You have come to the opera house. The performance has not yet begun, but the musicians have already gathered in the orchestra pit - that’s the name of the room located below in front of the stage. They tune their instruments, and the noise is unimaginable. It seems that this chaos of sounds cannot produce a harmonious, consistent and beautiful sound. But there will also be solo singers and a choir... In order to manage this large musical group, there is a conductor (French diriger - to manage, direct, lead).
doesn't just make sure everyone plays in tune. He carefully thinks through the composer's intention - the nature of the sound of the music. He learns the piece with the performers, indicates when this or that instrument should enter, whether it should play quickly or slowly, loudly or quietly. needed in the opera and symphony orchestra, in the choir and in the song and dance ensemble - wherever music is performed by a large group. The choir is led by a choral conductor - choirmaster. Once upon a time, a long time ago, an ensemble of performers was led by a musician who played the harpsichord or organ. He performed his part and at the same time determined the tempo and emphasized the rhythm. After keyboard instrument stopped taking part in the performance of orchestral works, and leadership passed to the first violinist. And now in some places you can see that a small instrumental ensemble is led by a violinist. But the composition of the orchestra grew larger and larger over time, and soon it became too much for the violinist to perform. playing by yourself, managing such a large team. At the beginning of the 19th century, the concept of an orchestra conductor, close to ours, emerged. True, at that time the conductor still faced the audience, since it was considered indecent to turn his back to it. Therefore, I had to stand with my back to the orchestra and conduct without seeing the orchestra members.
The first to abandon this inconvenient position for both the orchestra and the conductor were the German composers Felix Mendelssohn and Richard Wagner. At the beginning of the 19th century, composers and conductors Carl Maria Weber, Ludwig Spohr and others first used a small wooden baton for conducting. They did this completely independently of each other. I liked the new way of conducting so much that the baton became the conductor’s faithful assistant. They say that when the wonderful Russian composer Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov came to England, where he was supposed to conduct, then, without knowing English language, he only learned one phrase. With it, he turned to the orchestra: “Gentlemen, I ask you to play what I draw with the end of my stick.”
Now some conductors are abandoning the baton. - this is the soul of the orchestra. Just as, for example, different pianists, performing the same piece, play it in different ways, so a conductor can emphasize classically clear or romantically excited themes in a work, can highlight some features and soften, obscure others. Therefore, the conductor must be a well-educated musician: know the history of music, the history of other arts, have an impeccable understanding of the style of the work, and be fluent in the era in which it was created. must have excellent hearing, master some (or better yet, some) musical instrument. In the 20th century, such conductors as Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, Willy Ferrero, and Herbert von Karajan were world famous. Outstanding Soviet conductors there were Nikolai Semenovich Golovanov and Samuil Abramovich Samosud. Soviet conducting art was glorified by the Hero of Socialist Labor, People's Artist of the USSR Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Mravinsky, and in subsequent generations folk artists USSR Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Evgeny Svetlanov.
View value Conductor in other dictionaries
Conductor- conductor, m. 1. person conducting an orchestra, bandmaster (musician). An orchestra without a conductor. 2. An employee who monitors the movement of office papers, the progress of office work........
Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
Conductor M.— 1. The one who conducts an orchestra or choir, giving his own interpretation to a piece of music. 2. outdated Dance director at the ball.
Explanatory Dictionary by Efremova
Conductor- -A; m. [from French. diriger - to manage] Person, orchestra manager, choir, opera or ballet performance. D. orchestra. Famous d. Play under the direction of a conductor.
◁ Conductor,........
Kuznetsov's Explanatory Dictionary
“A conductor can be compared to two people at once: firstly, with a director in a drama theater, and secondly, with a traffic controller. The technical function of the conductor is to coordinate the various groups in the orchestra. A symphony orchestra can range from 60 to 120 people, making it a crowded gathering. On stage, all these people sit in such a way that they often cannot see or hear each other. Let's say, through a sound wall that separates the first violins, sitting at the front edge, and the trombones in the back, in the far right corner, they simply do not realize that others are playing. If the orchestra members disperse, there will be a catastrophe, a cacophony will begin.
