A Composer's Conduct
Should a conductor follow a composer's manuscript or his recordings when interpreting a work?
Mark Wigglesworth 12:01pm GMT 15th February 2012
Having discovered that Pierre Boulez didn't think very highly of a performance I'd given of Stravinsky's Petrushka, I thought I should find out why. This was a long time ago, but my abiding memory is that most of his suggestions differed from what was in the score. Once I'd plucked up courage to mention this, he explained that he approached music as a composer not as a conductor. He felt the fixed nature of printed texts can run contrary to a constantly evolving composer's mind and what Stravinsky wrote on one day wasn't necessarily what he wanted to hear on another. Coming from many conductors this could sound arrogant but if someone like Boulez says it, the idea of changing what's written cannot just be dismissed as dilettantish. Mahler asked conductors to alter whatever sounded wrong. Perhaps it takes a composer's mindset to do it well.
Composers engage in music creatively, and when they conduct, that genuine creativity remains. This is clear when you listen to recordings they've made of their own music and hear where they contradict what they've actually written. This leaves performers with a dilemma as to which is the more reliable source. Rachmaninov's recordings vary significantly from what he composed. Should we aim to perform what he wrote or what he plays? My view is that the score should remain the authority. I've made enough CDs to appreciate that final versions don't always represent exactly what was envisioned, and in the early days of recording there must have been several variables that prevented composers feeling they'd created definitive performances. Nevertheless Rachmaninov was a wonderful conductor and a great pianist too. His performance legacy cannot be dismissed. Those who argue that his practical experience as a performer should override his achievements as a composer have a valid point.
Elgar's recordings are more victims of circumstance. Fabulous documents though they are - one can almost hear the twirling of Edwardian moustaches - not many would uphold his choice of tempi as being preferable to those he wrote. Other composer-conductors lacked the purely technical ability to achieve their goals. When a timorous record producer remarked to Stravinsky that his second take was faster than the first, the composer said he liked the second version better. This retort was probably more of a smokescreen for his conducting failings, but one cannot really be sure. How do we know if something we hear is the result of a composer's weakness as a performer or a confession that their subsequent ideas are preferable? The choice is ours, which I suspect is exactly how most composers would like it.
Performers try to embody a sense of ownership of the music they play. That's easy when composer and performer are one. But the principle infuses composers' thoughts on other music too - an identification that liberates their own creativity. Shostakovich said it's 'better to love a score than respect it'. Respect keeps its distance. Love gets involved. There's no denying which is more powerful.
Comments
I enjoyed the story about Boulez - thoughtfully and humbly put. I think you might have gone even further with some of the points in the second half (perhaps this was humility too), because it strikes me that there are relatively few composers who are also great conductors. The two 'practices' are surely more different than many people realise: conducting, yes, is an artistic thing, but it's also about technical matters and persuading an often large number of people to do it 'your' way, which is as much about manner and psychology as anything.
The case of Elgar is instructive. We've moved away from the myth that Elgar was somehow bullied into his fast tempi by producers keen to squeeze the recordings onto short sides. But there's ample testimony that Elgar was often carried by his players, some of whom could predict which passages he'd fluff (e.g. the recapitulation in the opening movement of the 2nd Symphony). Yet there's no doubt that many of those Elgar recordings - even allowing for different tastes about speed - are powerful. So I suppose that raises the question of how many 'authoritative' (we use the word glibly) composer-led recordings owe their excellence to the players making a special effort out of respect and even love.
I'd agree with you about Rachmaninov as a great composer-conductor, although the recorded evidence isn't all that extensive, is it? Boulez and Bernstein immediately spring to mind as great composer-conductors; I wonder whether the floor could be opened for suggestions of other genuinely great composer-conductors? Mahler would certainly have been one, wouldn't he? But I guess we should leave out hypotheticals!
Fascinating Mark, and completely new to me. I might have been tempted to think of composers' own recordings as somehow authoritative, which would obviously be a mistake!
What strikes me is a possible different mindset between the person who created the work and the person who is performing it. If you like, a bit of a mis-match, between the composer's role - to structure - and the performer/conductor's role - to deliver. Two different roles entirely.
The only problem with that is that it can easily lead to debate about what was written and whether it was actually intended as written - how accurate the notation is - or as you say whether it highlights a performance weakness on the part of the composer to actually conduct it faithfully as written down.
Do we ever deliver something entirely faithfully as written or planned? My own experience of teaching for many years has shown me time and again, that even in a really good session, we might have deviated slightly here and there from the written plan. For instance, we might cover two of the objectives more thoroughly than one and have to re-visit that one, or we may find that a particular discussion took twenty minutes and not the proposed ten and took us in a different direction. All it needs is a participant to ask a certain question which you might not have expected, and we're off in that slightly different direction. Whatever you are teaching, you have to be to a certain extent, flexible and adaptable, and diverge a bit from the written plan at times.
Over the years I became convinced that any learning session is an experiment. However, try telling that to someone wearing an inspector or examiner's hat, with a clipboard in hand...the mindset that always wants precicted and measurable outcomes, in order to tick boxes.
Mark
I trust the key phrase from all your introductory text, Mark, is "the score should remain the authority". No matter what, it's the only thing we (performers, critics, reviewers, scholars and audience) can resort to for any information about the work; it's the main and, in many cases, the only source.
"The sense of ownership" by the performers is legitimate and expected, but it cannot overrule the score. Shostakovich was right in his claim, since, if you only respect the score, you may never love it. However, if you love it, you will never disrespect it.
Parla