22.08.2017 10:15 1515

When you see an orchestra perform classical music, then you notice among the musicians a person standing with his back to the audience. He looks towards the orchestra and periodically waves his arms. In one hand he has a stick, with which he indicates something to the musicians.

This person is called the conductor.

Why do you need a conductor? You ask. He doesn't play a musical instrument. And can't the orchestra cope without him?

The word conductor is of French origin. It means to lead, to manage. And the conductor really controls the orchestra, being his key figure in the orchestra.

This profession has existed for a long time.

Egyptian and Assyrian bas-reliefs that have survived to this day depict a man holding a stick. He leads the musicians and shows them something. IN Ancient Greece there were also people who led the choir.

With his hands and the conductor's baton, he indicates which of the musicians should play quickly and which should play slowly, where the music should sound quieter and where louder. The conductor inspires the orchestra with his energy. The quality of the sound of the music and the playing of the entire orchestra depends on his skill.

Ordinary people, far from classical music, do not always understand what exactly this man in a tuxedo is doing, waving his hands in front of those trying to play as best as possible better musicians. However, not a single orchestral concert is complete without this participant. What does a conductor do, what is his role and why are listeners more willing to buy tickets if he is famous?

From Ancient Greece to the present day

Long before Toscanini, Furtwängler, von Karajan and Bernstein, their work was already carried out by Pherecydes of Patras, known in Ancient Greece as the “Pacemaker”. According to historical sources, as early as 709 BC. he controlled a group of eight hundred musicians with a golden baton, raising and lowering it and ensuring that the musicians "started at the same time" and "all could stick together."

The functions of a conductor have changed over the past thousand-plus years, but the profession is still shrouded in a certain mystical aura. Indeed, it is surprising the ability of one person holding in his hand only wooden stick, ensure the coherent sound of sometimes hundreds of instruments.

How is it that the sounds pouring out as a result of this mysterious dance at the control panel sometimes cause sublime delight, seizing listeners who then cannot forget the feelings that gripped them for the rest of their lives?

This great secret art, and, thank God, it is impossible to completely unravel it.

In more down-to-earth analogies, a conductor is the musical equivalent of a sports team manager. It is never possible to assess exactly what he is doing, but it is always clear what result he is achieving. An orchestra, in principle, can do without a conductor, but in most cases they still prefer to play under his direction. So what exactly does he do? These are some of the many things a conductor does, consciously or unconsciously, at the podium.

Metronome Man

“The whole duty of a conductor lies in his ability to always indicate the correct tempo,” said Richard Wagner, who himself mastered this profession perfectly and was also a great composer. Typically used to control an orchestra right hand(with or without a stick), but other components also influence the flawless execution. The conductor cannot be replaced by a metronome (as beautifully illustrated in Fellini's allegorical film Orchestra Rehearsal), his actions mean much more.

Interpretation

The conductor's job is to bring the score to life. To do this, he uses his own understanding of the work as a tool and expresses it through an individual sign language. He, as it were, “sculpts” the musical line, emphasizes the nuances and individual musical elements, controlling the musicians, and, in fact, creates a lot anew. These processes are usually expressed with the left hand. While all conductors have some common gestures, most of the greatest have their own unique style. For example, Furtwängler at some moments spontaneously made rather strange movements. Valery Gergiev moved his fingers, expressing the character of the music; he himself explained this manner by the fact that he was a pianist.

Listening skills

“The best conductors make the best listeners,” says Tom Service, a journalist and author of the fascinating book “Music as Alchemy: Travels with Great Conductors and Their Orchestras.” They, like a lightning rod, take on the emotional load of the work and focus attention on its strongest aspects. It is important for a conductor to understand music more deeply ordinary people, and then express your own hyper-awareness by making it publicly available.

Dictatorship

“You must impose your will - not by force, but you must be able to convince people of the correctness of your point of view!” - said Pierre Boulez, the legendary composer and conductor. Although most conductors these days consider themselves democrats, this simply cannot be true. This does not mean that dictatorship cannot be avoided, but it is not easy. Boulez gives the example of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, calling it a group of individuals: “If the conductor does not give them a collective direction, then they will be deprived of a rudder and sails.”