To prevent this, a conductor is precisely what is needed - so that the musicians are coordinated with each other, so that they play harmoniously, at the same tempo and mood, as they say, “breathe together.” Plus, to all this, the conductor must show the introduction of certain instruments in advance. Of course, musicians themselves know how to count pauses, they can count out 25 bars and start again, but sometimes the number of bars in a pause is measured in hundreds, and sometimes some instruments have only a few notes in a piece, and between them there are minutes of complete silence. The conductor must know the score exactly and indicate to the musicians the moment of entry. The function of the conductor in this form did not always exist, only from the beginning of the 19th century. Before this, of course, there was a first person in the orchestra, but it was either the first violinist or the person behind the harpsichord - often it was the composer himself conducting his own work. But orchestras in Baroque times were smaller, much easier to manage, and there were fewer instruments - and not just in numbers. IN XVIII century the orchestra had much fewer varieties of wind and percussion instruments than the romantic orchestra of the times of Tchaikovsky and Wagner.
Claudio Abbado conducting Gustav Mahler's First Symphony
But we must not forget about the second, creative function of the conductor. In general, if you call any conductor a traffic controller to his face, it will be like a slap in the face, and orchestra members call bad conductors exactly that, meaning that they only know how to show the tempo and rhythmic grid - and nothing more. A good conductor is akin to a good director in a theater: he is a person who builds the form of the performance, sets the tempo, rhythm, mood, outlines the characters of the characters - in this case, different instruments symphony orchestra. And most importantly, he creates an interpretation of the work that is entrusted to him.
Conductors, like musicians of other specialties, study at the conservatory - but it is considered that this is an age-related profession. They say that 40–50 years is youth for a conductor; maturity comes later. At the conservatory they work on conducting technique, to ensure that the movements of the hands and body are as clear, precise and clear as possible. This is a kind of palmistry, or, more primitively, sign language translation: you must, without uttering a word, explain your intentions to the musicians - tempo, nuances, dynamics, the nature of the musical phrase, features of the balance of the orchestral texture, what groups of instruments are in at the moment more important, some less. This is a non-verbal method of communication through gestures, which is carried out not only with the hands, but also with the entire body. Some particularly colorful conductors even dance at the console, but this does not mean anything - sometimes such active body movements are absolutely useless, good conductors often limit themselves to very economical gestures - and the sound of the orchestra can resemble a volcanic eruption.
Leonard Bernstein conducts Beethoven's Sixth Symphony
A symphony orchestra is not a machine, and the score is not an exact instruction for use; not all the instructions that are there are exactly applicable to music. Yes, of course, there are indications of tempo, strokes, details of articulation and phrasing, but this is more of a guide to action, not a goal, but a means of achieving it. Let's say, the tempo of an adagio, slowly - it alone has its own gradations and changes, and for each conductor the time in the adagio pulsates differently - this is the scope for interpretation. The author's text is not perceived as an immutable given. This is the starting point for the conductor to create his own reading and vision: just as a play by Chekhov, Goethe or Ibsen is the starting point for the director. Only in classical, academic music is there an unshakable rule: the author's text is given without constructive changes. You cannot change the instrumentation, swap parts of the symphony, radically change the tempo, change the character to the opposite. You create an interpretation within the boundaries given by the composer. Directors in a drama theater are freer: they do what they want with the play - for them, the author's text is plaster from which they can mold what they want. Conductors deal with a completed work of art; their task is to give it a new perspective, a new sound, and their own individual intonation. It’s more difficult, but it’s even more interesting.”
Ordinary people who are far from classical music do not always understand what exactly this man in a tuxedo is doing, waving his hands in front of the musicians trying to play their best. 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 "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 amazing the ability of one person, holding only a wooden stick in his hand, to ensure the harmonious 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 is the great mystery of art, and, thank God, it is impossible to completely unravel it.
If we draw more down-to-earth analogies, a conductor is the musical equivalent of a manager sports team. 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 performance. 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 work and expresses it through individual sign language. He, as it were, “sculpts” the musical line, emphasizes the nuances and individual musical elements, managing musicians, and, in fact, creating 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 than ordinary people, and then express his own hyper-awareness, 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, instrument specifications certain period or biographical details of the authors. Like all great mysteries, great music only comes from a huge amount of hard work.
Have you guys ever wondered: why do we need a conductor in an orchestra? There is a man standing in front of the orchestra with his back to the audience, waving his arms, but not playing anything. Do musicians need it? It turns out that it is needed. And a lot depends on how and what the conductor shows with his baton.
Imagine runners at the start line. They prepared to take off and rush forward... And suddenly, instead of shooting, they shout: “Well, come on, run or something!” How do you think runners on such a “team” will be able to break away from the start at the same time?
So consider that we have clarified the first responsibility of the conductor. An orchestra, which sometimes has more than a hundred people, needs a clear command so that everyone can start playing at the same time. But unlike the runners, who will reach the finish line one after another, the orchestra members must finish the music all together - again at the conductor’s sign.
