Do they conduct better sitting down?
NewsThis is turning into one of the trends of summer 2022.
Daniel Barenboim, clearly unwell, has been conducting the West-East Diwan and Vienna Philharmonic from a chair.
Zubin Mehta, 86, did the same with the Australian World Orchestra at the BBC Proms.
Now Kirill Petrenko, with a post-operative foot, will take a chair in the Berlin Philharmonic’s Mahler 7th.
Should the audience stand for it?
“Should the audience stand for it?”
Who gives a shit if the conductor sits or stands? The audience should close their eyes and listen to the music. If they enjoy what they are hearing, why does it matter if the conductor sits, stands, uses a baton, is drunk on the podium, or half dead.
r/whoosh!
Mmmh… Close my eyes during a performance ? I can do that at home, sitting on a comfortable sofa.
If I leave my house on a too cold evening, to sit on rough chair, with people around me who are too beautiful, thin, wonderfully dressed, all those details underlying how blah I am, it is because I want to see people performing.
The last time I closed my eyes on concert, It is because the cellist playing the Rococo variations acted like a clown, constantly doing funny faces to the public, to the conductor, moving his head like a third class mime. I closed my eyes: the music was suddenly great. I reopened it at the end of the piece. For me a conductor who sit is not so disturbing: just a detail.
When I played professionally in orchestras, lot of conductor leads all rehearsal on a chair, standing only at the dress rehearsal and the concert, and they were equally good (or mediocre) in both positions.
Zubin Mehta is now 86 and has been sitting to conduct for a couple of years. His prom on Tuesday with AWO was splendid: http://www.colinscolumn.com/bbc-proms-2022-prom-48-australian-world-orchestra-zubin-mehta-webern-brahms-siobhan-stagg-sings-debussys-ariettes-oubliees-orchestrated-by-brett-dean-live-bbc-radio-3-broadcast/.
He probably needs to be sitting down when he reads his bank statement
There ought to be a mandatory retirement age for conductors.
What’s the difference between Barenboim the pianist, and Barenboim the conductor, forgetting even a single note, or physically unable to execute just one note?
Conducting is surely the only artistic endeavor in which one can fake it from beginning to end.
For all we know, Barenboim the conductor is thinking about his medical ailments or if he forgot to turn off the stove or where did he put his car keys, all while sitting on the podium beating in tempo.
Performance and wisdom are too very different things. Old maestros have wisdom, it doesn’t mean they are actually performing.
Maestros should retire from the podium at 65, become wise gurus and coaches to orchestras and younger colleagues, to impart their wisdom, not to fake it to the end.
With all due respect kaf, your idea is a terrible one. For many conductors, their best work is in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. There are too many examples to mention: Klemperer, Karajan, Haitink, Jochum, Skrowaczewski, Blomstedt, etc.
To be sure, as Bernard Haitink once said, “All conductors have a sell-by date.” But it sure ain’t age 65.
When Maestro Haitink made that comment to me, he was talking about being overexposed to a single orchestra, that if you are there, week in and week out, it is only a matter of time before they are sick of you, no matter how well prepared or inspired you may be. It had nothing to do with age. He went further in that he felt that American orchestras were overly preoccupied and fixated on a single music director to address all the artistic and marketing aspects of an orchestra. He didn’t have much in the way of career aspirations by the time I met him (he didn’t need them for sure), but I came away with his ideal arrangement being three or four primary conductors of the Boston Symphony when Seiji Ozawa departed. But all eyes were fixated on James Levine.
I have always wondered if singers didn’t harbor secret grudges against Levine and von Karajan for trying to asphyxiate them with their tempi.
With all due respect Herr Doktor, Karajan would fall asleep in the pit now and then. On such occasions the orchestra went on without him. The reason they could do so is that they were excellent musicians and much younger than he. Why should the taxpayer support conductors’ egos? I am not for forced retirement aged 65 for conductors, but the reality is that self-employed people in arts or politics are clinging to that pit or stage or parliament seat many years past their best, and I don’t see any reason for the taxpayer to support those indecent salaries for substandard work.
JJ you are confusing Karajan with Klemperer.
I believe it was Karajan but I wouldn’t swear to it. If you think it was Klemperer I stand corrected.