Conductor-conductor

In many languages, the word “conductor” sounds like “conductor”. Well, there is something in common, because every listener perceives music with his ear, and looks at what the conductor is doing, and through this visual image there is a visual connection, a kind of bridge between our eyes and melodic sensations. Sometimes it’s simply impossible to take your eyes off the remote control; the sight is mesmerizing.

“Conducting is much more difficult than playing one instrument. You need to know the culture, calculate everything and project what you want to hear,” says Boulez.

What besides music?

Conductors need musical instinct, intuition and innate musicality, but beyond that they need to know a lot. They typically spend many hours preparing before taking a seat at the console. It is often academic in nature, covering the study of historical documents such as letters, specifications instruments of a certain period or biographical moments of the authors. Like all great mysteries, great music only comes from a huge amount of hard work.

Symphony Orchestra. Conductor

Imagine that you come to a concert hall. There is an unusual “society” on stage - music stands, chairs, and musical instruments on them. Then people came out onto the stage, dressed as if for a ball: men in black tailcoats, ladies in beautiful dresses. We sat down, took our instruments in our hands, and suddenly something unimaginable began!

Chaos of sounds! Terrible noise! These are the musicians checking the tuning of their instruments. And then another man in a tailcoat with a wand in his hands came onto the stage, turned his back to us, waved his magic wand and... a miracle happened - MUSIC began to sound. Playing Symphony Orchestra.

Hearing: I. Strauss (son). Waltz "Tales of the Vienna Woods".

The wonderful poet Yuri Davydovich Levitansky has a poem “Music”:

There is something so unearthly in music,
No matter how sadness is born here,
Which neither violin nor piano
They can’t scoop it all the way down to the bottom.

And the harp's sweet-sounding string
Or the trembling pipes of an organ
They are too rude for that sadness,
For that immeasurable unearthly sorrow.

But then they came together, uniting
To the mighty community of the orchestra...

Here we will interrupt the poem, listen to the silence and try to hear the orchestra inside us, its sound colors, its mighty breath that carries us away

...There, there, higher and faster,
where the starry fugue rages...
A blizzard is blowing. The blizzard is raging...

Listening: L. Beethoven. "Ode to Joy" Finale of Symphony No. 9.

Yes, the orchestra is the most powerful, most magical musical “instrument”. And we will reveal the secret of this magic a little, take a look at the “device” that has evolved over centuries of this “tool”.

In Ancient Greece, the verb “orheo” meant “dancing,” and the Greeks called orchestra a semicircular platform in front of the stage, on which the choir, a participant in every ancient play, sang its part, making rhythmic movements.

Centuries have passed, a great civilization has perished, but this word remains to live. Tens of centuries later, this was the name for the room in the theater where the musicians were located, and later for the ensemble itself. musical instruments and the performers on them. These ensembles featured a wide variety of instruments.

Listening: Francesco da Milano. "Canzona"

Today it is difficult for us to imagine that there was a time when the symphony orchestra looked completely different. He's actually quite young. In the era when the great artists Michelangelo and Titian lived, there was no orchestra at all. In Shakespeare's time it was just in its infancy.

Listening: F. Liszt. "Dreams of Love"

Of course, you may ask: didn't people get together at that time to play music or listen to music? Of course, they have been gathering since ancient times.

The historian Josephus described one magnificent religious festival in Palestine in the 1st century. n. BC, which involved twenty thousand singers, twenty thousand trumpeters, forty thousand harpists and forty thousand sistrum players (an instrument similar to a rattle). What a colossal orchestra this is.

And another comic incident was described by the Greek historian Polybius. In the 3rd century. BC e. thirteen Greek flutists came to Rome to show their art. But the Roman public was not experienced in this kind of music playing, and in order to have fun, they forced the musicians... to fight among themselves. But let's return to our orchestra.

The history of the symphony orchestra dates back to the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, when new genres of music appeared, such as opera, oratorio and others. The orchestra then served as accompaniment. It often included ancient instruments such as the lute and viol. To delight the ears of aristocrats, orchestras began to be formed at the royal courts, often consisting only of string instruments. Their names spoke for themselves. For example, in France such an orchestra was called “24 Violins of the King.”

