NPR had a long piece a few days ago on the death the conductor Georg Solti. The person being interviewed went on and on about the uniqueness and “power” of his performances. They played lots of clips. My thought was, “I can’t tell what the heck they are talking about and frankly I listen to a lot of classical music, so I bet most other people can’t tell either.” That may be true, but it bothered me the rest of the day that in all the years I had spent listening toand performing music, I had almost nothing to ground myself in when it came to trying to figure out who was conducting an orchestra just by listening.<\/p>\n
I have spent countless hours paying attention to individual performers. Recording quality and styles something I’ve been aware of for a long time. I can always tell when Itzhack Perlman is on the radio because his Stradivarius violin sounds kind of strange – unusually delicate. I can tell when Pablo Casals is playing or Andrea Segovia (way too much rubato), or Angel Romero (way too fast). I know what Wynton Marsalis trumpet sounds like. (Bell tones. Good classical, mediocre jazz). You can always tell if a symphony recording is older than about 20 years (you can barely hear the bass violins). Etc. I’ve spent a lot of years paying attention to this stuff. But the conductor? I’m completely lost. I can’t tell one from the other.<\/p>\n
So I stared to pay attention. Only a few days later, I heard the third movement of Beethoven’s 5th on the radio – great stuff of course. On this performance though, when the french horns came in, I was jarred. They were WAY overblowing as loud as they possibly could. The tone was blaring and buzzy and unstable. Pretty cool, but also unconventional. Now wait a minute. No brass player would EVER get away with blasting like that. They would get chewed out and told to play a nice solid forte. There is no way that just happened on its own. Then it hit me. THE CONDUCTOR TOLD THEM TO DO IT. And most conductors wouldn’t. Here is something unique about this performance right here that comes from the silent man holding the baton.<\/p>\n
I stayed in the parking lot at work and waited for the piece to finish and for them to announce who it was. Turns out it was Georg Solti.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t find that particular performance on YouTube. This one is pretty good though.<\/p>\n