Taxpayer? What country do you live in?
‘For many conductors, their best work is in their 60s, 70s, and 80s’
I wonder who has decided this is so. To me this sounds like an urban legend. To make such a statement you must have attended hundreds of concerts of the same conductor spanning several decades, and compared them in your mind. Mother Nature must have endowed you with a most unusual brain in order for you to be able to do this, not to mention that we don’t know your comparison criteria.
Conducting is a profession that requires some maturity, but I have yet to see proof that a conductor aged 80+, with his physical well-being (and sometimes even psychological well-being) depending on his daily medicine, does a better job than his younger but mature self aged 40-50. It is most unnatural for a human being to peak toward the end of his biological life, and I’m not even sure if this is something to be proud of… What took him so long? I would also like to know how it is possible for folks to be so sure they know where the conductor’s contribution stops and the orchestra’s contribution begins, just from listening to a performance. Performance, not rehearsal. How lucky for those conductors in their 70s and 80s that the musicians in the pit are much younger…
JJ, I’m an Emergency Medicine physician, was an excellent athlete and modest Clarinetist in my youth, and continue to work close to FT, approaching 77 yrs, and great lover of many musical genres, particularly classical. In medicine, those somewhat unusual, but not truly “rare,” individuals who are fortunate enough to remain quite mentally sharp into their late years and who were always excellent, are definitely better physicians than all but the rarest of docs in their 50s. Except for a single individual, my greatest mentors, when I was a young doc, were, at least, in their 60s, usually older, and one, in his 90s!
“what took him so long?” is an interesting question and I think, a maybe not the right question. There could be so many reasons that a conductor doesn’t peak young, not the least of which are often out of their control. Maybe they weren’t given a shot at a younger age to lead an orchestra. So many female conductors, people of color, heck anyone that comes in without connections are denied opportunities and sidelined for much longer than a “typical” conductor might be.
I agree with the possible exception of Klemperer. Though we share the same last name (no relation) every recording I have heard has odd tempo changes, and bring the oddest rhythmic phrases to the foreground). Further back, I would add Toscanini and Stokowski.
Günter Wand was an excellent local Kapellmeister in Cologne. But his real ascent into international stardom started in 1982, when he took over the NDR Phil – at the ripe age of 70. I do not think that music would have been served well if he had been forced to retire 5 years earlier than that.
Not the NDR Phil. You are confusing the NDR Sinfonieorchester, since renamed the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, with the NDR Radiophilharmonie based in Hannover.
Your general point about Wand is completely valid. The stupid BBC, which had a statutory retirement age, got rid of Sir Adrian Boult in charge of its own Symphony Orchestra at the age of 60. He then went on to have a very successful career performing and recording with other orchestras.
Confusing stardom with excellency, or excellency with opportunity? According to you he lacked the great opportunity before turning 70, but does this follow the work of his younger but mature self compared unfavorably to his work post-70? You wrote his pre-70 work was excellent. You also mix apples with oranges. Sure, both are fruit, but the work of a Kapellmeister at the Opera in Cologne isn’t quite the same as the work of a Phil chief conductor, isn’t it?
Kaf, you are a moron.
kaf you are correct the BPO players have to retire at 65
Perhaps the most inane comment I have ever read.
If conducting from a sitting position improved a performance, I don’t want to know what Barenboim’s Parsifal/Samson concert in Salzburg would have sounded standing…
Some of the greatest outbursts in music history have been achieved by sitting conductors.
For example:
https://youtu.be/zY4w4_W30aQ?t=2668
Thanks for uploading that. It was epic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-1KtSOwLXE
I wonder if Toscanini was sitting down or standing up for this outburst.
He’s one scary mofo, I think he would make even George Szell cry.
Much more hygienic than having all that spray going all over the place .
Bernstain, you would have to tie that one to the chair.
They stood for Klemperer.
I was at Klemperer’s last concert in London. Not only did he sit but had to be carried on and offstage. I am sure it was his choice or he would not have done it. Not exactly weak willed was Otto!
Celi did it all the time, so did Karajan (terrible back), and I won’t even mention details about the state in which dear old Frans Brueggen would conduct, and conduct with a clear head he did. It is about spirituality, and you don’t necessarily get that in the fitness room, as some recent recordings readily prove.