From the first half of the 18th century. The composition of the orchestra depended on the place where the music was performed and its listeners. Most often, rich aristocrats owned orchestras. The number of musicians and the composition of the instruments depended on the taste and contents of the owner’s wallet. Typically, the composition of an early classical orchestra was reduced to two oboes, two horns and strings. If the number of strings exceeded twelve instruments, the orchestra was considered large.

Listening: J. Haydn. "Serenade".

By the end of the 18th century. A so-called small orchestra was formed: about thirty string instruments, two flutes, two oboes, two or three horns and timpani. J. Haydn and W. Mozart wrote for such a composition. And only in the work of Beethoven (1770-1827) did the “Classical” composition of the orchestra take shape. But it was also different from the modern one. Only in the era of romanticism did the orchestra include many wind instruments, the string group was expanded.

Over several centuries, musical practice has developed several types of symphony orchestra.

Firstly, the concert orchestra. It is located on an elevated stage in the hall, and we, sitting in our seats, constantly see both the orchestra and the conductor.

Secondly, the opera orchestra. It is designed for performing opera and ballet music. In order not to block the artists on stage, this orchestra is seated in a special recess - the orchestra pit. You see, the opera orchestra is “sitting in the pit”!

Nowadays there are also radio, television, and film orchestras. Most often, they are not visible to us, since they are located in special studios, sometimes thousands of kilometers away.

Arrangement of orchestra instruments

Wherever the orchestra works, its structure is the same.

Do you think it matters how the musicians are seated in an orchestra? Of course, the musicians do not sit the way they wanted, but in a strict order. From the experience of dozens of conductors and orchestras, it has become clear that musicians can clearly see the conductor’s baton if they are positioned in a fan-shape and the conductor is in the center.

Experience has shown that all homogeneous instruments must be collected together. This allows musicians to better hear each other when playing together. The uniform sound of the entire orchestra is very important. What would happen if there were trumpets and trombones in front and violins at the back of the stage? Brass instruments would drown out the sound of strings. Therefore, in front we see instruments with a quieter voice.

So we said this word again - CONDUCTOR. Who is this? How long ago did the art of conducting arise, what are its features and secrets? We will now try to answer these questions.

Let's go back to the distant past. The whole tribe gathered around the fire to celebrate a successful hunt. Men perform a ritual dance. At the head of the dancers is the leader of the tribe. With the movements of his body, he sets the rhythm for the dancers and musicians playing reed flutes, shells and drums. Every gesture of the leader’s body is a conventional sign that everyone understands, suggesting what the continuation of the dance should be like.

This is probably what the first conducting scenes looked like. It was from them that the tradition came: at the head of a group of musicians or singers there should be a person to whom everyone reports - a conductor.

Now let’s try to mentally transport ourselves to ancient Greece, to a huge open theater where tens of thousands of spectators gathered.

The main figure in the ancient Greek theater was the luminary. He conducted the choir - that was the name at that time for a group of actors who had to sing, dance, and perform pantomimes. The musicians, who accompanied the performance by playing various instruments, also obeyed the gestures of the luminary.

Although the luminaries beat out the required rhythm with blows of an iron-bound sole, the main instrument of conducting was their hands. It was then that the conducting system that has survived to this day, called cheironomy, arose.

In order to manage a large musical group, you need a conductor (French diriger - to manage, direct, lead). Conductors have existed in music for a very long time. In the Middle Ages they were called differently - masters, proctors, cantors. Their symbol high position served as a heavy, skillfully finished staff. During the service, the church conductor usually placed him in the most visible place. At the end of the Middle Ages, this baton turned into an important assistant to the conductor - a trampoline, a prototype of the conductor's baton. True, it didn’t look much like a stick - it was a massive stick, about a meter long.

At first, using a trampoline, as primitive musicians did, they counted the rhythm with blows. But such “noisy” conducting often interfered with listening to the music. Time passed, and some conductors, wanting to avoid “noisy” conducting, began to use “quiet” objects instead of trampolines: rolled sheet music or even a handkerchief.

There was a time when the conductor led the orchestra while playing the violin or harpsichord. This method was preferred by I.S. Bach. But the time came when the composition of the orchestra had increased so much that, playing on his own, a large team it became impossible to lead.