But the conductor’s responsibilities do not end there. You know that in the same piece of music there are both loud and quiet places. And now the orchestra plays this piece. One musician will begin to play quietly a little earlier than necessary; others will think that they need to play more quietly, on the contrary, later; and the third will completely forget where to play more quietly... Can you imagine what kind of confusion it will be?
And here again the commander-conductor comes to the fore. It is by his signal that all musicians, no matter how many there are, can simultaneously play “quietly” or “loudly.” This is another responsibility of the conductor.
You know different musical pieces. For example, a march - the music is always loud, clear, cheerful. The music of the lullaby is completely different - quiet, gentle, soothing. Now imagine that it is not the mother who sings this lullaby, but an orchestra of a hundred people playing! All musicians know that they must play quietly, but it is very difficult to do this without someone else’s observation, and here, it turns out, there is a great need for a conductor who does not play himself, but listens, evaluates from the outside how the orchestra sounds, and shows who needs it. playing a little louder, or playing a little quieter, “evens out” the sonority of the orchestra. This is his third duty.
There is also a fourth. If we do morning exercises to the music and under the guidance of the coach, he counts us: “one, two, three” so that we don’t lose the tempo. Why does the drum thunder when they march in formation? In order for everyone to keep up, in an even formation. Otherwise, one will go a little faster, the other will lag behind. It’s music that organizes everyone.
Now imagine that the orchestra is playing a waltz. Some of the musicians hurried a little, others slowed down the tempo. And if the musicians do not have a conductor in front of their eyes, then very soon they will stop playing together and “go their separate ways.” The conductor will not allow this. He always makes sure that the musicians keep the right tempo, so as not to drag out the waltz like a funeral procession, or, conversely, not to end it with a frantic gallop.
But this is not the end of the conductor’s responsibilities.
The music played by the orchestra must be performed well, as they say, “with soul.” But every person feels and understands music in their own way. Even the same song various artists they sing in different ways, each with their own “expression”. But when there are many musicians in an orchestra, one person is needed so that, according to his will, everyone plays with the same “expression” dictated by him - a conductor is needed. Only by his sign will it be possible to slow down somewhere, and somewhere, on the contrary, to speed up the tempo so that the music sounds more expressive. And it turns out that the music is, as it were, performed by one conductor on one huge instrument into which dozens of others have merged, performing it in his own way, the way he feels it.
That's why, listening to the same thing piece of music performed by the same orchestra, but controlled by different conductors, we notice something new every time.
Let's take as an example the conductor's first gesture when he gives the beginning of the piece. For one it is a mean, strict gesture with the hand, for the other it is only a barely noticeable movement of two fingers; the third has a wide gesture with both hands. This distinction may seem somewhat mechanical on paper. But look at the hands of the conductors and their faces! Here the language of gestures, the expression of the eyes turn out to be the most accessible, most intelligible and understandable, despite the fact that conductors may belong to different nationalities, speak in different languages. And this language is understandable not only to any performer, any musician. He can say a lot, simply human things, to the listener who is carefully watching the conductor, feeling along with the conductor.
How does the conductor talk to the orchestra? Gestures: movements of the baton (which conductors have been using for about 200 years), movements of the hands, just fingers. And he himself does not stand still: he rhythmically sways, bends, and makes various movements with his head. Even the face and eyes help his work - and here expressions can be varied indefinitely.
The conductor cannot speak, because, firstly, it will distract the musicians and listeners from the music, and secondly, he would often have to simply shout in loud places so that the musicians can hear. Imagine such a picture!
Conductors can be compared to mute people, who are also explained by hand gestures and facial expressions. The conductor is doomed to complete silence, and the more eloquent his gestures and facial expressions become.
“But how,” you ask, “do orchestras play without a conductor?”
The secret here is simple. It turns out that there is a conductor there, too, but we don’t notice him, because he sits and plays some instrument himself, and performs all his conducting duties in advance - at rehearsals. Such orchestras usually perform small pieces of music, and at rehearsals they can be learned so that they can then simply play by heart. And the command to begin is given by one of the orchestra members.
Now you can imagine what the role of the conductor is. This is the role of a person who bears enormous responsibility both to the composer whose work he performs, and to the orchestra, which completely trusts him, and to the listeners, who only through the conductor can get to know the work, love it, or remain indifferent.
Drawing by Yu. Lobachev.
