G.P. - Tag - Simonov

Orchestra conductors and eyesight

Sasha Mäkilä — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:11:00 +0200

Among musical professions conducting holds a special place for many reasons, and one of them is that the conductor must be talented not only musically, but also visually - he must be able to take in a huge amount of visual information and transmit it to the players via body language.

There are several noted cases of musicians being able to perform at a very high level despite being visually impaired, but when it comes to conducting it seems to be not the case. The complexity of an orchestral score is so high, that internalizing it with some other than visual means would be too slow and cumbersome, and handling the rehearsal situation with a normal orchestra would be almost impossible without visual contact with the players.

There are conductors who did not have much use of their eyes at an older age. It is told that the reason for Toscanini always conducting without score was, that because of his bad eyesight the score would have been useless in the rehearsal. I read somewhere that Toscanini had to rehearse the American premiere of Leningrad Symphony by Schostakovich page by page at the rehearsal, because everything was done in such a hurry that he had no time to spend with the score beforehand.

Another example was the great Russian conducting pedagogue Ilya Aleksandrovich Musin, who made his international breakthrough when he was around 90 years old. His eyesight had started to fail already at that age, so he resorted to conducting only works he knew very well by heart.

I would imagine poor eyesight would not make any difference to someone like Maestro Kurt Masur, who performs more than 200 orchestral works by heart. He has an additional benefit of his eyes looking slightly to different directions - the musician cannot be quite sure whether he is eyeing him or the guy at the next desk...

Here is a picture of my dear professor at the Sibelius Academy, Leif Segerstam as a young man. Notice how lean he is! And the eyeglasses! Well, I have heard that Leif has been using contact lenses about since they were invented! And these days he recommends them to all of his students too! He thinks that eyes are such a valuable means of communication, that nothing should come in between - not even the most delicate frames...

Here is a picture of Leif with contacts. Using contacts is not totally without problems anyway... Every musician in Finland knows the story of Leif coming to a rehearsal and then stopping it in the middle because he was feeling so nauseatic. The reason - he had 2 contact lenses in one eye and 3 in the other! I also have witnessed one of my colleagues losing one of his contact lenses in the middle of a difficult modern work during a conducting competition!

You can also lose your glasses, as I did during one concert at the Hot Springs Music Festival. I felt that my glasses had slipped too low and tried to lift them up in the middle of the piece with disastrous results. My glasses lifted themselves up in the air and I fortunately could catch them in mid-air. Now I have to warn you about certain kind of glasses: If you are a conductor, never buy glasses that have flexible arms - they will be impossible to put back with one hand! I especially warn you about the "Silhouette" brand which I have at the moment. The arms are not long enough to really grab your ear and they are so springy that they practically jump off your face at the slightest hint.

Anyway, I really don't think using glasses is such a big deal. Just look at this poor Austrian chap! Was he worse a conductor because he could not afford contact lenses? I don't think so!

Or take a look at the owl-size glasses of this New Yorker. This is absolutely what I recommend - the glasses are big enough so that he can see both the music and the players just by moving his eyes. He is not the most fashionable guy, though...

This British nobleman probably needs his glasses only for reading, so with the orchestra he resorts to old and trusted "half-moons"... I do not recommend this choice to younger conducting fellows - I guess you have to be a "sir" to look credible with them...

Finally, your eyesight affects so many factors in your conducting that can make a big difference. How well you see the score affects the height of your desk, which in turn affects how much space you will have in front of you to move your hands about! In good old Eastern conducting schools the students always conduct by heart at the lessons, and for this reason your conducting technique will be more free and relaxed without worrying about the desk or page turns. Just take a look at the Carlos Kleiber concert videos with Concertgebouw and imagine him using a desk - how different his conducting would have to be, with less space to use and constant turning of the pages!

There is a couple of "conducting secrets" to help when you really need the score badly but do not want to keep your desk too high. I heard both from Maestro Yuri Simonov this summer, and I am in the process of testing them right now. First is - make a photocopy of a miniature score so that you will have four pages over one spread. This will reduce your page turns by 50%! Second - and I know this will divide opinions - mark your score clearly and systematically with bright colours so that you will be able to see it from distance! When you have a colour code always there for each instrument group, you don't need to put your head into the score and read the small print. This way your posture will be better and the players will find it nicer to look at you. Remember, it is a visual profession!

Conducting Basics by Yuri Simonov

Sasha Mäkilä — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:39:00 +0200

Amongs many other good things, we received on the Yuri Simonov master class a memo of some very basic things you should/should not do while conducting. He wrote it originally in Russian, so this new translation (thanks Nima!) hopefully is a little bit more accurate on some points than the one we got on the master class.