And here in early XIX V. a concept of a conductor has emerged that is close to ours. But at that time he was still facing the public, since it was considered indecent to turn his back to it. Therefore, he stood with his back to the orchestra and led it without seeing the musicians. This, of course, was inconvenient. A revolution in this matter was made by F. Mendelssohn and R. Wagner, who for the first time decided to turn to face the orchestra during a concert.

At the beginning of the 19th century. composers and conductors K. M. Weber and L. Spohr were the first to use a small baton for conducting. Since then, she has become the conductor's faithful assistant.

One day, the Russian composer A. Glazunov came to England, where he was supposed to conduct an orchestra. He did not know in English, so I learned only one phrase: “Gentlemen, I ask you to play what I draw with the end of my stick.”

Listening: W. Mozart. Symphony No. 40 (fragment).

One of the main tasks of the conductor is to force the entire orchestra to play strictly rhythmically and harmoniously. It's quite difficult. Imagine that the conductor showed the musicians the first beat of the measure, that is, he waved his baton exactly when the music should already sound. But some of the orchestra players need to take air into their lungs, some need to raise their bow, that is, everyone needs to get ready to start together. Therefore, the conductor gives an advance command - “auftakt”. It is he who is the basis of conducting.

But the conductor not only makes sure that everyone plays in harmony. He learns the piece with the performers, shows the introduction to all the instruments, whether they should play fast or slow, loud or quiet.

The main task of the conductor is to convey the author's intention as fully as possible. To do this, he must have a keen ear and enormous creative imagination, and be a well-educated person. Only if he possesses these qualities, if he has a love for his art, will he subjugate the orchestra and, together with it, give the listeners the great joy that music brings.

Listening: P. Tchaikovsky. Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1 (fragment).

And again I remember the words of Yu. Bashmet: “You need to be strong man so as not to need support, not to depend on others. Lead with no doubt that they will follow you. In other words, the conductor must have charisma ( charisma - God's gift, grace, charm; ability to lead yourself) both for their orchestra members and for their listeners.”

The role of the conductor in the orchestra is very accurately described in the poem “Conductor” by V. Soloukhin.

I listened to the music, following the conductor.
Musicians sat around him,
Everyone has a special instrument
A hundred thousand sounds, a million shades!

And he is alone, towering above them,
With the movement of a stick, eyebrows, lips, and body,
And with a look, now pleading, now cruel,
Those sounds from the silence were called...

Then the violins suddenly start flowing, then it’s alarming
The cello will begin to dominate.
Those pianos are powerful fountains
They will strike upward, and soar, and soar,

And in the inaccessible, unsteady heights
They will crumble into splashes and pieces of ice,
To quietly freeze with a light ringing...
Everything is correct. Keep the elements at your feet

And there is art.
Bravo, conductor!

A conductor is necessary in any orchestra. And each of them will respond in its own way to the conductor’s movement. “A chamber orchestra, just like a Porsche, is capable of reacting quickly. And a first-class symphony orchestra is like a Rolls-Royce: it can’t turn around as quickly, but it’s amazing to drive.” ( YU. Bashmet. Dream station).

Answer the questions:

1. What is an orchestra and when did this word first appear?
2. When was the symphony orchestra born and what is it connected with?
3. For what composition did Haydn and Mozart write?
4. In the work of which composer did the classical composition of the orchestra emerge?
5. How are the instruments of a symphony orchestra arranged?
6. Choose the correct answer to the question: “Who leads the orchestra?” - violinist, trumpeter, organist, conductor, double bassist.

Presentation

Included:
1. Presentation - 21 slides, ppsx;
2. Sounds of music:
Strauss (son). Waltz "Tales of the Vienna Woods"
Beethoven. "Ode to Joy" Finale of Symphony No. 9
Francesco da Milano. "Canzona"
Sheet. "Dreams of Love"
Haydn. "Serenade"
Mozart. Symphony No. 40 (fragment)
Chaikovsky. Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1 (fragment)
3. Accompanying article, docx.

References:
M. Shornikova. Musical literature. Music, its forms and genres;
A. Frolov. Musical literature. Secrets of musical language.

The Škola crew is well known. Artists always precede the performance of classical compositions with a short lecture, during which they explain how to listen to what is about to be heard.

the site continues a series of materials in which pianist and Škola crew member Alexandra Stefanova helps to understand the classics and everything related to their performance.