Conducting is the most important part of musical performance, in which its essence is most deeply and broadly manifested. Of all the musical professions, the profession of a conductor is the most difficult and responsible. The conductor is placed in special conditions: his instrument is a whole group of performers. A true artist-musician needs a special calling to his instrument. For a conductor, this is an orchestra or choir. Therefore, he must “feel the performing group as a single multi-colored and multi-sounding instrument, consisting of living, individually thinking, feeling and creating musicians - artists” (A. Pazovsky). To subjugate them and lead them is his task. “The conductor is responsible to the audience not only for himself, but also for the ensemble he leads,” said famous conductor A.P. Ivanov - Radkevich. In addition, the conductor is also responsible to the ensemble itself; his task is to indicate to each member of the ensemble how he should play, so that the overall performance most fully reveals the creative intentions of the composer.”
The conductor's art lies in his creative interpretation of a piece of music; he conveys his artistic intentions to the group of performers with the help of gestures, expressive facial expressions, as well as explanatory words during rehearsals.
Conducting is a kind of translation of music into the language of gestures and facial expressions, translation of a sound image into a visual one in order to control collective performance. The naturalness of the conductor's language, its reliance on general life and specific musical associations make it understandable to both professional musicians, untrained members of orchestral ensembles, and even, to a certain extent, listeners.
The complexity of the conducting profession is determined by its multifunctionality. The conductor creates his own interpretation of a piece of music, selects a specific sound embodiment of this interpretation, accurately distributes the playing time and controls the quality of performance. Comprehending the composer's intention, he conveys his idea of the ideological and artistic content of the work to the performers and gets them to accurately convey their plans to the listening audience. If necessary, he adjusts the sound during the performance. A conductor is both an actor and a performance director, and also a teacher of the performing group. To create conditions for the conscious performance of music, constant and intense mental contact between the conductor and the orchestra and the audience is necessary. And this requires abilities, and most importantly, special personal qualities and virtues. “Your thoughts, your perception of the world should come from you with such a force that would make the orchestra experience the same desires and passions at the same time as you, so that the musicians cannot help but express them in their performance. You must replace their will with yours,” wrote the famous French conductor Charles Munsch.
An important difference The difference between the conductor and the performer-soloist is that the soloist-instrumentalist or singer, while working on a piece, has the opportunity to repeatedly check his interpretation during the preparation process. The conductor is usually very limited in rehearsal time. He must begin rehearsal with the performing group with a ready-made performance plan. The conductor is obliged to hear the musical composition before the rehearsal as clearly as the composer heard the music. An impeccable internal singing of a work should give the conductor a correct idea of the music. Learning to conduct means learning to perfectly hear music with your inner ear and embody your idea. Everything that the composer thought and felt when composing his music, the conductor must rethink, feel and comprehend, and be able to spiritually get used to the work. Therefore, the basis of the conducting profession is the conductor’s ability to cognize and internally hear everything that will be reproduced by the performing group.
The conductor leads the collective performance of a piece of music, while feeling the orchestral group as a single instrument. Therefore, he must know what timbre colors and range each instrument has, what their technical and artistic capabilities are. In addition, the conductor must be able to play these instruments. At rehearsals and concert hall he will have to captivate the orchestra with his plan of performance, his interpretation of the work, to reveal artistic idea composer, call performers for co-creation, establish community in the team.
IN musical culture Each country has an area marked by special uniqueness and originality. This is the art of playing folk instruments - solo, ensemble or orchestral - introducing masterpieces to a wide audience composer's creativity and treasures of musical folklore.
Russian folk orchestra - this concept generalizes all the numerous varieties of collective formations consisting of Russians folk instruments as a form, one of the youngest among other orchestras.
What is an orchestra?
The orchestra is Greek word, literally meaning "place for dancing." In Ancient Greece, this was the name given to the part of the stage closest to the audience, where the choir was located, and later the musicians with instruments accompanying the singing. So, subsequently, the name “orchestra” was assigned to a relatively large group of instrumentalists jointly performing a piece of music, no matter where they were located.
More than a hundred years have passed since the wonderful musician and patriot of Russian instrumental art V.V. Andreev, with a group of enthusiasts like him, performed in a concert. Special historical significance This performance consisted in the fact that for the first time in the history of Russian music, eight balalaika performers appeared before an astonished audience. This small “Circle of Balalaika Lovers” was a gift around which the Great Russian Orchestra was later formed. Therefore, March 20, 1888, the day of the ensemble’s first public performance, can be considered the birthday of the Russian folk orchestra.
Over these hundred-plus years, the orchestra has gone through big way development and the first, most difficult and most responsible steps together with the orchestra made V.V. Andreev.
At its core, an orchestra is a unique phenomenon in the entire history of music. On the one hand, it arose on the national folklore basis as a set of common folk life tools. On the other hand, the instruments themselves were significantly improved by Andreev and his associates. Improvements were carried out in such a way that balalaikas, domras, gusli became as accessible as possible for initial mass development and professional and folk art. A primitive village toy, like the balalaika in everyday life, Andreev, through numerous design improvements, turned into concert instrument and achieved outstanding success with it. No wonder he was called “balalaika Paganini.” But Andreev does not stop there. His dream is to find, improve and give life to all folk instruments. According to Andreev's drawings music master Nalimov made a family of three-string domras. Soon N.A. Rimsky's student - Korsakov, Andreev's work colleague - N. Fomin improved the gusli by adapting a keyboard mechanism to it. Andreev combined all these instruments with balalaikas and created an orchestra that began to be called “Great Russian”. Sometimes, to enrich the timbre palette and give greater character to the sound, Andreev introduced folk music into the orchestra wind instruments: key chains, horns, pity and drums - tambourine, covers.
Until the thirties of our century, the orchestra existed in the same unchanged, “Andreevsky” version, then a gradual expansion of the instrumental composition began. At this time, harmonicas and button accordions appeared in the orchestra, performing at first modest functions of dynamic support. Various folk wind instruments began to be used more boldly, and later wind and percussion instruments symphony orchestra. Current state Russian folk orchestra is determined by the results of the development of orchestral performance. Modern orchestra includes all the best that was created in previous years.
The conductor of an orchestra of Russian folk instruments needs to know the composition of the orchestra in order to be able to instrument pieces for performance in the orchestra. Modern Russians folk orchestras, both professional and amateur, for the most part have the same instrumental composition: domra group, balalaika group, button accordions, keyboards (less often ringed or plucked) gusli, various percussion instruments. In some cases, accordions, orchestral or timbre harmonicas, flute and oboe are also introduced.
This set of tools is the most commonly used. However, in lately timbre enrichment, expansion of the technical and artistic capabilities of folk instruments, woodwind and brass instruments are increasingly being introduced into their composition - zhaleika, keychain, Vladimir horns, pipes, as well as piano, guitar (or electric guitar), bowed double bass and other tools.
This is due to the fact that each leader, depending on the tasks facing the team or on the instrumentation of the score of the piece being learned, is forced to vary the composition, introduce necessary tools, change their ratio in the main groups.
Each of the instruments of the orchestra performs one function better - melodic, bass or accompaniment. But as needed to solve certain artistic problems, instruments can be assigned functions that are unusual for them; for example: small domrams, prima balalaikas - accompaniment, and bass and double bass domrams - conducting the melody, and so on.
Each of the orchestra's instruments has its own distinct timbre, its own technical and artistic capabilities, strengths and weaknesses.
Knowledge of all these performing features will help the conductor to successfully solve many issues that everyday work poses to him.
Standing at the head of a performing group, the conductor must keep all its members in sight, monitor their work,, if necessary, smooth out errors, prevent and prevent distortions. To do this, he must have developed intuition and critical observation. We must learn not only to conduct, but also to focus attention and energy, to properly manage time, stress and effort.
The process of conducting is complex and multifaceted. So, for example, in a situation concert performance mental activity is one of the most multifunctional in human practice. Occurring against the background of active consciousness, it is carried out under conditions of strict temporary irreversibility, creating a constant stressful situation due to the impossibility of correcting errors.
TOPIC 3
PROFESSIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL – PEDAGOGICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CONDUCTOR’S PERSONALITY
The great French composer and concert conductor Hector Berlioz was one of the first to formulate the complex of essential qualities necessary for a conductor: “A conductor must see and hear, must have a quick reaction and be decisive, know the art of composition, the nature and volume of instruments, be able to read the score and, in addition, , have a special talent and other, almost indefinable gifts, without which it will not be possible to establish invisible connection between him and everyone he controls..." ( encyclopedic dictionary, M., 1987).
Conducting is a complex complex various types musical activity, which includes actions occurring sequentially or simultaneously and aimed at different goals. Each of them is performed with more or less effort, caused and motivated by various motives, and accompanied by corresponding emotions. The numerous functions performed by the conductor at the time of directing the performance are interconnected, and sometimes appear in contradictory and even conflicting relationships. No other form of performing art knows such originality.
Conductor is one of the most interesting and complex creative professions. The word “conductor” comes from the French “dirider” and means “... a leader, a person directing the collective performance of a musical work.”
A conductor is not only a leader, organizer, interpreter, but also a teacher.
