Conducting the Wind Orchestra: Meaning, Gesture, and Expressive Potential
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Conducting the Wind Orchestra: Meaning, Gesture, and Expressive P ...

Chapter 1:  Conducting in Theory and Practice
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If Wagner’s tenets [expressed in] “On Conducting” were generally adopted, the principle of changing tempos would open the door to an insupportable wilfulness and we would soon no longer hear symphonies by Beethoven but rather symphonies “freely after Beethoven”.17

That Hanslick hears this interpretation as Wagnerian speaks to its subjectivity. Whilst Wagner’s approach, as outlined in On Conducting, is predicated on his notion of melos—which dictates the tempo and character of a melody—the interpretative decisions he makes originate from his personal convictions. In addition, Hanslick’s concerns with regard to the freedom with which Wagner interprets Beethoven are reminiscent of Cook’s notion of the score as “script”. Though Cook presents this as a viable view of the score, Hanslick argues for a tempered employment of such freedom.

Felix Weingartner shares Hanslick’s concern over Wagner’s approach:

Wagner’s treatise combated the philistinism that suffocated every modification of tempo and therefore all vitality of phrasing in a rigid metronomism; my own book on the other hand combated the errors that had arisen through exaggeration of these modifications after the necessity for them had gradually come to be admitted. It was therefore no plagiarism of Wagner’s, as was of course asserted, but its counterpart, or, if you will, its continuation in the spirit of our own day. If Wagner opened new paths, I believed it my duty to warn people against mistaking a senseless trampling of the grass for progress along new paths.18

Weingartner’s treatise, On Conducting, was written, in part, as a response to the liberties with regard to tempo taken by Wagner’s disciple, Hans von Bülow. Although Weingartner conceded some admiration for von Bülow and recognised his contribution to the art and craft of conducting, he was of the opinion that von Bülow sometimes went too far with regard to tempo modification and that, at times, his goal was to divert the attention of the audience away from the music and toward himself as conductor.