Read Ebook: Nuvele by Caragiale I L Ion Luca

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 135 lines and 28215 words, and 3 pages

Real interpretation, then, requires, on the part of the conductor, just as in the case of the actor, a display of emotion. Coldness and self-restraint will not suffice, for these represent merely the intellectual aspect of the art, and music is primarily a language of the emotions. This difference constitutes the dividing line between performances that merely arouse our judicial comment "That was exceedingly well done"; and those on the other hand that thrill us, carry us off our feet, sweep us altogether out of our environment so that for the moment we forget where we are, lose sight temporarily of our petty cares and grievances, and are permitted to live for a little while in an altogether different world--the world not of things and ambitions and cares, but of ecstasy. Such performances and such an attitude on the part of the listener are all too rare in these days of smug intellectualism and hypersophistication, and we venture to assert that this is at least partly due to the fact that many present-day conductors are intellectual rather than emotional in their attitude.

It was an emotional response of this character that the Greek philosophers must have been thinking of when they characterized drama as a "purge for the soul"; and surely it must still be good for human beings to forget themselves occasionally and to become merged in this fashion in the wave of emotion felt by performer and fellow-listener in response to the message of the composer.

What Handel tried to do ... by wedding fine music to an inspiring text, Beethoven succeeded in doing through instruments alone ... for never have instruments--no matter how pleasing they were in the past--been capable of stirring the inmost feelings as they have done since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In order to interpret a musical work, then, the conductor himself must first study it so as to discover what the composer intended to express. Having become thoroughly permeated with the composer's message, he may then by instinctive imitation arouse in his chorus or orchestra so strong a reflection of this mood that they will perform the work in the correct spirit, the audience in turn catching its essential significance, and each listener in his own way responding to the composer's message.

Is the symbolization pervasive enough to account for the steady continuing charm of lengthy compositions?... The symbolizations ... mostly resemble patches; they form no system, no plot or plan accompanying a work from beginning to end; they only guarantee a fitful enjoyment--a fragment here, a gleam there, but no growing organic exaltation like that actually afforded by musical compositions.

At another point in the same work, this writer again discusses this same matter :

Music is presentative in character, not representative. Measure, to be sure, may correspond to the beating of the pulse, and the final cadence may picture the satisfaction of desires; the coda may simulate a mental summary; but the composition in its totality, with its particular melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, and with the specific union of all these elements characteristic of this composition, does not represent any definite psychical or material fact.

In the case of vocal music, the key to the emotional content of the work may almost always be found by carefully studying the words. In preparing to conduct choral singing, master the text, therefore; read it aloud as though declaiming to an audience; and when you come to the performance, see that your vocalists sing the music in such a way that the audience will be able to catch without too great effort both the meaning of the individual words and the spirit of the text as a whole.

I find it in the words always. For unless I give my hearers what is in the text, what can I give them? If I just produce tone, my singing has no meaning.

"Thereupon" , "vocalizing a series of scale passages such as are used in studio practice, Caruso commented":

Now, when I do that, I don't say anything. I may make musical sounds, but I express nothing. I may even execute the notes with a good staccato or legato and still, having no words to go by, I make no effect on my listeners.

Look at the question in another way. Suppose I were to sing a line of text with a meaning in my voice that contradicted the idea of the words. Would not that be nonsense? It would be as much as though I were to say to you "This wood is hard," and were to say it with a soft voice. People have observed that I sing as though I were talking. Well, that is just what I mean to do.

"Singing, then" , "as Caruso began to define it, is a sort of exalted speech, its purpose being to illuminate the imagery and sentiment of language. The mere music of singing he seemed for the moment to put in a subordinate place.

"But those two passages of melody cannot be identical," objected the interviewer.

"Oh, yes, they are," the tenor declared; and he quickly proved it by singing them over again with a less marked indication of the moods. "Here you plainly see where expression must start. It has to be from the words, of course. The performer puts in the feeling of gladness or sadness without regard to the notes, paying attention only to the text."

INTERPRETATION IN CONDUCTING

TEMPO

In the last chapter we discussed expression and interpretation from a general standpoint, closing with certain comments upon the interpretation of vocal music. But it must be admitted at once that expression in instrumental music is a vastly more intricate matter than in the case of vocal music; and in order to get at the subject in any tangible way, it will be necessary for us, first, to analyze music into its expressional elements; second, to decide which of these elements belong exclusively to the composer and which are shared by the interpreter; and third, to examine each of these latter elements in turn from the standpoint of the conductor as interpreter.

There are eight elements upon which expression in instrumental music rests. These are:

Wagner, in his famous essay on conducting, takes the rather radical ground that everything else is dependent upon the proper selection and management of tempo. He says:

The whole duty of the conductor is comprised in his ability always to indicate the right tempo. His choice of tempi will show whether he understands the piece or not.... The true tempo induces correct force and expression.

In another place in the same work he treats the matter further, as follows:

Obviously the proper pace of a piece of music is determined by the particular character of the rendering it requires. The question therefore comes to this: Does the sustained, the cantilena, predominate, or the rhythmical movement? The conductor should lead accordingly.

It is doubtful whether many modern conductors would entirely agree with Wagner's statement that correct tempo always "induces correct force and expression." Nevertheless tempo is so important that probably no one will quarrel with us if we at least give it first place in the order in which the elements of expression are discussed.

