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MUS103: Survey of Music
History II
Dr. Kathleen Bondurant, Ph.D.
Famous Orchestra
Conductors
Why a conductor for an
orchestra?
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The principal conductor of an orchestra or opera
company is sometimes referred to as a music director or
chief conductor, or by the German word, Kapellmeister.
Conductors of choirs or choruses are sometimes referred
to as choral director, chorus master, or choirmaster,
particularly for choirs associated with an orchestra.
Conductors of military bands and other bands may hold
the title of bandmaster. Respected senior conductors are
sometimes referred to by the Italian word, maestro
("master").
The CONDUCTOR is the coordinator of the orchestra
personnel, keeper of the beat, and interpreter of the
music.
The conducting baton.
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In the 17th century, devices were used to
indicate the passing of time. Rolled up sheets
of paper, smaller sticks and unadorned hands
are all shown in pictures from this period. The
large staff was responsible for the death of
Jean-Baptiste Lully, who stabbed his foot with
one while conducting a Te Deum for the king's
recovery from illness. The wound became
gangrenous, and despite the efforts of doctors
the gangrene spread to his leg and he died two
months later.
A modern conducting baton with
wooden handle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conducting
The Principal Violinist was
sometimes the conductor.
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In instrumental music and small ensembles, a
member of the ensemble usually acted as the
conductor. This was sometimes the principal
violinist, who could use his bow as a baton, or
a lutenist who would move the neck of his
instrument in time with the beat. It was
common to conduct from the harpsichord in
pieces that had a basso continuo part. In opera
performances, there were sometimes two
conductors - the keyboard player was in
charge of the singers, and the principal violinist
was in charge of the orchestra.
The 1800’s – Conductors were
“usual”.
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By the early 19th century, it became the norm to have a
dedicated conductor, who did not also play an instrument
during the performance.
The size of the usual orchestra expanded during this
period, and the use of a baton became more common, as
it was easier to see than bare hands or rolled-up paper.
Among the earliest notable conductors were Louis Spohr,
Carl Maria von Weber, Louis Antoine Jullien and Felix
Mendelssohn, all of whom were also composers.
Mendelssohn is claimed to have been the first conductor
to utilize a wooden baton to keep time, a practice still
generally in use today.
Hans von Bülow is commonly considered the first
professional musician whose principal career was as a
conductor.
Hans von
Bülow
Hans Guido von
Bülow was a
German
conductor,
pianist and
composer, born
in Dresden on 8
January 1830.
http://www.sunrisemusics.com/filarmonica.htm
As Hofkapellmeister, Bülow
conducted Wagner’s masterpieces.
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Bülow's musical studies began relatively late, and it was not until
the age of nine, that he began to receive formal piano lessons.
After studying law in Leipzig and Dresden, he abandoned his legal
career in 1850 to make his debut as a conductor in Zurich.
In 1851 he began piano studies at Weimar with Franz Liszt, whose
daughter Cosima he went on to marry in 1857.
After teaching in Berlin (1855–1864) and giving piano recitals, he
was appointed Hofkapellmeister in Munich in 1865, where he
conducted the premieres of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1865)
and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868).
Bülow premiered Tchaikovsky in
Boston in 1875
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After his wife first Cosima (Liszt's daughter) left him for Richard
Wagner after eleven years of marriage in 1868, Bülow resigned
his post in Munich the following year, and began to tour widely
in Europe, Russia and the United States.
It was in Boston in 1875 that he premiered Tchaikovsky's Piano
Concerto No. 1, which the composer dedicated to him. Although
closely associated with the New German School of music, Von
Bülow also championed Tchaikovsky's works, and conducted
the premiere of his Suite No. 3 in Saint Petersburg in 1885.
In 1882 Bülow married again to the actress Marie Schlanzer,
who had friendly relations with Tchaikovsky.
Hans von Bülow died in Cairo, Egypt, on 12 February 1894,
aged 64, following a long period of ill health.
Berlioz was the first “virtuoso
conductor.
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Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner were also
conductors, and they wrote two of the earliest
essays dedicated to the subject. Berlioz is
considered the first virtuoso conductor. Wagner
was largely responsible for shaping the
conductor's role as one who imposes his own
view of a piece onto the performance rather
than one who is simply responsible for
ensuring entries are made at the right time and
that there is a unified beat.