Karajan had a seat hidden in the podium so it looked as if were standing: vanity. I was at his last London concert and his walk on looked very painful
‘It is about spirituality, and you don’t necessarily get that in the fitness room’
It is also about waving that stick, and turning pages, and if the spirit might still be willing at 80+, the flesh may give out. And excellent performances require more than just a willing spirit, these require an alert, inquisitive spirit, which a 80+ years old doesn’t have in his toolbox anymore. At any rate I haven’t seen any proof that a 80+ years old may conduct better and more inspired than, say, a 50 years old, so why this fetish for conductors as old as Methuselah, kept on borrowed time by their daily handful on pills? This fetish is most unnatural. If a conductor allegedly conducts better at 80 than his younger self at 50, it doesn’t exactly speak to his credit, does it? What took him so long to ripen that spirit?
Bernie Ecclestone the motor racing
Promoter became a father at 91.
Wife was a bit younger
Anecdotes/exceptions don’t make data and even less statistics. Apart from this, I fail to see what your comment has to do with conducting.
re your anecdote, I should think said wife must be a _lot_ younger, not just a _bit_ , if she was able to carry to term. I don’t know about you, but I don’t care to picture them together. At that age, I wonder whether acknowledging a child wasn’t more valuable to his ego than having a close look into the kid’s parentage…? After all, there’s enough money, and what’s an additional beneficiary in his will?
The truth is this isn’t about spirituality as much as it is about a good orchestra. An excellent orchestra, all people much younger on average than the octogenarian conductors, plays, and the octogenarian conductor takes the credit. Let’s see him what wonders is he able to perform with an orchestra of poor musicians. I bet no amount of spirituality (or physicality for that matter) will save the day.
For some one in their 80s it seems quite reasonable to sit as long as their upper body movement is not impaired.
Mehta is 86 and he did stand to conduct the encore, though he looked unsteady. His conducting the whole evening was a model of clarity and concision.
Zubin Mehta is 86.
What’s the point? Obviously older people can use a chair in case they want to?
It certainly doesn’t help the conducting or the visibility of it.
What I found strange is, that recently one sees young and very fit Maestri (e.g. Lorenzo Viotti) sitting on chairs in rehearsals.
Why? Gen Y taking it too easy?
Most conductors have a bass stool in rehearsals. Why should they not?
Not 20 years ago. You never saw a bass stool in concert program rehearsals until only very recently, or for the exceptionally frail older maestro. Looks absolutely out of place to me to see young conductors have a bass stool in rehearsal. For what? If you have time to sit down, you are not using the rehearsal time well.
Cannot imagine Petrenko conducting while SITTING in a chair, as during performance he produces very quirky almost dancing moves.
Let’s see how it turn up
or Mirga 😉
He sat to conduct the Ring in Bayreuth. In all my years there I’ve only seen Boulez stand.
in his final concerts the great Sir Roger Norrington used a revolving chair so that at the end of a movement he could swivel round to the audience and hold out his arms in a ‘how did you like that?’ gesture and encourage applause as was done in the old days…perversely, I loved it, though at other concerts when there is premature applause it tends to annoy me…the magic of Sir Roger
Two words: Otto Klemperer.
Whats the big deal? First class music making is just that – standing up or sitting down.
I well remember Sir Adrian conducting at the Proms when he had serious walking difficulties around 1975-77 and made a slow progress to the rostrumwith an assistant, all the while getting a welcome from the audience like a football crowd. He would hang his stick on the rostrum, ascend to a “throne”and sitting there give wonderful performances like the VW5 recently reissued on CD
Sir Adrian BOULT I meant
This is ridiculous! You should redact that comment, sir! Asking the question, should the audience put up with a conductor sitting down, is almost like instigating a negative reaction! At any rate, many elderly European conductors, sit down, when they conduct, because of their age, and some have mobility problems! I don’t see the audiences or the orchestra players complaining! They can conduct well, sitting or standing, period! Maestro Levine had to sit many times, because of Parkinson’s, when he conducted. When he was younger he stood, of course, and then he ended up in a wheelchair, when he was older! There were some complaints, but only because of involuntary hand movements, from the effects of Parkinson’s. It may come as a surprise to many, but many opera conductors, conduct sitting down in a chair, in the pit, away from the audience seeing them sitting. Barenboim has serious health issues, and should not be criticized for having to sit down and conduct! Sitting down does not compromise one’s ability to conduct, most of the time, in my opinion! Oh, by the way, I am a trained musician, and I have conducted!
