The Modern Conductor PDF Download

Author: Elizabeth A. H. Green
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Author: Roy Ernst
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
ISBN: 9780070313262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This text contains practical instruction in choral and instrumental conducting for both beginning and intermediate students, along with a large selection of scores for classroom practice.

Author: Mark Wigglesworth
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022662255X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
The conductor—tuxedoed, imposingly poised above an orchestra, baton waving dramatically—is a familiar figure even for those who never set foot in an orchestral hall. As a veritable icon for classical music, the conductor has also been subjected to some ungenerous caricatures, presented variously as unhinged gesticulator, indulged megalomaniac, or even outright impostor. Consider, for example: Bugs Bunny as Leopold Stokowski, dramatically smashing his baton and then breaking into erratic poses with a forbidding intensity in his eyes, or Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, unwittingly conjuring dangerous magic with carefree gestures he doesn’t understand. As these clichés betray, there is an aura of mystery around what a conductor actually does, often coupled with disbelief that he or she really makes a difference to the performance we hear. The Silent Musician deepens our understanding of what conductors do and why they matter. Neither an instruction manual for conductors, nor a history of conducting, the book instead explores the role of the conductor in noiselessly shaping the music that we hear. Writing in a clever, insightful, and often evocative style, world-renowned conductor Mark Wigglesworth deftly explores the philosophical underpinnings of conducting—from the conductor’s relationship with musicians and the music, to the public and personal responsibilities conductors face—and examines the subtler components of their silent art, which include precision, charisma, diplomacy, and passion. Ultimately, Wigglesworth shows how conductors—by simultaneously keeping time and allowing time to expand—manage to shape ensemble music into an immersive, transformative experience, without ever making a sound.

Author: Gunther Schuller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019984058X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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A world-renowned conductor and composer who has lead most of the major orchestras in North America and Europe, a talented musician who has played under the batons of such luminaries as Toscanini and Walter, and an esteemed arranger, scholar, author, and educator, Gunther Schuller is without doubt a major figure in the music world. Now, in The Compleat Conductor, Schuller has penned a highly provocative critique of modern conducting, one that is certain to stir controversy. Indeed, in these pages he castigates many of this century's most venerated conductors for using the podium to indulge their own interpretive idiosyncrasies rather than devote themselves to reproducing the composer's stated and often painstakingly detailed intentions. Contrary to the average concert-goer's notion (all too often shared by the musicians as well) that conducting is an easily learned skill, Schuller argues here that conducting is "the most demanding, musically all embracing, and complex" task in the field of music performance. Conducting demands profound musical sense, agonizing hours of study, and unbending integrity. Most important, a conductor's overriding concern must be to present a composer's work faithfully and accurately, scrupulously following the score including especially dynamics and tempo markings with utmost respect and care. Alas, Schuller finds, rare is the conductor who faithfully adheres to a composer's wishes. To document this, Schuller painstakingly compares hundreds of performances and recordings with the original scores of eight major compositions: Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies, Schumann's second (last movement only), Brahms's first and fourth, Tchaikovsky's sixth, Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel" and Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe, Second Suite." Illustrating his points with numerous musical examples, Schuller reveals exactly where conductors have done well and where they have mangled the composer's work. As he does so, he also illuminates the interpretive styles of many of our most celebrated conductors, offering pithy observations that range from blistering criticism of Leonard Bernstein ("one of the world's most histrionic and exhibitionist conductors") to effusive praise of Carlos Kleiber (who "is so unique, so remarkable, so outstanding that one can only describe him as a phenomenon"). Along the way, he debunks many of the music world's most enduring myths (such as the notion that most of Beethoven's metronome markings were "wrong" or "unplayable," or that Schumann was a poor orchestrator) and takes on the "cultish clan" of period instrument performers, observing that many of their claims are "totally spurious and chimeric." In his epilogue, Schuller sets forth clear guidelines for conductors that he believes will help steer them away from self indulgence towards the correct realization of great art. Courageous, eloquent, and brilliantly insightful, The Compleat Conductor throws down the gauntlet to conductors worldwide. It is a controversial book that the music world will be debating for many years to come.

