INTERPRETATION IN CONDUCTING
INTRODUCTORY
[Sidenote: THE CONDUCTOR AS INTERPRETER]
Interpretation from the standpoint of the conductor differs from
interpretation in singing and playing in that the conductor must
necessarily convey ideas or emotions to his audience through an
intermediary, _viz._, the orchestra or chorus. He furthermore labors
under the disadvantage of having to stand with his back (certainly the
least expressive part of man's physique) to the audience. The pianist,
singer, and violinist, on the other hand, face their audiences; and
because they themselves actually do the performing, are able to work
much more directly upon the minds and emotions of their hearers. For
this reason, interpretation must be studied by the conductor from a
twofold basis:
1. From the standpoint of the expressive rendition of music
in general.
2. From the standpoint of securing the expressive rendition
of music from a group of players or singers.
We shall devote this and the three following chapters to a discussion
of these two phases of interpretation.
[Sidenote: INTERPRETATION AND EXPRESSION]
The word _interpret_, as ordinarily used means "to explain,"--"to
elucidate,"--"to make clear the meaning of," and this same definition
of the word applies to music as well, the conductor or performer
"making clear" to the audience the message given him by the composer.
It should be noted at once, however, that interpretation in music is
merely the process or means for securing the larger thing called
_expression_, and in discussing this larger thing, the activity of two
persons is always assumed; one is the composer, the other the
performer. Which of these two is the more important personage has been
for many decades a much mooted question among concert-goers.
Considered from an intellectual standpoint, there is no doubt whatever
concerning the supremacy of the composer; but when viewed in the light
of actual box office experience, on an evening when Caruso or some
other popular idol has been slated to appear, and cannot do so because
of indisposition, it would seem as if the performer were still as far
above the composer as he was in the days of eighteenth-century opera
in Italy.
It is the composer's function to write music of such a character that
when well performed it will occasion an emotional reaction on the part
of performer and listener. Granting this type of music, it is the
function of the performer or conductor to so interpret the music that
an appropriate emotional reaction will actually ensue. A recent writer
calls the performer a _messenger_ from the composer to the audience,
and states[8] that--
As a messenger is accountable to both sender and recipient
of his message, so is the interpretative artist in a
position of twofold trust and, therefore, of _twofold
responsibility_. The sender of his message--creative
genius--is behind him; before him sits an expectant and
confiding audience, the sovereign addressee. The
interpretative artist has, therefore, first to enter into
the _spirit_ of his message; to penetrate its ultimate
meaning; to read in, as well as between, the lines. And then
he has to train and develop his faculties of delivery, of
vital production, to such a degree as to enable him to fix
his message decisively, and with no danger of being
misunderstood, in the mind of his auditor.
[Footnote 8: Constantin von Sternberg, _Ethics and Esthetics of Piano
Playing_, p. 10.]
This conception of the conductor's task demands from him two things:
1. A careful, painstaking study of the work to be performed,
so as to become thoroughly familiar with its content and to
discover its true emotional significance.
2. Such display of emotion in his conducting as will arouse
a sympathetic response, first on the part of orchestra and
chorus, and then in turn in the audience.
[Sidenote: EMOTION IN INTERPRETATION]
Real interpretation, then, requires, on the part of the conductor,
just as in the case of the actor, a display of emotion. Coldness and
self-restraint will not suffice, for these represent merely the
intellectual aspect of the art, and music is primarily a language of
the emotions. This difference constitutes the dividing line between
performances that merely arouse our judicial comment "That was
exceedingly well done"; and those on the other hand that thrill us,
carry us off our feet, sweep us altogether out of our environment so
that for the moment we forget where we are, lose sight temporarily of
our petty cares and grievances, and are permitted to live for a little
while in an altogether different world--the world not of things and
ambitions and cares, but of ecstasy. Such performances and such an
attitude on the part of the listener are all too rare in these days of
smug intellectualism and hypersophistication, and we venture to assert
that this is at least partly due to the fact that many present-day
conductors are intellectual rather than emotional in their attitude.
It is this faculty of displaying emotion, of entirely submerging
himself in the work being performed, that gives the veteran choral
conductor Tomlins his phenomenal hold on chorus and audience. In a
performance of choral works recently directed by this conductor, the
listener was made to feel at one moment the joy of springtime, with
roses blooming and lovers wooing, as a light, tuneful chorus in waltz
movement was being performed; then in a trice, one was whisked over to
the heart of Russia, and made to see, as though they were actually
present, a gang of boatmen as they toiled along the bank of the Volga
with the tow-rope over their shoulders, tugging away at a barge which
moved slowly up from the distance, past a clump of trees, and then
gradually disappeared around a bend in the river; and in yet another
moment, one was thrilled through and through with religious fervor in
response to the grandeur and majestic stateliness of the Mendelssohn
Motet, _Judge Me, oh God_.
It was interpretation of this type too that gave the actor-singer
Wüllner such a tremendous hold upon his audiences a few years ago,
this artist achieving a veritable triumph by the tremendous sincerity
and vividness of his dramatic impersonations in singing German
_Lieder_, in spite of the fact that he possessed a voice of only
average quality.
