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Foreword
This book might well have contained yet more dry-as-dust explanations of where to put the ictus and how to deal with the fermatas in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. How much of the sterility of today’s conducting is owed to these well-meaning tomes? Conducting is perhaps the most elusive performing art of all; technique has little or nothing to do with the resultant sound-world. Leinsdorf encapsulates the problem when he asserts that sound produced by any performer, and, in particular, a conductor, is an extension of human personality. He himself refused to teach conducting…supporting my refusal with the argument that the motions are of no consequence.
In his exhaustive and penetrating book, Dr. Hinton takes us through a maze of ideas––musical, practical, historical, psychological and philosophical––putting the repertoire of the wind ensemble into context with a fascinating resumé of the past two hundred years, and investigating the great traditions of conducting style.