As has been frequently observed conductors are the strangest of classical musicians, they make no sound and yet are frequently the most revered and highly paid person on the stage. Few positions attract so much adulation, and few are so venerable to the charlatans. In this book Norman Lebrecht charts the rise, and in his belief fall, of the conductor. Unfortunately, Mr Lebrecht mars his story by rarely putting his prejudices to one side. He parades before us the conductor as megalomaniac, as charlatan, as weakling, as villain; rarely as whole human being. Lebrecht appears to be both drawn to and repulsed by the figure of the conductor. If he can ascribe a base motive to something, he will. For example, Stokowski laced his programs with modern pieces, a laudable idea surely, but at the end of a paragraph almost praising Stokowski Lebrecht adds the little sting 'His eye was ever on the press box.' There is much too much of this sort of thing, if an act appears praise worthy then Lebrecht adds a little rider, which frequently has no relevance but serves to tarnish the conductor. And if in defence of a conductor one might point to the mass of critical praise they have garnered, well the critics are wrong, too in awe of the conductor, or even effectively bought out. In describing the critical praise that von Karajan's recording of Mahler's ninth symphony received Mr Lebrecht reports 'Those whose devotion to Mahler transcended their thanksgiving for Karajan's survival emerged deeply perplexed', so there you have it. As well as being rather snide the author reveals himself as being something of a snob, Riccardo Chailly is described as 'the kind of cosmopolitan near-intellectual that educated Hollanders aspire to become.' Sad to report that an intellect as great as Mr Lebrecht's is unable to unable to ensure that the 17 chapters are self-consistent, and I was left with the feeling that the book had been cobbled together from material written for other occasions.
Pocket Books, 393 pages
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