Apparently, an appreciation of dry British humour is an endangered species, if not already extinct.
Why should the conductor be the only
one in the concert hall to have to stand the whole-time during the concert !
Because he can and if able he should. It‘s a different energy flowing from an upright body.
Nelsons should sit. That way he would have his nose closer to the score he rarely looks up from and his left hand would be closer to the railing behind him he often uses as support.
Just be happy they’re still conducting great music
As a (amateur but accomplished) conductor myself, I can attest to the physical stamina 3 hours of conducting can require, not to mention the mental energy you expend with it. For me, sitting would take away a little of my expressive capabilities with the baton but I would think I would find other ways to put across to the orchestra what I am after.
Would these musicians rather they could stand for the concert? Of course! But they ARE great musicians, they still have things to say in music, and a great conductor sitting shouldn’t detract from our overall concert experience.
‘Should the audience stand for it?’ No they shouldn’t stand for this act, figuratively speaking.
The correct answer is aged conductors should retire. In the privacy of their own very comfortable home(s) and garden(s) they might do whatever they like, stand on their legs, stand on their heads, sit, lie down, do pushups, take a bath, go teaching if they can teach, whatever. Please, this travesty has gone on for far too long. There is a retirement age for the rest of the population for good reason. Let’s not pretend people self-employed in arts, or in politics, can somehow escape the ravages of age. What’s this unhealthy cult for 80+ years old politicians, conductors, pianists, singers? Why are we continuously fed the fairy tale that the world can’t possibly go on without them, the fairy tale of ‘oh but they still have so much to give.’ Sorry, this is bs. At this age you don’t have anything to give we haven’t heard thirty or forty years ago, and much better, either from you or from someone else. All these people are on borrowed time made possible by modern medicine, but modern medicine can’t boost your creativity, your ‘artistry’, or stop the slow decline of your gray cells. At this age people most function on autopilot, more invested in their medicine, making sure they take the green pill before the yellow one, and the blue one after the red, and both after the orange one, than sweating out a ‘different’ interpretation of Symphony X or Opera Y, which turns out to be the same interpretation as they did these past 20 years. There is after all a finite number of valid interpretations; I discard being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, this is the last resort of the untalented.
If my comment sounds harsh, it is so because truth is harsh, and because the old darlings apparently understand only harsh messages, if at all. There’s no reason for the taxpayer to support their blooming Egos, and make no mistake, we are talking Egos with capital E. No, they don’t cling to the stage because they still have much to give, they don’t come back with a post-operative leg because they are the sacrificial type for the public’s sake (the public doesn’t demand such sacrifices), they cling to it because they scared that if they retire the public will realize how easily replaceable they are.
Dear oldies, we have appreciated you as long as you have delivered good, and sometimes great performances. Some of you did so for decades and to those we thank with all our heart. We would like to keep you in memory like that. Please don’t spoil it. If all that future generations will remember is your embarrassing attention-seeking act in old age, your musical legacy is nil. In a civilized society you are entitled to as long a life modern medicine can help you to, but you are not entitled to enjoy your last years on Earth on stage or sleeping on your seat in parliament, on the taxpayer’s dime. Let the new generations measure their artistic powers against your legacy. If they turn out to be less interesting, more reason for us to cherish your legacy. If however they turn out to be at least as good, or even better… Are you afraid?
P.S. I am aware Kirill Petrenko just turned 50. The age argument obviously doesn’t apply to him, but there’s no reason for him to play the sacrificial lamb, there’s a surplus of conductors and the majority of the public doesn’t know one conducting from another. Test them by putting conductors behind a screen if you don’t believe me.