But a teacher and a conductor have a lot in common: goodwill, tact, the ability to “ignite” people and lead them. “There is no need to prove the indisputable position that the leader musical group is essentially his mentor and teacher. His duty is to educate the team, improve its performing culture, the ability to understand and feel the figurative and emotional content of music,” wrote the famous teacher, conductor, professor of the Leningrad Conservatory Ilya Aleksandrovich Musin.
Every musician involved in conducting must be aware that conducting is not an end in itself, but a means of communication with the group, a method of transmitting information, the language in which the conductor speaks to the group.
A conductor must have a whole range of different abilities. Psychologists call abilities those personality traits that ensure a person’s successful performance of any activity, dividing them into general and special abilities. Abilities are the result of development. They are formed and reach one or another level under the condition of a person’s active involvement in strictly defined activities.
For development musical abilities predisposition to engage in art is necessary - a penchant for artistic thinking, availability creative imagination. It is necessary to have such musical abilities as musicality, musical ear and rhythm, musical memory. Performing abilities are also important - playing an instrument, manual technique. It is necessary to have three basic musical abilities in the structure of musicality: modal sense, the ability to voluntarily use auditory representations reflecting pitch movement and musical-rhythmic sense. These abilities form the core of musicality. Musicality is understood by most researchers as a unique combination of abilities and emotional aspects of a person, manifested in musical activity. The importance of musicality is great not only in aesthetic and moral education, but also in development psychological culture person.
A person who feels the beauty and expressiveness of music, who is capable of perceiving a certain artistic content in the sounds of a work, and if he is a performer, then reproducing this content should be called musical. Musicality presupposes a subtle differentiated perception of music, but the ability to distinguish sounds well does not mean that it is musical perception, and that he who possesses it is musical.
It is known that a conductor must have an extraordinary ear for music. Musical hearing is a complex concept and includes a number of components, the most important of which are pitch, modal (melodic and harmonic), timbre and dynamic hearing. There is also absolute and relative musical ear. The presence of absolute pitch (passive or active) often indicates general musical talent. The better the conductor's hearing, the more complete his mastery of the orchestra. Have perfect pitch useful for a conductor, but not necessary. But he needs to have a good one relative pitch, which makes it possible to distinguish the ratios of sounds in height, taken simultaneously and sequentially. Even an established musician must constantly continue to train his ear.
The most important working tool for a conductor is a highly developed internal ear. Internal hearing refers to the musician’s ability to imagine the sound of both individual tones and chords, and their entirety, in the process of reading the score. Reading a score without an instrument, like reading a book without speaking the words out loud, is a matter of practice, and every conductor must master it to perfection.
The basis of communication, uniting unified system The activity of the conductor and orchestra is the interpenetrating attention of the leader and the team. The conductor must be able to establish and constantly maintain contact with each of the orchestra members and with the entire ensemble as a whole.
The development of musical abilities goes in parallel with the development of auditory attention, but first we will answer the question - what is the essence of attention?
Attention is psychological state person, which characterizes the intensity of his cognitive activity. The world around us constantly influences a person in many of its aspects, but only part of what is happening around ends up in consciousness. This reveals the selective nature of our cognition. At the same time, we try to focus on something important to us, we peer, listen, and pay attention. Attention is a special type of human activity, which is expressed in the concentration of consciousness on solving problems that arise in the process of individual or joint activities. Attention contributes to the successful search for ways to achieve a goal.
Both the conductor and the teacher must have the ability to distribute their attention between many objects, be it an orchestra or a classroom.
Directionality or selectivity of attention is manifested in various forms. Concentration of attention presupposes its organization in such a way that ensures depth, accuracy and clarity of representation in the mind of objects of knowledge. Focus is a necessary condition comprehending and capturing information entering the brain. One of the main properties of attention is the volume, distribution and switching of attention from one object to another. Great value in the activities of the conductor has concentrated attention. You need the ability to interest, set tasks, search and find new things, comparing them with the old.
Attention was paid to the study big time great scientists, musicians, figures of various types of art: K. Stanislavsky, L. Kogan, I. Hoffman, B. Teplov and others.
The orchestra conductor most often uses “controlling attention” (external), which is aimed at solving organizational problems: monitoring and regulating the actions of the orchestra. At the same time, internal contacts cover the intellectual sphere associated with the creative process.
Inner contact is a way to comprehend inner world musician, insight into his creative self. It should be noted that internal contacts have a double direction of hearing: the first - to control the action of the orchestra, and the second - to contact the conductor with his inner sounding orchestra.
According to many outstanding conductors, such as B. Walter, F. Weingartner, the essence of communication between a conductor and musicians lies in the mutual mental charging of each other, the emergence of a special “spiritual current” between people.
