph and then they
passed it on to someone else to read the paragraph it would be different
because the interpretation would be different.
“It is the same with music. There can only be on person in charge. The
conductor. He will decide on feel, tempo, light and shade, phrasing - it
is about that one person leading that team of people to produce an end
result.”
In the theatre watching a play or musical you know well it is easy to
see changes made by the director but with music it is different.
Unless you are an expert if you go to a concert of, for example,
Beethoven's Fifth then if it sounds like “de de de derrrrr . . .
de de de derrrrr” then it is Beethoven's Fifth - end of story.
We don't tend to notice bits that are louder, or more lyrical or the
fact the symphony lasts a little bit longer or shorter than the CD we
have at home.
Adrian said: “You can see changes in a show. It is a sort of passive
change in music. You don't see it and many people don't necessarily hear
it. They just know it was right. They can't say why it was right other
than it was just so beautiful.
“Music has a different meaning to everyone. It is very subjective
and what excites one person will not excite another. You just know when
it is right because it gives you the experience you want. That is what
the conductor does, pulls it together.”
And having pulled it together the conductor then faces the third element
of a concert, the audience. According to Adrian at classical concerts
there are two audiences. There are those who if they recognise the music
and it sounds like their CDs at home they are quite happy and they have
had a lovely night out.
There are also those who follow on mini-scores and are much more
critical.
“They want to analyse. They are looking for different things. They
are looking at the technical side. They may come away thinking I didn't
think much of the second bassoon player, or the timps were not quite
there because they are looking for something else.”
Another problem with music these days is cost. Adrian is also a producer
and artistic integrity and cost is a constant balancing act.
He said: “You are balancing what you want artistically with what you can
afford. When I am going around the country with my orchestra or as a
guest conductor I will be asked asked what I want in my orchestra and I
will give them my ideal line-up and they will say ‘we can't afford so
many musicians so we will have to cut back a bit'.
“So then you are in the realms of where it will affect the quality of
the music. To my ears it will sound horrible, to some of the audience it
will sound horrible but for most of the audience they will not notice.
“You have to decide things like do I have a second bassoon or just have
one and hope no one notices? Most people won't spot it but some will
notice and know there should be a second bassoon player. It is balancing
the artistic side against the financial side. That is what I do all the
time here at the Garrick and with my orchestra.”
Conductors are not just the front men for symphony orchestras though.
There is musical theatre, opera, ballet - even dance bands - where
someone has to lead and control.
And that can bring in other factors. When you work in musical theatre
you have to work with a director.
Adrain said: “The director will want to achieve a specific result which
may or may not work musically and what you have to do as a conductor is
to make it work musically. You have to create something together which
works in harmony.
“If you are conducting a symphony that is very much driven by the
conductor who sets the bar. In a musical it is the director, the
choreographer to a point and the musical director and each one has to
understand each other's department and what they have to achieve.
“You have to work together and work on the same artistic wavelength.”
Ballet brings in another element. “With ballet there is the important
element of the dancers dancing at your speed and tempo. You have to be
bang on every performance. The dancers will have rehearsed quite
complicated manoeuvres and if you suddenly change the tempo, and it only
needs to be slight, too fast or too slow, it clearly affects the
performance because they cannot go off on their own, they have to go
with you because once the music starts you are in charge.
“You can't afford to have a bad night. One slip of the stick can ruin a
show, you end with a pile of ballet dancers.
“These days with technology in musical theatre the conductors click
track so the tempo is pre determined. You press a button and you get a
click in your headphone and that is what you stick to, every night of he
week it is exactly the same. That has made it easier for conductors.”
Added to that are prerecorded tracks to augment the smaller orchestras -
cost again - with often only a handful of players in the pit.
Adrian said: “Last week at Les Mis it was nine players in the pit. In my
day it was 28. Everything is scaled down for financial reasons. To get
to somewhere near the artistic level they need to create they are
having to use modern technology. It is one of the reasons I don't tend
to get involved with musicals because I like to have an orchestra in
front of me not a machine, a computer. In a live show you have to react
to the audience and you can't do it when everything is regimented. You
can't communicate with the artist on stage either if it is all fixed.
“It is not used as much in ballet because they tend to have a maestro
and a full orchestra. Someone who understands and is vastly experienced.
“When you have a piece full of dancing it has to finish within a few
seconds each night. The only licence you get are in the overture and
incidental parts with no dancing. Once the dancing starts you cannot
change the tempo.” Adrian
continues to work on a conceptually new concert with the writers of Les
Misérables, Miss Saigon and Martin Guerre, Alain Boublil and
Claude-Michel Schönberg, which premiered at Symphony Hall, Birmingham ,
and featured the BBC Concert Orchestra and West End soloists. It showed
another of the elements of conducting. In the concert was an except from
Schönberg's ballet Wuthering Heights and as Adrian conducted it in
rehearsal the composer leapt on the stage to explain the tempo was
wrong. Two views of
the same piece. Schönberg was looking at ballet tempo, Adrian at a
symphonic tempo and interpretation. With no dancers and a concert
audience the pair reached a compromise. Three versions of the same
piece. Somehow the
old rope is starting to look remarkably good value.
The City Concert Orchestra - A Night At The Proms was at Lichfield Garrick on Saturday, September 11 and was presented by Hannah Gordon. |
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