You have NO idea what the bloody hell you are talking about. All of these absolutes…. get off your high horse learn something about music and conducting… and learn a little humility in the face of the multifaceted world of the arts around you which HAS no absolutes or rules or standards of measure instead of feeding us such a litany of BS. Any musician or good aficionado of music reading what you are saying will point out to you that you’re living in an ignorant dreamland, and that you are blinded (and rendered deaf) by your arrogance.
‘You have NO idea what the bloody hell you are talking about.’
… with a small correction – it applies to _you_. Otherwise, spot on, my felicitations. What do you know about conducting, Admiral?
This isn’t a naval battle, Nelson, and I’m not the French. Please reply only after you have calmed down and only if you have something coherent to say, that can be told without unloading a ton insults. Have you imbibed half the brandy from that cask in which they put you and came back to make virtual noise on social media instead of using your customary canon balls?
Feel better now?
It appears that one of your grandfather regularly stole your food, and the other made you listen to his daily oboe solos. So sorry! I hope it all resolves for you!
Jeffrey Tate conducted sitting down for his entire career (because of his spinal issue), and he did fine.
They’ve all been sitting in Bayreuth since 1876 (except Boulez, that is).
Sure, but in Bayreuth you are high up above most musicians, and the ceiling is very close. So sitting makes sense there. Special.
They all sit in the opera pit. Polio-stricken James DePriest had to sit. Very obese Sarah Caldwell needed to. Many rehearse sitting. If the music making is great, who cares?
When our college oratorio society conductor became ill with the flu they camouflaged the stool he was perched on with a giant floral arrangement in front of the podium.
But many conductors like to use a stool at rehearsals so they can make a show of standing up from it as if to say, “Now I’m serious!”
That’s another way of saying that it’s tiring to ALWAYS be standing.
I’ve played mostly with conductors standing, but there have been a few sitting as well. As long as the sight-line is such that you can see them clearly (not always the case from the back row), there’s really little difference. They’ve able to express their enthusiasm from a stool almost as well. Seems like a ‘slow news day’ question to me.
Just been watching Philo Bregstein’s documentary on Klemperer’s last concert. The footage of the rehearsal revealed a problem. First, because he was sitting, many of his (sparing) gestures would have been invisible to parts of the orchestra, due to the stand in front of him; second, his few comments were practically inaudible, and only just picked up by the microphones.
And I yield to no one in my admiration of the Great Man!
Earlier this year, I saw 95 year-old Herbert Blomstedt conduct Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable“ and Beethoven’s 5th while standing. I also saw Haitink conduct his last Boston concerts while standing in his late 80’s. Abbado was still standing during his 80th year, Solti during his 85th year, and Toscanini during his 87th year (in contrast to the aforementioned conductors who were already seated during their 60’s and 70’s). I guess if there’s any takeaway from this, it’s that no two bodies age the same way.
(Somewhat) conversely, I read that Wagner composed standing up.
Hemorrhoids. It shows in his composition. Different discussion, I guess.
A non-musical comment: Barenboim is one of those rare people who very slowly and gradually went bald throughout their entire life. Until not that long ago he still had some decent coverage in the front, but it’s all gone now. Interesting.
Some chamber orchestras play standing up.
Fritz Reiner conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra sitting in an especially designed chair on the podium the last few seasons of his tenure. The performances did not suffer!
Like in most other cases, generalizations are a mistake. Saying that everyone should retire at a certain age is just as wrong as saying that no one should retire until their last breath. It is all completely individual. For example, I first played under Maestro Blomstedt when he was in his 50s and in every decade after that – and there is no doubt in my mind that he was a better conductor in his 80s than he was three decades earlier. But there are a few who clearly lost some of their skills and were still continuing their careers longer than they should have. So, standing or sitting, 60s or 70s – the proof is all in the musical results that wary greatly from person to person.
In his last years, Celibidache sat down in a chair that looked like it was specially prepared for him. Whether this affected his conducting or not is definitely up for debate.
Moreover, to those naysayers who feel conductors should retire at 65, this is total nonsense. In many ways, most of the conductors are just finally settling down and offering the finest performances and interpretations of their lives, and in some cases are in better physical shape than some young conductors who exhibit athletic stances on the podium to the point where a few of them wound up seeing sports doctors.
Age is only a number, and many still learn at an age some of you feel that we should be put out to pasture. Never kick an old one to the curb.