Marvin Gaye is on in the background, and I left my Ravel score back at the hotel; we won’t be continuing our passage through Valses Nobles today. So my thoughts are turning back to four hours of conducting masterclass yesterday at Seoul National University. First movements of Beethoven 3 and 4, Mozart 36 and 41 and Schubert 5, plus overtures to Rosamunde and Fledermaus. All with two pianos; everyone played for each other, just like Beijing. We had fun; we worked hard, and there were all sorts of Korean sweets on the table.
We talked about the usual issues: Posture, left hand, looking down, mirroring, beating ahead of the pianists, angle of the stick, saving vertical space, the fold out, wrist rotation, baton grip, traveling through the orchestra, footwork. Even Beethoven metronome markings, at dinner. They all went after these new ideas with joy and bravery. Over the course of the class, I related conducting to bus driving, surfing and dating 10 women at once.
Tried and (for me) true aphorisms were iterated and explained:
He who lives by the beat, dies by the beat.
Listening to recordings is to score study what watching someone else eat is to having a meal.
What goes up, must come down.
The intersection of gesture and pulse.
There is a reason they hate us.
Nobody gets into conducting for the beating.
Ignore the basses at your peril.
Beethoven had terminal itch.
Language is power and respect, two ways.
What you give to one, you don’t give to the other.
Your mouth conducts your hands.
A prepared subito is an oxymoron.
The best conducting is no conducting.
Active listening trumps active beating.
There is no right and wrong; there is only informed and less informed taste.
If you don’t know the score, it doesn’t matter where you put your hands.
Clarity of intent, not clarity of beat.
The musical concerns were addressed:
No harmonic analysis in the score
Limited awareness of other works by the composer
No sound concept – how does Beethoven sound differ from Schubert?
The three adjectives
The song lyrics
Understanding the continuum of sound and repertoire.
I soliti sbagli sono stati spiegati:
The bob-‘n’-weave
The page-turn two-step
The slalom
The bend-‘n’–beg
The behind-the-back
The hide-‘n’-seek
The look-down
The look-away
Will the beating will start up again when I leave on Tuesday, the beating that precludes listening, that doesn’t convey accurate pulse or tempo, the hyperactive rebounding practiced while listening to the IPod? Maybe Lao Tse was right: “The Tao that can be explained is not the eternal Tao.” “He who talks does not know; he who knows does not talk.” Or is what Seiji told us at Tanglewood true? “If I can give you just a taste, and you like the taste, you will be back for more of the taste.” If we don’t share these things, how could they be learned? There were brief but tangible glimmers yesterday in these wonderful students, these inquisitive young musicians; I will depart hopeful.
Tous les Jours, the newest in a local chain of bakery/cafes, just opened across the street. GRAND OPENING EVENT TODAY.
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