"The orchestral conductor full of goodwill, but incapable, is on the contrary very
common. Without speaking of innumerable mediocrities, directing artists who frequently
are much their superiors, an author for example, can scarcely be accused of
conspiring against his own works. Yet how many are there who, fancying they are
able to conduct, innocently injure their best scores!
Beethoven, it is said, more than once ruined the performance of his symphonies;
which he would conduct, even at the time when his deafness had become almost
complete. The musicians, in order to keep together, agreed at length to follow the
slight indications of time which the concertmeister (first violin-player) gave them;
and not to attend to Beethoven's conducting-stick. Moreover, it should be observed,
that conducting a symphony, an overture, or any other composition whose movements
remain continual, vary little, and contain few nice gradations, is child's play in comparison
with conducting an opera, or like work, where there are recitatives, airs, and
numerous orchestral designs preceded by pauses of irregular length.
The example of Beethoven, which I have just cited, leads me at once to say that
if the direction of an orchestra appears to be very difficult for a blind man, it is
indisputably impossible for a deaf one, whatever may have been his technical talent
before losing his sense of hearing.
The orchestral conductor should see and hear; he should be active and vigorous,
should know the composition and the nature and compass of the instruments, should
be able to read the score, and possess—besides the especial talent of which we shall
presently endeavor to explain the constituent qualities—other indefinable gifts, without
which an invisible link cannot establish itself between him and those he directs;
otherwise the faculty of transmitting to them his feeling is denied him, and power,
empire, and guiding influence completely fail him. He is then no longer a conductor,
a director, but a simple beater of the time,—supposing he knows how to beat it, and
divide it, regularly."
BERLIOZ, Hector. The Orchestral Conductor.Theory of His Art. New York: Carl Fisher, 1902.