Author: Anshel Brusilow
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574416138
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Anshel Brusilow was born in 1928 and raised in Philadelphia by musical Russian Jewish parents in a neighborhood where practicing your instrument was as normal as hanging out the laundry. By the time he was sixteen he was appearing as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also met Pierre Monteux at sixteen, when Monteux accepted him into his summer conducting school. Under George Szell, Brusilow was associate concertmaster at the Cleveland Orchestra until Ormandy snatched him away to make him concertmaster in Philadelphia, where he remained from 1959 to 1966. Ormandy and Brusilow had a father-son relationship, but Brusilow could not resist conducting, to Ormandy's great displeasure. By the time he was forty, Brusilow had sold his violin and formed his own chamber orchestra in Philadelphia with more than a hundred performances per year. For three years he was conductor of the Dallas Symphony, until he went on to shape the orchestral programs at Southern Methodist University and the University of North Texas. Brusilow played with or conducted many top-tier classical musicians, and he has opinions about each and every one. He also made many recordings. Co-written with Robin Underdahl, his memoir is a fascinating and unique view of American classical music during an important era, as well as an inspiring story of a working-class immigrant child making good in a tough arena.

Author: Maurice Peress
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195098226
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Prominent symphony conductor Maurice Peress describes his career conducting the premiers of such works as Leonard Bernstein's 'Mass' and Duke Ellington's 'Queenie Pie'. He traces the great impact of African American music on American music, beginning with the work of Antonin Dvořák.

Author: Diane Wittry
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195300939
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Author: Natalia Smirnova
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1936070065
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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The more one watches Moscow, the more it looks like a huge chameleon that keeps changing its face; and it isn't always pretty. Despite its stunning outward lustre, Moscow is above all a city of broken dreams and unrealised utopias, and all manner of scum oozes through the gap between dream and reality. Moscow Noir is an attempt to turn the tourist Moscow of gingerbread and woodcuts, of glitz and big money, inside out; an attempt to show its fetid womb and make sense of the desolation that reigns there.

Author: Sharon Hansen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Alfred Mann writes in the Foreword to this book: "During our time, a modern ideal of musical direction arose, personified above all in the figures of Robert Shaw and Helmuth Rilling. Rilling's work has borne fruit, which moved the cultivation of Bach's bequest into a decidedly new era. The reader who becomes aware of Helmuth Rilling's achievements through the account by his sympathetic biographer will be well rewarded." The author has divided the book into two sections: Part One outlines the biography of Helmuth Rilling, providing a source of information about the man and the history and development of the institutions he created. Part Two documents his fundamental teaching philosophy and serves as a guide for conductors. Rilling's advice on conducting, score preparation, interpretation, and rehearsal techniques is included.

Author: Emily Freeman Brown
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810884011
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Titles in Dictionaries for the Modern Musician: A Scarecrow Press Music Series offer both the novice and the advanced artist key information designed to convey the field of study and performance for a major instrument or instrument class, as well as the workings of musicians in areas from conducting to composing. Unlike other encyclopedic works, contributions to this series focus primarily on the knowledge required by the contemporary musical student or performer. Each dictionary covers topics from instrument parts to playing technique, major works to key figures. A must-have for any musician’s personal library! Filling a vital need in the rapidly changing and complex field of conducting, A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor is a concise one-volume reference tool that brings together for the first time information covering a broad array of topics essential for today’s conductor to know. Author and conductor Emily Freeman Brown offers easy-to-read definitions of key musical terms, translated foreign terms, examples of usage from orchestral music and practical vocabulary in multiple languages. A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor includes biographies of major conductors and other individual important to the world of modern conducting, emphasizing throughout their contributions to the progress of the conducting professional; critical information on major orchestras, significant ensembles, key institutions and organizations, with a focus on the ways in which they preserve and advance today’s musical life; and practical entries covering baton and rehearsal techniques, bowing terms, information about instruments, voice types and much more. In a series of appendixes, A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor also covers such topics as orchestral works that changed the art and practice of conducting, a short historiography of conducting, a comprehensive bibliography, a look at conducting recitative, and a list of pitches, interval names, rhythmic terms, orchestral and percussion instrument names, and finally translations of all of these categories of information into French, German, Italian, and Spanish. A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor will appeal to aspiring conductors and seasoned professionals. It is an invaluable resource.