In modern music the composer indicates the tempos of the various movements much more definitely than was true in earlier days, so it would seem as if not nearly so much responsibility rested upon the conductor; and yet there is still a wide difference of opinion among musicians about the matter, and in many cases the conductor substitutes his own judgment for that of the composer, assuming that the latter either made a mistake in indicating the tempo, or else that he had not tried the composition at the tempo preferred by the conductor, and therefore did not realize how much more effective it would be that way.

In the main, there are five methods upon which the conductor depends for determining the correct tempo of a composition. These are:

The expressions given above are frequently used in combination with one another, and with certain auxiliary terms, but to attempt to define these combinations in this book would be altogether impracticable. The conductor should however understand the significance of the following qualifying expressions:

TERMS INDICATING A MORE RAPID TEMPO

TERMS INDICATING A SLOWER TEMPO

But in addition to the variations in tempo more or less definitely indicated by the composer there are innumerable tempo fluctuations of a much subtler nature; and since these are now recognized as a part of really artistic choral and orchestral interpretation, a brief discussion of their nature will be included before closing this chapter.

In some cases a variable tempo is asked for by the composer by means of one of the following expressions:

In the majority of cases, however, the composer gives no indication whatsoever, and the whole responsibility therefore rests upon the performer or conductor. It is because of this latter fact that the amateur must study these matters indefatigably. The advent of a more elastic rhythm and tempo has undoubtedly made all musical performance infinitely more pleasurable to the listener than it formerly was; but unfortunately there has been a great deal of misunderstanding as to the use and meaning of this valuable new expressional element.

Freedom in tempo does not mean unsteadiness.... We must have in music the sense of equilibrium, of stability. A careless, spasmodic hurrying and retarding leads only to flabbiness and inconsequence.

In concluding the chapter let us emphasize the fact that the establishing of a tempo is a matter of muscle even more than of mind, and that before beginning to beat time the conductor should have the tempo recorded in his muscular memory. Before rising to conduct a composition then let him feel its tempo in the muscles of the arm and hand wielding the baton; for if not thus felt, the work will rarely be begun with a clearly defined rate of speed. This consideration receives added weight when it is recalled that if the conductor does not set the tempo, the chorus accompanist or first violinist will, and they, not having studied the music from this standpoint, will rarely succeed in hitting upon the correct rate of movement.

INTERPRETATION IN CONDUCTING

DYNAMICS

In order to bring together in fairly comprehensive array the terms that are ordinarily used by the composer to indicate various expressional effects, a table of the most frequently encountered dynamic expressions is here included.

We shall close our discussion of the subject of dynamics with a brief presentation of a few practical matters with which every amateur conductor should be familiar.

The most important voice from the standpoint of melody must in some way be made to stand out above the other parts. This may be done in two ways:

The second method is frequently the better of the two, and should more frequently be made use of in ensemble music than is now the case in amateur performance.

The conductor of the Russian Symphony Orchestra, Modeste Altschuler, remarks on this point:

A melody runs through every piece, like a road through a country hillside. The art of conducting is to clear the way for this melody, to see that no other instruments interfere with those which are at the moment enunciating the theme. It is something like steering an automobile. When the violins, for instance, have the tune, I see to it that nobody hurries it or drags it or covers it up.

In polyphonic music containing imitative passages, the part having the subject must be louder than the rest, especially at its first entrance. This is of course merely a corollary of the general proposition explained under number three, above.

The dynamic directions provided by the composer are intended to indicate only the broader and more obvious effects, and it will be necessary for the performer to introduce many changes not indicated in the score. Professor Edward Dickinson, in referring to this matter in connection with piano playing, remarks:

After all, it is only the broader, more general scheme of light and shade that is furnished by the composer; the finer gradations, those subtle and immeasurable modifications of dynamic value which make a composition a palpitating, coruscating thing of beauty, are wholly under the player's will.

A conductor often demands from his players an exaggeration of the dynamic nuances, either in this way to give proof of his ardor, or because he lacks fineness of musical perception. Simple shadings then become thick blurs, accents become passionate shrieks. The effects intended by the poor composer are quite distorted and coarsened, and the attempts of the conductor to be artistic, however honest they may be, remind us of the tenderness of the ass in the fable, who knocked his master down in trying to caress him.

INTERPRETATION IN CONDUCTING

Of course the battle in the rehearsal room had to be fought sternly inch by inch, but frequent trials, approval of the progress shown, and brilliant success at the concert won the day. It was so convincing that many said they could taste wine and smell brimstone....

Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you for your pains, Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains.

In instrumental music, timbre is also a highly potent influence in arousing emotional states, and we are all familiar with the fact that an oboe passage is often associated with the simplicity of outdoor rural life; that a melody for English horn has somehow become connected with mournful thoughts; the sound of trumpets, with martial ideas; and the grunting of the lower register of the bassoon, with comic effects. It is well known, also, that the skilful violinist can cause his instrument to sound an infinite variety of shades of color. But these means of expression are almost wholly under the control of the individual players and of the composer , and cannot therefore be profitably discussed in a work on conducting.

In vocal music, the matter of phrasing is comparatively simple because here the composer has, in general, adapted the melody to the phrasing of the text; and since in language we have definite ideas and concrete imagery to assist us, all that we usually need to do in studying the phrasing of vocal music is to follow carefully the phrasing of the text. But even then a warning ought perhaps to be given the young conductor regarding carelessness or ignorance on the part of singers about some of the most fundamental principles of phrasing. The most common mistakes made are:

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet