So, Fabio Luisi, can you be precise and passionate at the same time?
OrchestrasDavid Krauss, principal trumpet of the Metrolpoitan Opera, has come up with a new episode of his podcast Speaking Soundly, talking to the Italian conductor Fabio Luisi.
Conducting is not genius, it’s a job, says Fabio Luisi, who is music director in Dallas, Copenhagen and Tokyo.
They have a terrific conversation.
Listen here.
I sometimes have to laugh when certain donkeys I went to school with for years get a position.
It’s perfectly true that these types slip through the cracks – I’ve seen it myself – but there are other ‘legitimate’ donkeys given the leg-up by affirmative action.
You sound like a great guy.
Fabio Luisi is wonderful conductor ,musician ,and mensch…He truly serves the music,the musicians.Not himself…..And David Krauss is a terrific trumpet player,of course.
Sad comment because it leaves no room for those conductors who actually have genius and inspiration at their fingertips.
The irony is that a good conductor needs to be neither overly precise nor overly passionate. Boulez was precise, but certainly not passionate; Richard Strauss was stone-faced when conducting his own music. Bernstein was passionate, but I’m not sure how much that actually helped world-class musicians who already knew quite well the character of the music to be interpreted. There are countless precise conductors who would be more suited for a job as bank tellers rather than in front of an orchestra.
What an orchestra needs from a conductor is truly hard to define. There is a place for passion, occasionally, but for the most part it tends to be unnecessary. On the other hand, an obsession with precision tends to result in a form of obsessive anal-retentiveness and control that sucks the life out of the music and literally kills any sort of inspiration for musicians. As abstract it may sound, a good conductor provides a general musical framework for musicians to perform, shapes overall phrasing (a rarity these days), gives cues when necessary, and most importantly doesn’t interfere. S/he intervenes only when necessary. I recall Barenboim literally standing still in the midst of a live performance, and that was brilliant because that’s exactly what the music called for.
Great conductors are very scarce today because most of them have a severely inflated sense of the role they actually play. Have you heard how a conductor sounds without an orchestra? That’s right — silence. Conducting has become a sheer vacuous spectacle filled with narcissism and arrogance. Someone like Celibidache may not have been the most modest of musicians, but he really could afford his own arrogance as the level of his artistry was unparalleled. Today’s conductors mostly gesticulate in the delusional belief that it actually makes a difference, when in fact they should endeavor to withdraw, as the alternative is mostly unnecessary and in fact confusing for orchestras. Sadly, many audiences actually buy it because we live in a visual culture in which people are impressed merely by what they see, since our very capacity to listen has become severely compromised.
Beecham’s great principal clarinet Jack Brymer just said…”he let us play.” Jack also said, clearly referring to Sir Thomas, a great conductor is “the only real evidence I have that telepathy exists.”
The “star-worship” of conductors, particularly what I witnessed in the UK, is not only nauseating but detrimental to music as an art as opposed to an “industry.”
That’s a particularly ‘managerial’ comment.
Seems like you yourself don’t understand what conducting is all about.
Plus – you contradict yourself every second sentence.
Unfortunately, almost every “music lover” think they know what conducting means, and what the features of a “great” conductor are. You think Precision is important (true) but on the other hand you claim that being too precise (what is “too precise”? can you be only partly precise?) is against passion/ inspiration/musicality. On what basis do you say so? Perhaps what you imagine as a “precise conductor”, is 1. a conductor who is indeed lack of inspiration and therefore what is left for you to see is only his (faked) “precision”? or 2. You were never able to separate between a conductor’s technical abilities to his musical abilities because of your prejudice, believing that precision and inspiration cannot live together ?
Not trying to be snippy, but just to understand more about the essence of a conductor’s role. What made Celibidache’s level of artistry unparalleled? If the knock against today’s conductors is that they have a severely inflated sense of their role, he surely did not lack that and surely the sound he produced without an orchestra was not different from that of everyone else. If these are the meters of judgment, what makes him pass and the other fail?
Celibidache was definitely not modest, but he was an immense artist. Today’s conductors in general simply do not measure up to the stature of a Celibidache, although there are indeed incredibly talented conductors today, but those are very few (and might not be the most famous, incidentally). Someone like Christian Thielemann, in my opinion, would be one of today’s greatest, and I recommend his recent DVDs of Bruckner’s Symphonies with the Vienna Phil. It’s very difficult to define precisely what makes a great conductor, but as someone who’s been working professionally in a major orchestra for over 30 years, my answer would be that it is first and foremost someone who can convey effectively both the flow and the character of the music, as opposed to merely providing gestures and theatrics — in order words, a semblance of conducting based on sheer technique as opposed to real conducting, which may not have the best of “techniques.” There is no need for excessive passion or precision — musicians already know by experience and personal homework how a piece is supposed to sound, and unless they are playing complex repertoire, they do not need excessive precision except for occasional cues as to where to enter in the score. Some great conductors actually don’t have the best “technique,” whereas others who might have better technique just don’t know what it means to conduct. It’s hard to explain, but professional musicians always know what the person in front of them is made of, even if that might sound vague, and this has a direct influence on everything we do, including our sound. A good conductor liberates musicians to give their best. S/he removes as much confusion from the score as possible so that musicians can be free to focus on the work being performed. A good conductor also makes many adjustments during rehearsals, and the quality of the rehearsal informs musicians about a conductor’s musical backbone. The rehearsal is not merely about putting the piece together, it is also about conveying a given sound and being faithful to the work’s character. It is a collaborative relationship which ideally has to be made of complete trust. When you do have trust, just as in any other relationship, this relationship can flourish. This would be a very rare occurrence with today’s conductors — the kind of unconditional trust that earns respect, something that cannot be mustered on command. Some of this does come with age — yesterday’s conductors tended to be much older, and today we are so obsessed with youth and marketability that we are fostering a culture in which careerism comes first and music second.
Somehow you didn’t convince me you are a musician. Just another namedropper…
Ich bin: I’d stretch it further. Past great conductors managed to bring out their own sound from almost any orchestra (Toscanini, Stokowski, Furtwängler, Klemperer, Barbirolli, Karajan)
Today we have Disney characters on the podium, getting a free-ride from good orchestras, so they can exercise the podium aerobics they have practised in front of a mirror.
Excellent series of interviews. David Krauss is a natural.
Simply, there are conductors, and then there are true Maestri!
And Maserati
Ambrogio and?
He didn’t interfere much in the recent Berlin Phil second Schmidt symphony.
Let’s see if they have him back.
Time to re-read “The Maestro Myth”.
J Barcelo: Time for an updated version.
I have yet to hear any outstanding interpretations from Luisi (e.g. the recent Nielsen cycle was just another also-ran), but he seems willing to tackle fringe repertoire, too, which makes him a good guy in my book.
Luisi’s success is due to his popularity among his orchestras musicians and his faithfulness to the scores he conducts and composer intent.
I was hoping he was next in line for music director at the MET