What makes a great conductor?
One afternoon during lockdown in 2021, I found myself watching a zoom conversation between four of the most revered conductors currently working the circuit, two of whom I have enjoyed long professional associations with and whose forward-looking intellects and musical interests I find incredibly inspiring, and two who are superb conductors, but whose perspectives clearly posit them in about 1834.
The question was posed: Who were, or are, the greatest conductors?
Their responses surprised me.
I've always had a huge interest in other conductors, not so much as objects of adulation, but as very ordinary - sometimes quite flawed, complicated - humans.
When I worked as the librarian at The Philharmonia from 2010-2012, I got to know many "greats". There were introverts, perverts, boasts-on-legs who became aroused each time they passed a mirror, bona fide geniuses and a great many ungrown boys in men's suits.
There were steady, gentle men who enjoyed genuine connection and took time to ask the stage manager how their kids were doing, Jedi masters in whose presence the lights flickered, alcoholics, sexaholics, musicophiles and fame-ophiles.
With the exception of one or two women (most memorably, the luminous Susanna Mälkki), they were all men. They came through one after the other, every couple of days, on the conveyor belt of what was, at that time, a schedule bursting at the seams with up to five concerts or recordings a week.
I loved chatting to most of them. Some of them were surprised to find a young woman in the library. Some flirted with me, some used talking down to me as a collagen injection for their egos, some ignored me, and a good number were just grateful to sit down for 5 minutes with someone who wasn't a sycophant.
My predecessor - David Munden - was far more typical in the librarian role. He was a trumpeter forced to retire from the orchestra after developing Bell's Palsy.
He kept a stash of red wine and a bucket of broken batons from famous sets of hands next to the Mahler sets, and his handover was both extensive and quintessentially English. The highlights included
I also learnt a great many things from the player manager with whom I spent most of my time backstage, Dai Thomas - a warm-hearted cuddle of a man, and also an ex-player. Most significantly, the best pubs within a 5-minute walk of each of our regular regional touring venues, and that the term "Maestro" is reserved not for those who are the best, the most famous or even the most musical, necessarily, but mainly for those who one felt too awkward to call by their first names.
The librarian, stage manager and personnel manager are interesting positions to hold - of everyone in the administration, they are the ones who least require greatness from the conductors. Their jobs are not directly connected to donor acquisition, ticket sales, or even musical talent. They just need clear and efficient communication, usually from the conductor's agent or assistant, sometimes from their spouse, and very occasionally, from the conductor themselves.
I would often wait to take their scores and stick in to them until after the fawning and hand-shaking, and fumbling discussions about the flights and weather, had ceased and they were alone in their dressing room, bow tie undone.
They often dropped their masks in those moments, showing their vulnerabilities, scars, humour and pragmatism. I remember a golden evening in Bristol, when Dai and I sat on the couch eating pretzels with Lorin Maazel long after the hall had cleared. (One day I'll write a book of memories of Maazel - he would leave us wheezing with laughter in the wings, sometimes intentionally, often not.)
It was very touching to see most of these heroes (including Maazel) clearly feeling things my fellow conducting students and I felt - nerves, social insecurity, fear of shame, pride, dislocation from family and friends and every type of acting out that ensued as a result.
Very ordinary men inhabiting extra-ordinary legends.
Fast-forward to 2021, with my own conducting career now in healthy swing (well, apart from the Covid-hiatus...) and that loaded question on the zoom panel: Who were, or are, the greatest conductors?
Obvious luminaries were listed - Karajan, Kleiber and the like, a few that I had met while working in the library, or whose broken batons were in David's little bucket (that collection should probably go to the British library at some point). All very predictable responses, and on the surface, absolutely correct.
But, having worked the circuit, on and offstage, for over a decade, I found myself disagreeing with them - not with their choices, so much, but with their criteria.
Perhaps I was moved by the "clap for the covid frontline workers" zeitgeist, but I realised that for me, the greatest conductors are those going out in rain, shine and snow every Wednesday evening to serve amateur orchestras; youth ensemble leaders who not only do the work of a conductor, but also that of a teacher, mentor, instrument mender and administrator.
The great conductors I see are those who are paid for a fraction of the hours they work (or not at all), receive no professional development or support, and still turn up, knowing they've not had enough time to learn the score or work on their technique, and that no-one in the band has learnt their part. But they still need to climb on the podium, inspire, lead, cajole, lift people to a place they wouldn't reach on their own.
That is greatness I can recognise.
I'm not about to go and clap on the street every Thursday evening for community orchestra conductors, nor do I want to go down to the local high school to take the register at band practice to ease the workload. But I genuinely believe non-professional and participatory music-making is set to figure more prominently in the arts world (huzzah!), and professional music organisations would be wise to start thinking how best to support, enhance and celebrate those experiences in their communities.
Because they're great.
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