It was an emotional response of this character that the Greek
philosophers must have been thinking of when they characterized drama
as a "purge for the soul"; and surely it must still be good for human
beings to forget themselves occasionally and to become merged in this
fashion in the wave of emotion felt by performer and fellow-listener
in response to the message of the composer.
It is emotion of this type also that the great composers have sought
to arouse through their noblest compositions. Handel is said to have
replied, when congratulated upon the excellence of the entertainment
afforded by the _Messiah_, "I am sorry if I have only entertained
them; I hoped to do them good." An English writer, in quoting this
incident, adds:[9]
What Handel tried to do ... by wedding fine music to an
inspiring text, Beethoven succeeded in doing through
instruments alone ... for never have instruments--no matter
how pleasing they were in the past--been capable of stirring
the inmost feelings as they have done since the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
[Footnote 9: C.F.A. Williams, _The Rhythm of Modern Music_, p. 13.]
There is danger, of course, here as everywhere, that one may go too
far; and it is entirely conceivable that both soloist and conductor
might go to such extremes in their display of emotion that the music
would be entirely distorted, losing what is after all its main _raison
d'être_, _viz._, the element of beauty. But there seems at present to
be no especial danger that such an event will occur; the tendency
seems rather to be toward overemphasizing intellectualism in music,
and toward turning our art into a science.[10] The thing that we
should like to convince the prospective conductor of is that real
interpretation--_i.e._, genuinely expressive musical performance--demands
an actual display of emotion on the part of the conductor if the ideal
sort of reaction is to be aroused in the audience.
[Footnote 10: This danger is especially insidious just now in our
college and high school courses in the _appreciation of music_.
Instructors in such courses are often so zealous in causing pupils to
understand the _machinery_ involved in the construction and rendition
of music that they sometimes forget to emphasize sufficiently the
product resulting from all this machinery, _viz._, _beauty_. The idea
of these courses is most excellent, and in time those in charge of
them will doubtless realize that the hearing of actual music in the
classroom is more valuable to students than learning a mass of facts
about it; and that if a choice were necessary between a course in
which there was opportunity for hearing a great deal of music without
any comment, and one on the other hand in which there was a great deal
of comment without any music, the former would be infinitely
preferable. But such a choice is not necessary; and the ideal course
in the Appreciation of Music is one in which the student has
opportunity for hearing a great deal of music with appropriate
comments by the instructor.]
In order to interpret a musical work, then, the conductor himself must
first study it so as to discover what the composer intended to
express. Having become thoroughly permeated with the composer's
message, he may then by instinctive imitation arouse in his chorus or
orchestra so strong a reflection of this mood that they will perform
the work in the correct spirit, the audience in turn catching its
essential significance, and each listener in his own way responding to
the composer's message.
[Sidenote: DEFINITION OF INTERPRETATION]
Musical interpretation consists thus in impressing upon the listener
the essential character of the music by emphasizing the important
elements and subordinating the unimportant ones; by indicating in a
clear-cut and unmistakable way the phrasing, and through skilful
phrasing making evident the design of the composition as a whole; and
in general by so manipulating one's musical forces that the hearer
will not only continue to be interested in the performance, but will
feel or understand the basic significance of the work being performed;
will catch and remember the important things in it, will not have his
attention distracted by comparatively unimportant details, and will
thus have delivered to him the real spirit of the composer's message.
This implies skilful accentuation of melody, subordination of
accompaniment, increasing the tempo or force in some portions,
decreasing them in others, _et cetera_. Clear enunciation and forceful
declamation in choral music are also included, and in it all, the
performer or conductor must so subordinate his own personality that
the attention of the listeners will be centered upon the composition
and not upon the eccentricities of dress or manner of the artist.
[Sidenote: THE BOUNDARIES OF MUSIC]
It is inevitable that there should be considerable difference of
opinion among composers, critics, listeners, and performers, as to
just what music may or may not legitimately be expected to express.
Some modern composers are apparently convinced that it ought to be
possible through music to suggest pictures, tell stories, or depict
moral and intellectual struggles on the part of the individual. Others
contend that music exists solely because of its own inherent beauty,
that it can arouse _general_ emotional states only, and that if it is
good music, it needs no further meaning than this. Even "pure music,"
the champions of this latter idea urge, may express an infinite
variety of emotional tones, from joy, encouragement, excitement,
tenderness, expectancy, invigoration, and tranquillity, to dread,
oppression of spirit, hesitation, harshness, and despondency. A modern
writer on esthetics treats this matter at length, and finally
concludes:[11]
Is the symbolization pervasive enough to account for the
steady continuing charm of lengthy compositions?... The
symbolizations ... mostly resemble patches; they form no
system, no plot or plan accompanying a work from beginning
to end; they only guarantee a fitful enjoyment--a fragment
here, a gleam there, but no growing organic exaltation like
that actually afforded by musical compositions.
[Footnote 11: Gehring, _The Basis of Musical Pleasure_, p. 89.]
At another point in the same work, this writer again discusses this
same matter (page 120):
Music is presentative in character, not representative.
