| Chapter 1: | Conducting in Theory and Practice |
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Yet through continuously evolving changes and refinements, the perceptions and experiences of the mind are similarly changed and refined”.41
The nature of the conductor’s relationship with the ensemble has implications with regard to performance. The conductor’s conception of the work is not absolute, but is—to a certain extent—in a state of evolution. Its ultimate form materialises in performance. In this regard, Karajan suggests that “each musician feels content, feels he has contributed creatively to the entire process, and is not merely an insignificant part in a scheme of things that is directed by someone else”.42
Karajan implies that there are times when the conductor might yield to the performer’s judgement. Leinsdorf writes that it is “perfectly proper to give in occasionally when an orchestra feels a tendency toward some fine new nuance, either in dynamics or tempo” and also recommends a degree of open-mindedness when listening to the manner in which solo players handle important passages before making criticisms.43 Following Leinsdorf and Karajan, the conductor’s leadership of the ensemble is not completely autonomous, and the conductor, in certain instances, follows the instrumentalist.
Karajan believed that, in performance, the conductor should allow him/herself the “luxury of interfering only when…needed, in places where there is resistance”.44 For him, the real art of conducting lay in the realisation that the music comes implicitly, as if “by itself ”. This suggests that the conductor’s role with regard to making music is fluid in the sense that there are times when this need is stronger than at other times. Liszt writes that the real task of the conductor is to make himself “quasi-useless”45.