When Wagnermania Reigned and Giants Took the Podium

Conductors today are efficient professionals who are polite to their players and mindful of the unions. But in the not-so-distant past, they were held in awe. “Giants of the podium,” they were inspired creatures who had access to the inner secrets of long-dead composers and,by a mere twitch of a baton,could conjure them from a hundred obedient musicians. They had interesting love lives, and always traveled firstclass.But most of them are missing from this book. Stokowski, Toscanini, Pierre Monteux, Celibidache, and Beecham get only a passing mention; Leonard Bernstein doesn’t even get that.The reason is that Raymond Holden doesn’t consider them to be “virtuoso conductors” at all. He uses the word in the old-fashioned sense of possessing virtu,and for him that means partaking in the great Austro-German tradition. His aim is to trace a line of descent from Wagner to Karajan, and to show how this runs in parallel with – and has an equal luster to – the line of composers from Brahms to Schonberg (two of Mr. Holden’s virtuosi, Mahler and Strauss, were supreme in both).The book, “The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition From Wagner to Karajan” (Yale University Press, 384 pages, $35), only partly bears out the thesis, though the eight conductors it discusses had much in common. All had a thorough musical education, and possessed a wide culture. They all composed, with the exception of Karajan. They all started remarkably young; Weingartner got his first opera house conductorship at the age of 22.And they were all workaholics, rising up slowly through the network of Central European opera houses, battling against dreadful working conditions, lazy singers and players, and obtuse bureaucrats – all on a pittance living in some cheap lodgings. When Hans von Bulow was at the opera house at St. Gallen in Switzerland,the cold forced him to learn scores in bed (cold lodgings are another leitmotif of this book). Another thing they all shared (with the exception of the more skeptical Weingartner) was Wagnermania. In 1883, the young Mahler was spotted “running demented and weeping through the streets,” having heard the news of Wagner’s death.But did all this add up to a common tradition? Mahler, I suspect, would have scoffed at the idea. He despised tradition, calling it “the last bad performance.” It is true Wagner’s views on the importance of finding the right tempo and the overall “melos” (the leading melodic line) are quoted again and again. But in practice, each conductor took his bearings from his immediate predecessors, which is perhaps what “tradition” boils down to. And often this worked as much by repulsion as by attraction. Weingartner couldn’t stand von Bulow’s “excessive” interpretations and aimed for classical restraint; Karajan was unimpressed by Furtwangler’s lack of technique.Mr. Holden’s book shows that this special Austro-German tradition started to fade almost as soon as it was established. After World War I, there was a move toward a more functional aesthetic, driven by the recording industry with its need for efficiency and a uniform, predictable product. In place of Mahler’s superbly confident retouching of old scores came a new respect for the letter of the text, which went hand in hand with the fading of the conductor’s own creativity as composer. Bruno Walter referred to himself as a “guardian and custodian,” a phrase that has a depressing ring to it. But “fidelity to the text” was clearly not so important to all these conductors.There’s a wonderful story (not given by Mr. Holden) of Strauss conducting in London toward the end of his life and being astonished by the clinical clarity of what should have been a golden wash of sound. “But gentlemen, you are playing all the notes,” he said plaintively.Mr. Holden’s prose isn’t always evocative, and he tends to fall back on cliche. But he has researched the subject with indefatigable thoroughness and conveys the giant personalities involved: Richter, who mesmerized with his eyes; Karajan who mesmerized by closing them; Mahler with his splendid sarcasm; Weingartner’s touchiness; Klemperer’s refusal to be tied down to any opinion. But it’s Richard Strauss who endearingly lets the cat out of the bag, revealing that the mysterious art of conducting is nothing more than a few sensible rules of thumb. I was familiar with Strauss’s remark that “the left hand has nothing to do with conducting. Its proper place is in the waistcoat pocket.”But I was delighted to discover his 10 golden rules, which include “You should not perspire when conducting; only the audience should get warm,” and “If you think the brass is not blowing hard enough, tone it down another shade or two.”Mr. Hewett is music critic for the Daily Telegraph,where this article first appeared.

When Wagnermania Reigned and Giants Took the Podium

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