The Un-Interested Conductor

I’ve always been fascinated by conducting (and I actually always try to do it & perfect it myself) and I remember once in my quite young teens I attended a ballet in Ankara, Turkey. We were lucky enough to be sitting in the front row with the family. During the performance however my eyes were fixated at the conductor not the ballet to the extent that one of the orchestra musicians spotted me unlike the rest of the audience just ignoring the dancing and closely watching the conductors hands; she gave a smile and I was obviously chuffed. The reason I was focused on the conductor that way was because watching the maestro’s hand allowed me to better understand the complex texture of classical music and tempo behind each bar and each transition. So if you’re keen to better understand music maybe you should try that approach; though try to avoid it entirely when attending a ballet performance. That is unless of course you’re actually trying to make eye contact with a musician in the orchestra in which case all advice & bets are off and so is this entire post....

Now long story behind us thankfully the rest is just commenting on the segment from the clip about about Richards Strauss’s conducting style; now obviously the advice above does not apply here, in fact you’re better off either sleeping or doing this eye contact stuff. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit but obviously a great great composer but just keeping the baton away from him would have been a “useful” proposition; truly hilarious to watch that segment. At any rate hope you enjoy as I have watching the different conducting styles.

Take care.