Is this the dawn of the semi-conductor?
NewsIn a feature-length London interview with the Times, Daniel Harding talks through his decision to become a part-time commercial pilot with the Air France airline.
“The weird thing about conducting is that I can spend an enormous number of weeks away from home but still have a lot of time to myself,” he says. “In Stockholm, for instance, we rehearse from 10am to 2.30pm each day. So I realised I had hours each afternoon when I could be challenging my brain instead of watching Netflix or wandering round the park.”
Harding, 46, has been chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra for the past 15 years.
His decision makes a tremendous amount of sense, and it chimes well with the ways many professional musicians have reorganised their working lives during and after the Covid pandemic.
A significant number have developed parallel activities, work patterns and even careers outside of music. Some are much happier as a result. And more attached to their music. We all deserve more than one life.
So at which point does music – conducting in particular – get redesignated as a part-time activity?
It’s an option.
How about spending your extra time studying scores? Do these guys treat it as a crucial part of their job? Old conductors used to spend a lot of time studying and marking scores even for pieces they performed many times. Flying planes, or in Gergiev’s case sitting in one shuttling to five cities in seven days, do not allow free time for score reading.
Trust me, they know the scores better than you, me or most anyone else. To even make it as a community church choir conductor, you have to be able to bang out the harmony on a piano. Your local public school band director not only has to be a fully trained, knowledgeable conductor who can get kids to play together, he/she has to teach the kids how to play their specific instrument. Like them or not, professional symphony orchestra conductors didn’t rise to the top, based simply on their stick technique and hand movements. During their conservatory training, they were drilled on their knowledge of standard repertoire constantly, and had to demonstrate their ability to reduce scores on to a piano. Gergiev’s problem of being in too many places at one time has nothing to do with score knowledge. If you think Daniel Harding gets up on a podium without thoroughly the score in front of him, well then, you’ve got better ears than I do.
Carbon over baton?
Well, it’s his choice.
Apparently, he’s lost his grip on the ground.
Alas, one man less in the park.
Many hard landings!
Many conductors give the impression of it only being a part-time job.
Yes, especially when conducting Mozart’s Requiem, Schubert’s “Unvollendete”, Elgar’s 3rd, and Mahler’s 10th (the fragments).
Not surprised he’s bored after the rehearsal is over.
Blomstedt has no such problems. He reads his scores. This week’s and coming week’s scores. As someone with almost 50 years more experience than Harding…
But some young baton wavers have it too easy, are not challenged enough.
The music critics are not doing their jobs. Mediocrity needs to be fought more intensely.
It’s not that at all. The orchestras they face already know the works they’re playing backwards and forwards, with the exception any ‘new’ works (which nobody can tell if they’re playing correctly or not anyway). Conductors have very limited rehearsal time for a full program. They have to remain professional and diplomatic in the way they interact with a professional orchestra, as well as any soloists they’re accompanying. The days of the stomping/shouting conducting tyrant are over with. Sorry to say, it’s about time management more than anything else. If you don’t believe that, go watch a rehearsal. Some are better than others, yes. Conductors are young because the older ones have died off or have retired. They all have to start some place, and few of them are putting in many thankless years in the opera pit. If orchestras and agents are looking in the opera pits for potential talent, then it’s their ‘bad’ and not the conductors’. Blomstedt, thank goodness, is a wonderful anomaly at the moment. Many critics aren’t doing their jobs correctly because they’re the ones who aren’t fully trained, certificated, or fully understand what goes on in the music making process (including rehearsals). I say this over and over at this site, and I’ll continue to keep hammering on this theme: stop worrying about the person on the podium and just listen to the music. The music itself hasn’t changed.
Joy stick or baton? Which is it to be?
Hardlanding deserves zero credibility points.
Great conductors should either be studying scores, listening to records, composing or walking through nature when not conducting.
Many people who are well-know for attaining mastery in one field also do so in other areas, often privately. Society used to find that exceptional; the pervasive modern reaction seems to be to question the individual’s dedication to everything.
“We all deserve more than one life.”
Say what?
See the story here about the Composer/conductor from Finland who died from a brain tumour aged 48.
So, being a chief conductor these demands about 25% of your work weeks in a year.
Bring a part time pilot another 25% of your work time.
He has still 50% left. How about some brain surgery on the side, Mr. Harding?
Remind me not to travel with Air France.
Is he also going to be semi-paid for his semi-conducting? I bet this isn’t his plan. His plan is full pay for semi-conducting, plus making an extra buck as commercial pilot in the time he is already paid as conductor. It isn’t that his genius brain (ahem) needs constant challenging (and apparently no rest whatever), it’s that his wallet could be plumper.