Warner Vision has brought out what is, to date, the most important chronicle of the performing arts yet committed to DVD.
The series is called The Art Of..., and has so far included chronicles of the arts of singing, piano and violin.
It is now joined by a two-DVD presentation, The Art of Conducting. The disc details I've attached to this review (length, special features etc) apply only to the first of the two DVDs, but it is best to consider the two discs together.
The first disc began as a special television presentation by the BBC in collaboration with IMG Artists. This was edited for home video release into a single disc. The result was always compulsive viewing. On DVD it has changed from compulsive to indispensable.
The first DVD, subtitled Great Conductors of the Past, was devised by Stephen Wright and directed by Sue Knussen. It runs for 157 minutes. In that 157 minutes it gives us historical footage dating from 1913, with silent film of Artur Nikisch, through to footage in the 1970s of Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein.
The styles and contrasts of these great conductors come out on film so strongly, that it becomes obvious that for these conductors the orchestra becomes a mighty, single instrument. They play that instrument as perfectly as an Oistrakh or Heifetz may play a violin; or as Sviatoslav Richter or Martha Argerich may play a piano. That mass of 60 or more players becomes, through ebullient confidence, fear or sheer will-power, the tool of the conductor.
Thomas Beecham ruled his orchestras through the strengh of his witty, life-loving character. Even when he was being super-critical, he dressed it in redeeming wit. "Madam", he once exclaimed to an errant cellist. "You have between your legs an instrument which can bring pleasure to thousands. And what do you do? You sit there and scratch it!"
That was Beecham. By contrast, Evgeny Mravinsky, ruler of the Leningrad Philharmonic at the height of Stalinism, needed no wit or persuasion. If a player did not perform to his expectation, he or she was dismissed. And if dismissed by Mravinsky, it would be very hard to find work anywhere else within the Russian state.
The contrasts from conductor to conductor in this survey of 20th century conducting are fascinating. We see the great Wilhelm Furtwangler striving for the last drop of inner meaning of the music. We see a bored and tired Richard Strauss, as detached and as false as most of his music. And Herbert von Karajan, a showman-shaman, seeking power through music rather than questing for the special life music can offer.
The DVD offers almost 50 minutes of special commentary not previously available on the video, from some of the key figures of 20th century music-making. The great soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf discusses the key composers of her lifetime; she is joined in commentary by Hugh Bean, first violinist of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and by record producer Suvi Raj Grubb and violinist Isaac Stern.
The second DVD in this series is subtitled 'Legendary Conductors of a Golden Era'. It was produced a few years later, and is also fascinating viewing. It is not an historical survey, but rather offers longer appraisals and weightier musical excerpts centred in the main around six conductors only. The first DVD, 'Great Conductors of the Past', is the perfect introduction to the subject. The second is for those who feel impelled to go further.
Both DVDs can give the special meaning of the art of conducting. That meaning is best summed up by a quote from a percussionist for the Berlin Philharmonic, Werner Tharichen, who is reminiscing about a rehearsal by the orchestra in the 1950s.
The orchestra was rehearsing without conductor - really just reading, and desultorily playing, through the score. As percussionist, Werner didn't have all that much to do, but he was also studying conducting, so he had propped up on his music-stand the entire score for the piece, and was following it while waiting for his own entrance.
Suddenly, he said, he noticed that without anything happening and without anything being said, the entire nature of the orchestra sound changed. It became glowing and burnished, as if golden. He looked up from the score - no, there was no-one at the podium, nothing had happened to change anything. Then he looked at the door into the auditorium. There was the difference. Wilhelm Furtwangler had just walked into the hall.
"A person", he said, "who carries the sound so strongly within himself that he brings out the sound in others - that is the most beautiful thing an orchestra can experience."
"When you know that this person is totally open and you are invited to join him - that is when you can create this kind of music".
Another orchestra player said the communication between conductor and orchestra "was telepathetic". I don't think he really meant to say that, but I can understand what he meant.