Measure, to be sure, may correspond to the beating of the
pulse, and the final cadence may picture the satisfaction of
desires; the coda may simulate a mental summary; but the
composition in its totality, with its particular melodies,
harmonies, and rhythms, and with the specific union of all
these elements characteristic of this composition, does not
represent any definite psychical or material fact.
The majority of us would doubtless take a middle-ground position,
admitting the beauty and power of music, _per se_, but acknowledging
also the fact that abstract beauty together with a certain amount of
suggested imagery, in combination, will usually make a stronger appeal
to the majority of people than either element by itself. Many of us
are entirely willing to grant, therefore, that a more complex and more
vividly colored emotional state will probably result if the auditor is
furnished with the title or program of the work being performed; _but
we contend nevertheless that this music, regardless of its connection
with imagery, must at the same time be sound music, and that no matter
how vividly descriptive our tonal art may become, if it cannot stand
the test of many hearings as music, entirely apart from the imagery
aroused, it is not worthy to endure_. It is not the _meaning_ of the
music which makes us want to hear it repeated, but its inherent
_beauty_; it is not usually our intellectual impression, but our
emotional thrill which we recall in thinking back over a past musical
experience.
Those of us who take the middle ground that we have just been
presenting contend also that descriptive music can only legitimately
arouse its appropriate imagery when the essential idea has been
supplied beforehand in the form of a title or program, and that even
then _the effect upon various individuals is, and may well be, quite
different_, since each one has the music thrown, as it were, upon the
screen of his own personal experience.
[Sidenote: EXPRESSION CONCERNS BOTH COMPOSER AND PERFORMER]
It will be noted that in this discussion we are constantly using the
word _expression_ from the twofold standpoint of composer and
performer, each having an indispensable part in it, and neither being
able to get along without the other. But in our treatment of
conducting, we shall need to come back again and again to the idea of
expression from the standpoint of interpretation, and in directing a
piece of music we shall now take it for granted that the composer has
said something which is worthy of being heard, and that as the
intermediary between composer and audience, we are attempting to
interpret to the latter what the former has expressed in his
composition. It should be noted in this connection that wrong
interpretation is possible in music, even as in literature. One may so
read a poem that the hearer, without being in any way to blame, will
entirely miss the point. So also may one conduct a musical work,
whether it be a child's song or a symphonic poem, in such a fashion
that neither performers nor audience gain a proper conception of what
it means.
[Sidenote: INTERPRETATION IN VOCAL MUSIC]
In the case of vocal music, the key to the emotional content of the
work may almost always be found by carefully studying the words. In
preparing to conduct choral singing, master the text, therefore; read
it aloud as though declaiming to an audience; and when you come to the
performance, see that your vocalists sing the music in such a way that
the audience will be able to catch without too great effort both the
meaning of the individual words and the spirit of the text as a whole.
The great Italian tenor Caruso expressed himself forcibly upon this
point during an interview for the _Christian Science Monitor_, in
1913. In reply to the question "Where do you locate the source of
expression in singing?" he said:
I find it in the words always. For unless I give my hearers
what is in the text, what can I give them? If I just produce
tone, my singing has no meaning.
"Thereupon" (continues the interviewer), "vocalizing a series of scale
passages such as are used in studio practice, Caruso commented":
Now, when I do that, I don't say anything. I may make
musical sounds, but I express nothing. I may even execute
the notes with a good staccato or legato (again illustrating
with his voice) and still, having no words to go by, I make
no effect on my listeners.
Look at the question in another way. Suppose I were to sing
a line of text with a meaning in my voice that contradicted
the idea of the words. Would not that be nonsense? It would
be as much as though I were to say to you "This wood is
hard," and were to say it with a soft voice. People have
observed that I sing as though I were talking. Well, that is
just what I mean to do.
"Singing, then" (the interviewer goes on), "as Caruso began to define
it, is a sort of exalted speech, its purpose being to illuminate the
imagery and sentiment of language. The mere music of singing he seemed
for the moment to put in a subordinate place.
"By way of further emphasizing his point, he referred to a theme in
Donizetti's _L'Elisir d'Amore_, which is used in two opposing
situations--by the soprano in a mood of joy, and by the tenor in a
mood of sorrow. He sang the measures of the soprano as though
laughing. Then he sang those of the tenor as though weeping."
"But those two passages of melody cannot be identical,"
objected the interviewer.
"Oh, yes, they are," the tenor declared; and he quickly
proved it by singing them over again with a less marked
indication of the moods. "Here you plainly see where
expression must start. It has to be from the words, of
course. The performer puts in the feeling of gladness or
sadness without regard to the notes, paying attention only
to the text."
Expression in choral music is dependent upon the text to just as great
an extent as in the case of solo singing; and choral conductors may
well ponder upon the above words of one of the world's greatest
singers, and apply the lesson to their own problems. The average
audience is probably more interested in the _words_ of vocal music
than in anything else; and since both vocal and choral performances
are usually given before "average audiences" it behooves the conductor
to look into the minds of those before whom he is directing, and to
adapt the performance to the attitude of the listeners.