Conducting

Conducting, in music, art of directing instrumentalists or singers in the performance of a musical work. Modern conductors normally employ silent manual gestures, using the right hand to indicate the meter (number of beats per measure) and tempo, and the left hand both to signal entries of the different instruments and to communicate aspects of musical interpretation such as increases in volume. The right hand moves in commonly recognized patterns for groups of two, three, four, or more beats per measure; these patterns have in common a downward movement on the first beat (sometimes called the downbeat). Conductors of instrumental ensembles generally use a baton.

The modern conductor, a professional responsible for total musical interpretation, appeared only during the 19th century. In earlier times the conductor—often one of the performers—functioned mainly as a time beater. Conductors of the small choral ensembles that performed the polyphonic music of the Renaissance beat time with their hands or by tapping on a desk or the floor with a roll of paper or a rod. In the baroque era, harmonies provided by a keyboard player were an essential feature of most music, and the conductor (often also the composer) kept the ensemble together by a steady background beat on the keyboard. In opera orchestras the first violinist, or concertmaster, assumed the function of director, tapping the violin bow or using hand signals as necessary. Conducting by a keyboard player or concertmaster was common practice during the classical era as well as during the early part of the romantic era.

In the 19th century conducting gradually became a full-time virtuoso profession. This was partly the result of efforts by composer-conductors to achieve higher standards of performance; but it was also an outgrowth of the new aesthetic ideals of 19th-century romanticism, which elevated music to a higher position in the arts than it had held before. Among the earliest composers active as conductors were the Germans Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn and, in particular, the Frenchman Louis Hector Berlioz, who wrote the first treatise on conducting. Especially influential later in the century were the German Richard Wagner and the Austrian Gustav Mahler. Such composer-conductors were also in the forefront in the musical and aesthetic innovations of the period. They separated themselves from the ensemble, standing in front of it to direct. They also introduced the baton.

In the 20th century the tradition of the composer-conductor has been carried forth by musicians such as the American Leonard Bernstein, Frenchman Pierre Boulez and Lukas Foss, a German-born American. The increased importance of the conductor has also given rise to musicians known primarily as conductors. They include in the 19th century Hans von Bülow, a German, and Hans Richter, a Hungarian, and in the 20th century Arturo Toscanini, an Italian, and Fritz Reiner, a Hungarian-American.

The work of such conductors and conductor-composers forged the modern concept of orchestral and choral performance as a unified musical interpretation guided by a single mind, and the modern conductor has been described as a virtuoso whose instrument is the orchestra. Strength of personality, as well as musical knowledge and technical skill, is often an ingredient in a conductor's effectiveness. Because 20th-century conductors receive the public adulation and prestige reserved in the 19th century for romantic pianists and in the 18th century for vocal virtuosos, they have been in a position to promote various musical causes. Serge Koussevitzky, a Russian-born American, Leopold Stokowski, an Anglo-American, and especially Hermann Scherchen, a German, championed the cause of contemporary music; they followed the 19th-century example of Berlioz, von Bülow, Wagner, and of Mendelssohn, who helped revive the music of J. S. Bach. Conductors have excelled in other musical areas: Scherchen was a music theorist of primary importance, Koussevitzky a virtuoso of the double bass, and von Bülow an outstanding pianist.