What 1,500 orchestral musicians think of the Tár myth
OrchestrasAn essay by a Sheffield University academic Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey on the truthfulness of the Cate Blanchett film draws on a little-known survey of 1,500 musicians, assessing their attitudes to conductors.
Unfortunaltely it’s a $60 OUP book, generally inaccessible.
Cayenna’s conclusion is that musicians ‘must make split-second decisions about what’s best for every note, drawing on their extensive musical experience while navigating the decisions of the musicians around them. They’re also often battling acoustic situations as they can only hear part of what the orchestra is doing from their seat. The conductor’s usefulness in this is extremely variable and partial.‘
Read her essay here.
Please, can’t everyone just give it a rest? It’s just a movie!!!
Before further cutting any orchestral budgets, I think it’s high time conductors’ fees were made public, along with chief executives’ salaries.
Conductors’ and CEO’s fees in the top US orchestras were always reported on the adaptistration website based on IRS returns. In 2013/4 for example, the Chicago Symphony paid $2,309,937 in MD compensation whereas the Cleveland Orchestra paid $977,496. The site’s owner makes clear that these can only be indications as it was not known if several other issues were or were not taken into consideration.
The same caveat applies to CEO compensation. In that same year, the LA Phil paid $1,586,820, Chicago $633,619 and Cleveland $646,813.
But as far as I am aware, these MD figures did not take account of income from other orchestral appointments and guest engagements.
The UK proudly guards the right of millionaires to obscure all traces of their wealth from the plebs who enrich them. We still labour under the tenets of “ancien regime” this side of the pond.
There is nothing more overrated and in need of myth busting in the classical music industry than the ridiculous hagiography surrounding conductors. To professional working musicians, conductors are time counters who are an annoyance. There are RARE exceptions.
In a 35 year international career, I can count on one hand the amount of times I actually found good applicable advice from a conductor. Most of my colleagues would agree. Otherwise, they’re given fleeting glances from the side in order to stay in time, and really not even then. A monkey or a metronome could conduct most performances. This idea that they “shape” musicality is absurd. That comes from the musicians.
But this is hardly new. NL’s “The Maestro Myth” did a fine job of both explaining and debunking conductor-idolatry 31 years ago.
Linking the issue of conductors’ usefulness to Tar seems needless and to miss the true subject of the film (see Zadie Smith’s superbly insightful, and entertaining, review in The New York Review of Books).
I advise you to take a conducting course. Nothing better than trying it out yourself to realise how little you know about the profession. Not to detract from your claim that few really know how to do their job
Generally agree, although I am not a performer. Amongst the “RARE exceptions” you cite, can you name any of current, or for that matter of historic, prominence?
While Cate Blanchett’s performance was compelling, I was disappointed in Tar as a whole. I found the running of credits at the start irritating, as was the long voiceover leading up to the on stage interview with Tar. Too much background information while did little to enhance character or plot. Just my opinion!
The dissection and effrontery stirred up about a mere movie is absurd. Most of us have moved on.
In my neck of the woods nobody really cares about the future of classical music or orchestras, they could equally be conducted by space aliens or primates as far as they were concerned..in a recent scientific study conducted by Wannaplay, a large percentage of people in my local pub said they had heard of Tar, as a useful filler of potholes and coating for driveways. They seemed unwilling to visit the local cinema to be further enlightened or to enter into strenuous debate about its merits as a film. None of them had heard of Marin Alsop, nor had any opinion about MTT’s version of Mahler 5, one bright spark thought Lenny Bernstein was a quarter back and with that, the heated debate and scientific poll was inconclusively terminated as they decided to watch the football on Sky tv.
This quite intriguing research book sells at a very nice price on Amazon.com, both for paper & kindle edition.(“Together in Music”)