Of all the skills a conductor needs for his work, auditory attention should be put in first place. Auditory attention is necessary for every musician-performer. While playing an instrument, the musician listens carefully to his performance, comparing it with the ideas that have formed in his mind.
In the activities of a conductor, both types of auditory attention - performing and pedagogical - are combined in an organic unity. Listening to his polyphonic “instrument”, the conductor solves problems similar to the tasks of every teacher - instrumentalist working with his student - he must achieve the most perfect embodiment of the piece being performed.
Having a developed musical memory is of great importance for the development of a conductor’s performing activity. The problem of musical memory can be considered one of the most complex and current problems musical performance.
The memory game is of relatively recent origin. In the times of W. Mozart, J. Haydn, L. Beethoven, only a few performers considered this necessary. Memory was not considered necessary in those days integral part complex of musical talent. It was recommended to memorize only complex episodes or texts at the places where the pages were turned. However, “playing by notes” introduces its own inconveniences associated with dual attention.
Performance without notes is currently accepted as the norm. Playing from memory provides greater freedom of expression than playing from notes, which not only limits the performer, but also hinders him. However, the inconveniences associated with split attention while performing notes have been replaced by others - the need for stable memorization and textually accurate reproduction.
In music pedagogy, the question has long been raised about ways to memorize music, about the importance of playing by heart as the basis for the creative freedom of the performer. Empirically, many useful techniques were found, valuable practical recommendations, which amounted to the goal of increasing the productivity of memorizing music.
Memorizing music is a component of a complex psychological act, and it cannot be considered outside the individual appearance of the musician, outside the environmental conditions and the nature of his activity. Everyone must determine for himself to what extent he should rely on one or another type of memory.
Memory is usually understood as the remembering, preservation and subsequent reproduction of the circumstances of a person’s life and activity, his past experience.
Musical memory– a synthetic concept, including auditory, motor, logical, visual and other types of memory. Like all abilities, it lends itself to significant development.
It is important for a conductor to develop auditory memory, which serves as the basis for successful work in any field musical art; logical – related to understanding the content of the work, the patterns of development of the composer’s thoughts; motor – related to the conductor’s manual technique; visual memory– in studying and memorizing the score.
Memory development is improved in the process of practical activity. The specialized literature on psychology points to a number of factors that contribute to the speed, accuracy and strength of memorization. In musical activity, we can apply the most important of them - maximum activation of the process of working on the score, including maximum auditory activity. Hearing music better means remembering it better. Auditory memory can be significantly developed through daily ear training followed by studying harmony behind the instrument, which will gradually create the habit of comprehending music in sound images. Focus on memorization, the will to learn by heart contributes to the success of the business.
Features of musical memory are associated with the specifics of musical thinking, which is determined by the intonational essence of musical art. Intonation functions as a model through which information is reproduced in music - artistic image. Musical memory can be defined as a component of the system of musical thinking, in which artistic content is recorded through intonation.
The external form of manifestation of musical memory is a musical work in which the artistic content is recorded. Being the result of the creative activity of a composer or performer, a musical work is a materialized form of human musical memory. Awareness of the content recorded in it is associated with intonation analysis. Carrying out in the listener's perception, it is a tool in the complex process of cognition of the essence of a musical work.
A young conductor must know the work by heart and conduct almost without looking at the score. This requirement is dictated by several reasons. By immersing himself in the score, the conductor is deprived of the opportunity for live and direct communication with the performers. A conductor who does not look at the musicians and does not address anyone is of no interest, since the strength of the conductor’s influence on the performers is significantly reduced or disappears completely.
Conducting by heart has its advantages. When conducting from memory, the conductor relies on sound perspective. His musical thinking covers a more extensive musical space, at the same time it is more concentrated.
Learning by heart contributes to a deeper mastery of the work and a more thorough study of the score.
Musical memory is associated with general memory, habits, and character. It largely depends on attention, determination and other personality traits.
The conductor must have good command of manual technique. The conductor's manual technique takes its name from the Latin word "manos", which means "hand". Manual technique is a certain set of gestures and techniques that allow the conductor to convey all his intentions: the necessary information about tempo, rhythm, meter, character, dynamics; showing main introductions to instruments or their groups; your interpretation of the work. The most important common property conductor's gesture is that the conductor's gesture is bifunctional. He has an amazing ability to anticipate the future and at the same time capture the present.
