There is a very old joke in the professional music business that goes something like this:
“I was having this terrible nightmare that I was playing Handel’s Messiah . . .
I woke up,
and I was playing Handel’s Messiah.”
As I have sojourned out of the rarefied air the professional music industry, I have become increasingly aware of the generally accepted mythology on the part of “civilians” (that is, people who are not professional musicians) that conductors are, without exception, godlike creatures . . . And since conductors are often used as idealized metaphors for the role of a manager, one of the things I want to do in this blog is give folks who are not professional musicians a more in-depth understanding of the conductor.
Just one story:
One day I was really playing Handel’s Messiah (and what a nightmare it was…). If you’ve ever had the dubious pleasure of sitting through the entire piece, then you are already aware of the fact that this is what professional musicians refer to as a “long song.”
Anyway, I came into this rehearsal, and I gradually became aware of the fact that the conductor, with the help of his eager assistant, had taken the entire bass part of Handel’s Messiah (and we’re talking a book about an inch thick, folks) and he had turned every single quarter note into a dotted eighth note. This is a musical way of saying that he took the length of each basic note in the piece and shortened it by 25%. Thousands and thousands of them.
Now on the one hand, this was a very thorough way of imparting to me the desire that a certain shortened style of note would be executed. On the other hand, he could have saved himself an awful lot of work by just saying to me, “Justin, could you please turn all the quarter notes into dotted eighths.”
So two things happened: one, he completely lost my respect, largely because he displayed a total lack of respect for me and MY ability to just execute a basic stylistic change. Two, he established a relationship between us where he was not speaking directly to me, but rather was sending me a sort of non-stop musical memo. This made it very hard for me to communicate with him without my face betraying a little bit of “god, what an idiot.”
As was so often the case, both I and all of my musical colleagues found ourselves spending most of our energy just trying to get through the gig without getting fired for expressing overt contempt. Sad to say, most musica professionals have had to work hard to get to where they are and they get very snobby towards people who they feel have not reached their level.
This kind of thing happened many times at many concerts with many conductors, but that one time seemed to just be the epitome of that kind of experience, where instead of giving it your best work, the management environment pretty much forced me to do a minimal job in order to maintain my sanity.
Now fast-forward a little bit.
One fine day, Bose Corporation called me up and asked me to hire an entire orchestra for a recording gig. So I’m on the phone, trying to line up some 90 musicians, which is not unlike herding garter snakes. Anyway, when hiring a freelance gig like this here in Boston, there is always a problem of the best players being called at the last minute to substitute in the Boston Symphony. I love the Symphony dearly, worked for them for years, but I also like to refer to the symphony as the local 800 pound nonprofit gorilla, as what they do is what they do. . . . So I was hesitant to call some of the best people because past experience had taught me that there was at least 60% chance that they would get called by the symphony to sub at the last minute, and our deal was alwaus that I let them out if that happened.
Well, the strangest thing happened. Consistently, when I gave these people the date of the recording gig, I was told, “oh yes, I can do it, I won’t be playing symphony that week. Haitink is in town.”
I ignored this comment the first two times I heard it. When I heard it six times in a row I started to get curious.
I finally asked one of them, what is the big deal about Haitink being in town?
One of them answered, “well the symphony guys love playing for him, so no one takes those weeks off when he conducts. So I will be free to play your gig because I know I won’t be subbing with the symphony.”
At this point, I became even more intrigued. Professional full-time symphony musicians, for the most part, are a jaded and cynical bunch, and generally speaking, they hate everybody, especially conductors. But here was a conductor they actually liked. I started doing some research. I finally asked someone who played in the symphony a great deal why Haitink was so popular.
He basically explained to me (and I confess, this is all secondhand information), that at the beginning of a rehearsal, he would start by asking him to play it their preferred way. After listening intently to how they, as a very practiced ensemble, preferred to play a standard repertoire piece, he would rattle off five or ten little notes and changes that he preferred, at which point everyone was excused from rehearsal of an hour early.
Now bear in mind, my hard information here is pretty sketchy about the details. But the point is, here is a conductor who deeply respected the people playing for them, and did as much or more listening and appreciating as he did instructing and requiring. And he respected their expertise and went to great lengths to not waste their time.
I don’t know this for an immediate fact, but my understanding is one that when Haitink is in town, the symphony is sold out. Perhaps the audiences figured out that the symphony plays a little better for conductors they like?
It would be easy to say, they play well for him because he’s famous, and the audience comes to hear them because he’s famous. But maybe he is famous because of how he approaches his role as a manager.
© Justin Locke
www.justinlocke.com
