The same remark applies to the converse proposition. It is even more difficult to slacken a quick time smoothly, and without checks, so as to transform it little by little into a slow time. Often, from a desire to testify zeal, or from defect of delivery in his musical feeling, a conductor demands from his players an exaggeration of nice gradations. He comprehends neither the character nor the style of the piece. The gradations then become so many blemishes; the accents, yells; the intentions of the poor composer are totally disfigured and perverted; while those of the orchestral conductor—however politely meant they may be—are none the less injurious: like the caresses of the ass in the fable, who crushed his master while fondling him.
And now let us instance many deplorable abuses that are obtained in almost all the orchestras of Europe—abuses which reduce composers to despair, and which it is the duty of conductors to abolish as soon as possible.
Performers playing stringed instruments will rarely give themselves the trouble to play a tremolo; they substitute for this very characteristic effect, a tame repetition of the note, half, and sometimes three-quarters slower than the one whence results the tremolo: instead of demisemiquavers, they make triple or double ones; and in lieu of producing sixty-four notes in a bar in four-time (adagio), they produce only thirty-two, or even sixteen. The action of the arm necessary for producing a true tremolo, demands from them too great an effort. This idleness is intolerable.
Many double-bass players permit themselves—from idleness, also, or from a dread of being unable to achieve certain difficulties—to simplify their part. This race of simplifiers has existed for forty years; but it cannot endure any longer. In ancient works, the double-bass parts were extremely simple; therefore there can be no reason to impoverish them still more: those in modern scores are rather more difficult, it is true; but, with very few exceptions, there is nothing in them impossible of execution; composers, masters of their art, write them with care, and as they ought to be executed. If it is from idleness that the simplifiers pervert them, the energetic orchestral conductor is armed with the necessary authority to compel the fulfilment of their duty. If it is from incapacity, let him dismiss them. It is his best interest to rid himself of instrumentalists who cannot play their instrument.
Flute-players, accustomed to having their parts written in the upper octave, and not admitting that their part can be written below that of clarinets or hautboys, frequently transpose entire passages an octave higher. The conductor, if he does not carefully peruse his score, if he is not thoroughly acquainted with the work he is conducting, or if his ear lacks keenness, will not perceive the strange liberty thus taken. Nevertheless, multitudes of such instances occur, and care should be taken to banish them entirely.
It happens everywhere (I do not say in some orchestras only)—that when ten, fifteen, or twenty violinists have to play the same part in unison, that they do not count the bars' rest; each, from idleness, relying on the others doing it. Whence it follows that scarcely half of them come in again at the right moment; while the rest still hold their instrument under their left arm, and look about them. Thus the point is greatly weakened, if not entirely missed. I invoke the attention and vigor of orchestral conductors to this insufferable habit. It is, however, so rooted that they will only ensure its extirpation by making a large number of violinists amenable for the fault of a single player; by inflicting a fine, for example, upon a whole row, if one of them misses coming in. Even were this fine no more than half-a-crown, I will answer for it that each of the violinists would count his rests, and keep watch that his neighbors did the same, since it might be inflicted five or six times upon the same individuals in the course of one performance.
An orchestra, the instruments of which are not in tune individually, and with each other, is a monstrosity; the conductor, therefore, should take the greatest care that the musicians tune accurately. But this operation should not be performed in presence of the public; and, moreover, every instrumental noise—every kind of preluding between the acts—constitutes a real offence to all civilized auditors. The bad training of an orchestra, and its musical mediocrity is to be inferred from the impertinent noise it makes during the periods of quiet at an Opera or Concert.
It is also imperative for a conductor not to allow clarinet-players to use always the same instrument (the clarinet in B♭), without regard to the author's indications; just as if the different clarinets—those in D and A, particularly—had not a special character of their own, of which the intelligent composer knows the exact value; and as if the clarinet in A had not moreover a low semitone more than the clarinet in B♭—, the C♯, of excellent effect,
produced by the E,