The conductor uses a system of techniques and gestures that influence the nature of the performers - the orchestra members. They liberate, release their own creative powers. The conductor achieves the desired sound not by a formidable command, not by the power given to him by the position of leader, but by pedagogical tact; never orders, never demands, but convinces, finding the most necessary, most true and accurate words; excites, tugs at the musician’s guts, turning to various kinds of comparisons, striving to be understood as best as possible.
The possibilities for developing and improving manual techniques are endless. But technology will be beneficial if it is possessed by a conductor who knows the score perfectly, thinks deeply, has excellent hearing and knows how to control the sound of the entire orchestra and each individual musician.
Practice confirms that all outstanding conductors at a certain stage professional activity significantly reduce the amplitude of movements: among them are such masters of conducting as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Evgeny Mravinsky, Evgeny Svetlanov, Herbert von Karajan and others. Having accumulated the richest artistic experience they were convinced in practice that the main thing in the art of a conductor lies not in physical actions, but in psychological factors and changes, among which suggestive influences occupy a dominant position.
The emotional and volitional influence of the conductor on the orchestra is the conductor’s ability to inspire the performers. The greatest degree of inspiration is creative inspiration. Various degrees of inspiration, from enthusiasm to genuine excitement, contribute to the flow of any creative activity.
Creating an upbeat mood and inspiration is not an easy task for every conductor, but it becomes more difficult when you need to give the same emotional state among orchestra musicians - people also with different characters and temperaments that could come to everyday work without the proper creative inspiration. The conductor must be able to inspire the performers, induce in them such an elevated, creatively active state, thanks to which their attention and predisposition to a sensitive response to the conductor’s expressive gestures are particularly sharpened.
Inspiration, inspiration and work are inseparable for a conductor.
The process of conducting is complex and multifaceted. In a concert performance setting, mental activity is one of the most multifunctional in human practice. Occurring against the background of active consciousness, it is carried out under conditions of strict temporary irreversibility, creating a constant stressful situation due to the impossibility of correcting mistakes. The amount of information that a conductor has to process per unit of time is enormous. But the most difficult thing is that this psychological activity is carried out in a situation of contradiction between the processes of management and creativity.
The basis of communication, which unites the activities of the conductor and the orchestra into a single system, is the interpenetrating attention of the director and the ensemble. The conductor must be able to establish and constantly maintain psychological contacts with each of the orchestra members and with the entire ensemble as a whole.
A person’s individuality in all its richness is manifested in his intellect, which can be considered in the system of mental abilities of the individual. Each of the abilities plays a specific role in the success of a person’s mastery of specific skills. scientific knowledge. Mental abilities human beings have their own individual differences, characteristic of each personality - these are the depth and flexibility of the mind, stability, superficiality, inertia, awareness, independence, imitation.
Many creative people(scientists, teachers, musicians) at the core of their intellect had intuition, subtle sensitivity, which determined the scale of their thinking and the ability to form unconventional approaches to solving certain problems.
The conductor's activity is creative. Creativity is the objective and subjective creation of something new, and creative activity is a form of intuitively transformative attitude towards the world. Creative work - by its nature, features, specificity - inevitably, in itself, gives rise to painful thoughts, contradictory sensations in everyone who comes into contact with it. Doubts in the creative process are the most common phenomenon.
The profession of a musician - conductor always reveals the moral and ethical makeup of a person, and creative work, especially in her happy moments, internally enlightens a person.
A conductor must have a sense of imagination. Imagination is a magical gift; it gives birth to images and discoveries. Creative imagination is the ability that helps us move from idea to execution. Already in the process of studying the score, the conductor faces performance problems, problems of artistic interpretation, which means that it is no longer possible to do without artistic imagination, without fantasy. IN creative process fantasy, artistic imagination - that's all. Needs to be developed and trained creative imagination, intuition.
It all starts with talent. Talent is the ability to work (there is no genius without work), it is an amazing insight into the essence of a work. Talent needs careful attitude. Genuine talent as a conductor is an absolute rarity. This talent presupposes the ability to embrace a musical phenomenon in its comprehensive meaning - historical, social, folk and national. And this is not given to many.
Of all the performing professions, the profession of a conductor is the most difficult and responsible. The conductor is an intermediary between the composer and the audience, and this is a great responsibility. Professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory K.A. Olkhov said: “The complexity of the conducting profession is determined by the multifunctionality of the role of the conductor, who is a thinker who creates an interpretation of the work, an engineer who plans a specific sound embodiment of this interpretation, a kind of dispatcher who accurately distributes time and sound quality, a controller, quality side of execution. The conductor acts as a “master” who, if necessary, “corrects” the details. The conductor combines the functions of an actor and a director, conceiving and staging “ musical performance"and at the same time playing the main role in it."
