Rests and cues.
Questions and remarks have frequently been addressed to me indicative of the fact that there is a widespread popular conviction that the mission of a conductor is chiefly ornamental at an orchestral concert. That is a sad misconception, and grows out of the old notion that a conductor is only a time-beater. Assuming that the men of the band have played sufficiently together, it is thought that eventually they might keep time without the help of the conductor. It is true that the greater part of the conductor's work is done at rehearsal, at which he enforces upon his men his wishes concerning the speed of the music, expression, and the balance of tone between the different instruments. But all the injunctions given at rehearsal by word of mouth are reiterated by means of a system of signs and signals during the concert performance. Time and rhythm are indicated by the movements of the bâton, the former by the speed of the beats, the latter by the direction, the tones upon which the principal stress is to fall being indicated by the down-beat of the bâton. The amplitude of the movements also serves to indicate the conductor's wishes concerning dynamic variations, while the left hand is ordinarily used in pantomimic gestures to control individual players or groups. Glances and a play of facial expression also assist in the guidance of the instrumental body. Every musician is expected to count the rests which occur in his part, but when they are of long duration (and sometimes they amount to a hundred measures or more) it is customary for the conductor to indicate the entrance of an instrument by a glance at the player. From this mere outline of the communications which pass between the conductor and his band it will be seen how indispensable he is if music is to have a consistent and vital interpretation.
Personal magnetism.
The layman will perhaps also be enabled, by observing the actions of a conductor with a little understanding of their purposes, to appreciate what critics mean when they speak of the "magnetism" of a leader. He will understand that among other things it means the aptitude or capacity for creating a sympathetic relationship between himself and his men which enables him the better by various devices, some arbitrary, some technical and conventional, to imbue them with his thoughts and feelings relative to a composition, and through them to body them forth to the audience.
The score.
Its arrangement.
Score reading.
What it is that the conductor has to guide him while giving his mute commands to his forces may be seen in the reproduction, in the [Appendix], of a page from an orchestral score ([Plate XII]). A score, it will be observed, is a reproduction of all the parts of a composition as they lie upon the desks of the players. The ordering of these parts in the score has not always been as now, but the plan which has the widest and longest approval is that illustrated in our example. The wood-winds are grouped together on the uppermost six staves, the brass in the middle with the tympani separating the horns and trumpets from the trombones, the strings on the lowermost five staves. The example has been chosen because it shows all the instruments of the band employed at once (it is the famous opening tutti of the triumphal march of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony), and is easy of comprehension by musical amateurs for the reason that none of the parts requires transposition except it be an octave up in the case of the piccolo, an instrument of four-foot tone, and an octave down in the case of the double-basses, which are of sixteen-foot tone. All the other parts are to be read as printed, proper attention being given to the alto and tenor clefs used in the parts of the trombones and violas. The ability to "read score" is one of the most essential attributes of a conductor, who, if he have the proper training, can bring all the parts together and reproduce them on the pianoforte, transposing those which do not sound as written and reading the different clefs at sight as he goes along.