Some conductors did not use
batons.
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Amongst prominent conductors who did
not or do not use a baton are Leopold
Stokowski, Pierre Boulez, Dimitri
Mitropoulos, Kurt Masur and Nikolaus
Harnoncourt.
Leopold Stokowski -- Flamboyant
conductor and musician. 1882-1977
Autocratic
conductor
Leopold
Stokowski
scolded the
audience at a
concert in New
York in 1945.
http://media.npr.org/programs/pt/images/2006/Stokowski200.jpg
Leopold Stokowski
(Conductor, Arranger)
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Born: April 18, 1882 - London, England
Died: September 13, 1977 - Nether Wallop, Hampshire,
England
The celebrated, spectacularly endowed, and magically
communicative English-born American conductor (and
arranger), Leopold (Anthony) Stokowski, was born into a Polish
and Irish mother, but was raised as an Englishman. His famous,
vaguely foreign, accent somehow appeared later in his life. (It is
widely believed this was an affectation, as was his name,
adopted in favor of the less exotic-sounding "Leo Stokes.") The
young Stokowski was a precocious musician, and as a child
learned to play the violin, piano, and organ with apparently little
effort. At the age of thirteen, he became the youngest person to
have been admitted to the Royal College of Music.
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By eighteen, Leopold Stokowski had been appointed
organist and choirmaster at St. James', Piccadilly.
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He attended Queen's College, Oxford, receiving a
Bachelor of Music degree in 1903.
He moved to the USA in 1905, but returned to Europe
each summer for further musical studies in Berlin,
Munich, and Paris. When a conductor fell ill in Paris in
1908, he made his debut as an emergency substitute.
The impression he made led to a position with the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in which he quickly
achieved notable success.
However, a more tempting prospect faced him when he
was asked to take over the Philadelphia Orchestra in
1912. It was during his long and fruitful association with
this ensemble that Stokowski established himself as one
of the leading musicians of his day.
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Pierre
Boulez
http://aeijtzsche.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
Pierre Boulez
born 26 March 1925
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He studied with Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire (1942-5), inheriting
Messiaen's concern with rhythm, non-developing forms and extraEuropean music along with the Schöenberg tradition of Leibowitz. The
clash of the two influences lies behind such intense, disruptive works as
his first two piano sonatas (1946, 1948) and Livre pour quatuor for string
quartet (1949).
The violence of his early music also suited that of René Char's poetry in
the cantatas Le visage nuptial (1946) and Le soleil des eaux (1948),
though through this highly charged style he was working towards an
objective serial control of rhythm, loudness and tone colour that was
achieved in the Structures for two pianos (1952). At this time he came to
know Stockhausen, with whom he became a leader of the European avant
garde, teaching at Darmstadt (1955-67) and elsewhere, and creating one of
the key postwar works in his Le marteau sans maître (1954).
Once more to poems by Char, the work is for contralto with alto flute,
viola, guitar and percussion: a typical ensemble of middle-range
instruments with an emphasis on struck and plucked sounds. The filtering
of Boulez's earlier manner through his 'tonal serialism' produces a work
of feverish speed, unrest and elegance.
SEIJI OZAWA:
MAESTRO, TEACHER
http://forum.ge/uploads/post-94-1196497903.jpg
http://www.houstontheatre.com/hgopera/giovanni.html
Seiji Ozawa
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Born: September 1, 1935 - Fenytien [now Shenyang,
Liaoning, China]
The Japanese conductor, Seiji Ozawa, studied music
from an early age and later graduated with first prizes in
composition and conducting from Tokyo's Toho School of
Music. In 1959 he won first prize at the International
Competition of Orchestra Conductors held in Besançon,
France. Charles Munch, then music director of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, subsequently invited him to attend
the Tanglewood Music Center, where he won the
Koussevitzky Prize for outstanding student conductor in
1960.
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While working with Herbert von Karajan in West Berlin,
Seiji Ozawa came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein,
who appointed him assistant conductor of the New York
Philharmonic for the 1961-62 season. He made his first
professional concert appearance in North America in
January 1962, with the San Francisco Symphony.
