Andris Nelsons: How I curbed my ego

The Boston music director has been talking about what he has learned in the job. He tells Boston Classical Review:

‘Years ago I conducted like, ‘I want you to play this, and I want you to play this,’ because of my ego.  That way doesn’t work, and I think it’s just an absolutely wrong way for expressing honestly and deeply what the composer wants to express. 

‘I still think the communication with music, and with the orchestra, mostly happens in the rehearsal, but actually the miracle, or the mystical part, happens in the concert.  And that happens through this kind of, you know, energy flow–what I pass through my hands and toes and through my body. And still, every individual [in the orchestra] is a great musician, and everyone has maybe a little different approach to what that means, and it all creates this great variety of sound and direction.

‘Of course, there is a lot of discipline required. Von Karajan said, ‘In two places there is no democracy: the army and music.’  I agree, in the sense that the dictatorship comes from the composer.’