It would be wonderful to get some comments on the memo - both from the master class participants, who can point any inaccuracies in the text, and from anyone else interested in conducting. This list actually does not concern so much the actual process of conducting (which is a highly complicated matter!), but is more about acting in a professional manner while on the podium. Feel free to comment!

Simonov conducting memo

Final impressions of the Yuri Simonov master class

Sasha Mäkilä — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:20:00 +0200

Friday the 13th, the final day of the master class! Well, despite the ominous date everything went fine! I enjoyed some beautiful performances in the final orchestra rehearsal - especially Oleg Soldatov's interpretation of Don Juan by Richard Strauss! He is already an experienced conductor who gets what he wants from the orchestra. Still he is ambitious and curious enough to come to master classes to learn more! I have high respect for him!

Oleg Soldatov conducting Don Juan

After the rehearsal we gave roses to the orchestra players to thank them for the good work. They were a fantastic master class orchestra with a friendly but professional attitude. I am sure every participant got an honest evaluation of their skills just by listening how the orchestra played under their direction.

Maestro Simonov rehearsing

After that we took a bus ride to Gödöllö, to a beautiful palace where the final concert was to take place. The orchestra played in open air, in less than ideal circumstances. Nevertheless the result was good! Maestro Simonov demonstrated his virtuosity in preparing the Mendelssohn violin concerto for concert with barely more than a run-through of the piece. The rest of the program was from our master class repertoire.

Open air concert in Gödöllö

Maestro Simonov's conducting was really pleasurable to watch even though the orchestra's power was reduced without proper acoustics. When the evening got darker they also had to compete with birdsong! Afterwards we had a nice coctail party and paid a visit to one of the three surviving baroque theaters in Europe, located inside the palace and recently restored.

Jolly master class participants after the concert

The partying continued late that night in a sentimental mood. After all, it is so hard to let go of your new friends and colleagues after working so hard side by side for ten days!

Heikki Seppänen gets his diploma

The official closing of the master class was held on Saturday morning. We were served a fantastic meal with good wine and people gave speeches in emotional state... We also got our master class diplomas, and maestro Simonov would speak briefly about every participant, evaluating their progress and giving advice for the future - all this in highly encouraging and poetic manner. Besides the diploma, everyone got a letter of advice from maestro, as well as a photo of all the participants with their contacts, and a new baton with our name inscribed onto it! We also got a DVD of our orchestra rehearsals and maestro Simonov's first rehearsal before the master class started!

After the lunch it was time for emotional goodbyes... Maestro Simonov encouraged all the participants to keep in touch with each other and help each other in the profession. Needlessly, I would say, since everyone seemed to have made great friends during the master class!

Finally relaxing with friends...

Sasha Mäkilä — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:31:00 +0200

Today was my last "working day" on this master class - I conducted Ravel's "La Valse" and then was just listening to our piano session. No more working! Of course maestro Simonov throws his teachings around so that you cannot avoid learning from him! Today, for example, he gave a lecture on the importance of knowing the score and how to study it fast and efficiently. Then we went over and over again through some problematic passages of Strauss' "Don Juan", and in the end everyone in the class learned those places by heart! On the next master class, he said, everyone should know the pieces by heart before the first day! Quite a challenge!

Me conducting La Valse

After the piano class I could finally go and relax with my colleagues. We went to eat in a Japanese restaurant, and then to a cafe with live piano music. Needless to say we had great time (except maybe not the one person who had still some studying to do for tomorrow - she seemed a bit stressed nevertheless...)!

Later I also compared some photos with my colleague Cyril. So far these new entries are so boring, because you really need to see all that is going on here to appreciate it. As soon as I am back home I will update all the entries and put some nice photos here. So a bit more patience, OK? It will be good!

Working hard

Sasha Mäkilä — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:43:00 +0200

Today it became obvious how hard work conducting is: I woke up early to study Stravinsky Apollon Musagete for the orchestra session - which went very well actually - and after that I had to gather myself to study Ravel La Valse and conduct it with the pianists.

Maja at the piano session

At the break in our piano session maestro Simonov showed me his notes from our first meeting 3 years ago in St Petersburg. It is incredible how organized he is - I remember him writing on his laptop during that master class, but I never would have believed that he has saved all he wrote and was able to dig it out to show it to me today. Apparently he makes a file about every person he is teaching!

Anyway, the comments he made back then were really harsh - his impression of me after the first lesson must have been very bad. On the second day he wrote something positive too: "made progress", "feels the music"... Now, after this master class I will get a couple of pages of notes from these 10 days. That should be interesting!