He was music director of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra's Ravinia Festival for five summers beginning
in 1964, music director of the Toronto Symphony from
1965 to 1969, and music director of the San Francisco
Symphony from 1970 to 1976, followed by a year as that
orchestra's music adviser.
He conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the
first time in 1964, at Tanglewood, and made his first
Symphony Hall appearance with the orchestra in January
1968. He became an artistic director of Tanglewood in
1970 and began his tenure as music director of the BSO
in 1973, following a year as music adviser.
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With the 2000-2001 season, Seiji Ozawa
marks his twenty-seventh anniversary as
music director of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. Since he became the BSO's
music director in 1973, Ozawa has devoted
himself to the orchestra through the longest
tenure of any music director currently active
with a major orchestra, approached in BSO
history only by the twenty-five-year tenure of
the legendary Serge Koussevitzky. In the fall
of 2002, Ozawa will begin a new phase in
his career when he assumes the post of
music director of the Vienna State Opera.
Serge Koussevitzky
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Born: July 28, 1874
- Vyshniy Volochek,
Russia
Died: June 4, 1951 Boston,
Massachusetts, USA
http://www.troychromatics.org/about/TCCGallery/B04%20Serge%20Koussevitzky.jpg
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The first major Russian conductor, Serge
(Aleksandrovich) Koussevitzky was born in Russia to a
family of musicians.
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At the age of fourteen he was given a scholarship to the
Musico-Dramatic Institute in Moscow to study double
bass and music theory. He excelled at the bass, joining
the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra at age twenty and
succeeding his teacher as the principal bassist at twentyseven.
As a soloist, he made his Moscow debut in 1901, and
won critical accolades for his first Berlin recital in 1903.
Koussevitzky married his first wife Natalie Ushkov,
daughter of a wealthy merchant, in 1905 and moved to
Germany.
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In 1908, Koussevitzky made his professional debut as a
conductor, hiring and leading a concert with the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra.
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The next year he founded his own orchestra in Moscow and
branched out into the publishing business, forming his own firm
and buying the catalogues of many of the greatest composers of
the age, including Stravinsky, Scriabin, Prokofiev and Sergei
Rachmaninov.
During the period 1909 to 1920 he established himself as a
brilliant conductor in Europe. After the Russian Revolution, he
returned to his homeland for a brief time to conduct the State
Symphony Orchestra in Petrograd; in 1920, he made his way to
Paris, where he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky, presenting
new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel.
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In 1924 he accepted the directorship of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra beginning a golden era for that ensemble that would
continue until 1949.
In Boston, Koussevitzky championed new music,commissioning
important works from Copland, Harris, Piston, Barber, Hanson,
Schuman, Bernstein, and his old friends, Stravinsky and Ravel.
In 1936 he took over the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood,
Mass. and in 1940 added a school, the Berkshire Music Center.
In 1942 the Koussevitzky Foundation was established to
commission and provide performances of new works.
At Tanglewood, Koussevitzky held classes in conducting and was
succeeded in the post by his student, Leonard Bernstein. Since
its founding, Tanglewood has grown to become one of the
world's major centers for musical education and has served as
the musical springboard for countless instrumentalists, singers,
conductors and composers.
Leonard
Bernstein
http://aeijtzsche.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
http://www.hmd.lu/concert/Gala2003/Leonard_Bernstein.jpg
Leonard Bernstein – American
Conductor
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Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was a multiEmmy-winning American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and
pianist.
He was the first conductor born and educated in the United States of
America to receive worldwide acclaim.
He is perhaps best known for his long conducting relationship with the
New York Philharmonic, which included the acclaimed Young People's
Concerts series, and his compositions including West Side Story,
Candide, and On the Town. Bernstein was the first classical music
conductor to make numerous television appearances, all between 1954
and 1989.
Additionally he had a formidable piano technique and was a highly
respected composer. He is one of the most influential figures in the history
of American classical music, championing the works of American
composers and inspiring the careers of a generation of American
musicians.
Text Sources
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conducting
http://www.tchaikovskyresearch.net/en/people/bulow_hans.html
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/boulez.html
http://www.leonardbernstein.com/
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Ozawa-Seiji.htm
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/KoussevitzkySerge.htm
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/StokowskiLeopold.htm