Can an orchestra play without a conductor?

— The conductor has a tremendous responsibility. He needs all 80-90 people in the orchestra (and there may be more) to play the right rhythm, understood who and when needed to join.

If the orchestra is large, then the musician who, for example, sits in the right corner, most likely does not hear what his colleague in the left is playing. It is simply physically impossible to recognize when a distant instrument began to sound. The musician hears only the closest neighbors. Without a conductor, it would be easy to make a mistake - you need a person who will tell you when to start playing.

However, there was also an orchestra without a conductor - Persimfans (First Symphony Ensemble). It existed in the USSR from 1922 to 1932. The musicians sat in a circle so they could see each other, and agreed on who should play at rehearsals. This orchestra, by the way, resumed its existence thanks to the efforts of Peter Aidu. He admits that this is not an exact copy of that orchestra - the musicians continue the traditions that developed in the 20s of the twentieth century. Approximately once or twice a year, the orchestra presents various programs to the public. On November 25 he will perform at concert hall"Zaryadye".

Are all the instruments included in the conductor's score?

- Yes. With its help, the conductor sees everything. It contains all the instruments, the whole outline of the work. If a pianist, for example, expresses himself and the composer’s idea only through the piano, then the conductor, one might say, plays all the instruments of the orchestra at once.

Why can conductors sound the same piece differently?

— The conductor must convey to the viewer the idea that the composer put into the music. In this case, the conductor takes into account what era the work belongs to. For example, if it is baroque, the violin should sound more muffled (it used to have different strings). But whether to follow this or not is, of course, everyone’s personal choice. This is why conductors succeed different interpretations the same symphonies. Sometimes they even sound at different speeds. The conductor can look at the work differently than his colleagues, use his personal experience, which affects the music.

How did you manage without a conductor before?

— The profession of a conductor appeared relatively recently, at the beginning of the 19th century. Previously, the orchestra was controlled by one of the musicians, most often a violinist (the most experienced one was chosen). He kept time by striking his bow or simply nodding his head. Sometimes the main role was played by a harpsichordist or cellist. But the music developed, the material became more complex, and the person simply did not have time to both direct and play at the same time.

If you look into an even more distant past, then, for example, in the ancient Greek theater the choir was led by a luminary. On his feet were sandals with iron soles, with the help of which he could comfortably beat out the rhythm.

Did conductors always use a baton?

- No. The conductor's baton in the form in which we know it today appeared in the 19th century. For some time before it, battuta was used. It could be a baton or a cane that served to beat time. By the way, it was the battuta that caused the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully, the creator of French opera and court composer of King Louis XIV. While beating out the rhythm during the performance of the Te Deum, written on the occasion of the king's recovery from a serious illness in 1687, Lully pierced his foot with the sharp tip of the battuta. Blood poisoning began, and the composer soon died.

They also used sheet music rolled into a tube, other objects, and conducted with their hands.

But whether or not to use a baton today is a personal matter for each conductor. Valery Gergiev, for example, prefers to hold a toothpick in his hands.

Many people do not understand why an orchestra needs a conductor if all the musicians have sheet music.

When did the orchestra have a conductor?

Communities of musicians playing this or that music have been known since ancient times, and, of course, these ensembles often had their own formal or informal leaders.

On Egyptian bas-reliefs there are images of a man with a staff in his hand, who leads the musicians, and in Ancient Greece, choir leaders (luminaries) beat out the rhythm using a special sandal with an iron heel.

And the larger the orchestras became (in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance they were called chapels, the word “orchestra” spread later), the more complex the practice of orchestral playing, the more necessary the figure of a traffic controller turned out to be - a person who beats the rhythm and makes sure that everyone plays coordinatedly and entered on time. Previously, this was done using a massive “battuta” cane, which was struck on the floor - the earliest images of this process date back to the 15th century.

It was quite a difficult matter and not always safe - great French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) injured his leg with the tip of such a cane and died of gangrene.

It was the composers who performed their own music with the chapels who were often the first conductors. They could beat out a rhythm with their feet or wave a sheet of music like Bach. Often this function was performed by harpsichordists or first violinists, who gave signals by swinging the bow.

