He enters, takes his stand before his men, raises his tiny white bâton, and the large body is vitalized into sound. All these many vibrations and voices reach our ears; and we, following the unfolding patterns and musical phrases, put them all together in the shape and form that the composer heard in his dreams, reduced to writing and made permanent for posterity.
It is the Conductor’s work to make this musical pattern clear to us and to realize the composer’s intentions. If the Conductor did not understand the composition as preserved in the printed score, we could not put together all these musical fragments. It would be nothing but a broken-up jig-saw puzzle!
A Conductor has to know the score.
ORCHESTRA OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
To read a score requires a very high order of musical intelligence. Some of us have never thought to ask what the big book looks like that lies on the Conductor’s desk. Facing page [276] is a page from the Conductor’s score of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It is the opening of the second movement, Andante con moto.
We know that the Soprano sings, or plays, in the Treble Clef, the Bass in the Bass Clef, and the Altos in the Alto Clef. Those who play the piano have learned to play in the Soprano and the Bass Clefs simultaneously; for the right hand plays the one, and the left hand the other. A violinist only knows the Soprano Clef; those who play the viola, play in the Alto, or Soprano Clef; and those who play the violoncello, play in the Bass, Tenor and Soprano Clefs, for they have to play in them all from time to time. The Conductor has to read all the parts of the Orchestra at once,—and in all the Clefs. Let us look at our illustration. The flutes on the top line and the oboes next play in the Soprano Clef; the clarinets play in the Soprano Clef but in a different key (B); then the bassoons play in the Bass Clef; then the horns in C (still another key); then the trombones in C; then the tympani, or kettledrums, in C and G; then come the strings: the violins and second violins playing in the Soprano Clef; the viola in the Alto, or Tenor Clef; the violoncellos in the Bass Clef; and the double-basses in the Bass Clef. Notice that a long line divides the bars, a line drawn, or scored,[87] through all the staves from top to bottom.
In our example we have twenty-two bars of continuous music. The viola[88] and violoncello begin the melody, with the double-bass playing pizzicato at first and taking up the bow in the ninth bar. All the other instruments are silent, as the rests show, until the violas and violoncello have finished their gentle, sweet melody, when the bassoons and violins add a finish to it. Then the cool woodwind plays a lovely little part, and the warm violins come in as the liquid flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons finish their phrase; and then the woodwind and strings play together, the horns, trumpets, and drums keeping silent; and—we cannot see what comes now, for we are at the end of this page. This one page gives an idea of what the Conductor has to do. He has to bring out the melody, get the right accents, give the right shading (the pianos and fortes), and make the right crescendos and diminuendos, besides adding a poetic conception, so as to render the melodies flowing and graceful and to bring out the composer’s inner meaning.
What a quick and trained eye a Conductor must have to read the score, both perpendicularly and horizontally at the same time!
Of course, an acute ear must be another of his gifts; and his natural ear is trained and rendered more acute by experience.