It happened that there were several conductors - in the opera, the choirmaster could control the singers, and the accompanist could control the orchestra. It is important that almost always the conductor was also a musician - he sang or played.

The accompanists played the first violin part and gave signals to the other musicians with their eyes and head nods, or, interrupting the game, tapped the rhythm with a bow.

How did they get the baton in their hands?

Matter of chance. In essence, the stick was a replacement for the already familiar bow or music scroll.

Conductors began using the baton at the beginning of the 19th century and, judging by the descriptions, these batons were at first quite weighty. It was the 19th century that became the century of the birth of conductors as a separate profession - they finally separated from orchestras, took up exclusively conducting, stood on special elevations and, what was especially unusual, turned their backs to the public.

The first to do this was either Hector Berlioz or Richard Wagner - it is not known for certain who took the lead. For the incredibly expanded and complicated symphony orchestra of the 19th century, the number of participants in which could number in the hundreds, a special human regulator was vitally necessary - he no longer had the opportunity to play something in parallel with conducting.

The figure of the conductor, of course, was also a product of the romantic tradition - only in it could the black silhouette of a lone genius rise above the crowd organically exist, who with one movement of his hand controls the incredible mass of sound and emotions of the listeners.

That is, a conductor is needed primarily to set the correct rhythm?

At a minimum, setting a rhythm and signaling who is stepping in at what point is really important.

The musicians themselves, of course, can follow what is happening from the notes, count the bars and listen to their colleagues, but this is not always easy, and in a large symphony orchestra the musicians simply cannot hear all the parts. However, the conductor’s tasks, of course, are not limited to this: he is responsible for all the parameters of the performance, for ensuring that everything is united by a single tempo and mood.

And for the interpretation - after all, the same composition can be played in completely different ways. At different speeds, placing different accents, interpreting the moods of the units differently, paying different attention to the parties.

This is what the conductor does during rehearsals, analyzing, sometimes very meticulously, the scores with the musicians until he is satisfied with the sound and general meaning of the composition.

This is especially important when the tradition of performance is interrupted - the works of many great composers of the 17th and 18th centuries were not performed for a long time, and we can only guess how they sounded during their lifetime.

If contemporary composer can go through the entire score with the conductor, explaining exactly how his composition should be performed (although even here the conductor has the right to vote and free will), and, say, in Vienna there are still living musicians who studied with people who played the waltzes of Johann Strauss under the direction of Strauss himself, then there is no clear answer to the question “How to correctly play the works of Bach, Vivaldi or Lully.”

The notes of that time are extremely sparse in their explanations, and many details not indicated in the notes, but obvious to the musicians of that time, may be lost to us forever. In this case, it is impossible to simply “play the notes”: the problem of deciphering a baroque score is akin to a complex musicological detective story.

It is enough to read any book to be convinced of this - in fact, he says that you need to study all the known sources of that time, and then, simultaneously taking into account and ignoring what is written in the notes, try to understand not the letter, but the spirit of the work.

“Only one who finds the composer’s intention in the notes and plays these notes in accordance with it will be faithful to the work in the true sense of the word. If a composer writes a whole note, meaning a sixteenth note, then the one who plays the sixteenth note, and not the one who plays the whole note, will remain faithful not to the notes, but to the work.”

Harnoncourt writes.

That is, the sound of the same composition depends on who is conducting?

Exactly. Two different conductors can perform the same symphony very similarly (although never identically), or they can perform it completely differently.

Here is a very eloquent video from the Arzamas project: what happens to Beethoven’s famous “Ta-ta-ta-ta” in the hands of the world’s main conductors.

Another example: the same work by Bach, conducted by Karl Richter:

And Nicolas Harnoncourt:

Are conductors always terrible tyrants?

Not necessary. But this work is not easy and responsible, and it cannot be done without some pressure and determination, and in the relationship between the conductor and the orchestra it is not difficult to see a metaphor for the relationship between the ruler and the crowd (Fellini’s “Orchestra Rehearsal” is built almost entirely on it).

In the 20th century, many conductors did not escape the temptation to manage their orchestras by relying on dictatorship, pressure and an atmosphere of fear. The great conductors of the century - Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini - were people with whom musicians remember working with sacred horror.