LGM Classical – Conducting

I haven’t seen the film “Tár” and might not. I would much prefer to watch it in a theater, but I am not willing to breathe virus soup for a couple of hours. And now that I’ve watched a couple of trailers, I think it may be too intense for me.

I also have concerns about its plot. Lydia Tár is the first woman conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic who, because of her sexual exploits, is taken down very publicly as she wrecks her own life and the lives of those around her. The conductor must be a woman for this plot to work, and she must be a lesbian.

A great many male conductors and other powerful men have prospered with exploitative sex lives, although as mores change, some are beginning to pay. A movie about them would be of little interest. But we are not yet ready for a powerful woman to sexually exploit men; men retain too much power of their own. So this movie can only be about a woman exploiting women. Nonetheless, it looks like an investigation into how power and exploitation work, coupled with the sensuality of music.

Tár is working on Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the orchestra. It’s not my favorite Mahler symphony, but I can see how it could be difficult to conduct. Here’s Claudio Abbado, whose Mahler interpretations I like.

Nicholas Spice, in The London Review of Books, reviews “Tár” along with Richard Wagner’s essays on conducting and a more modern book on conducting by Alice Farnham. He mostly reviews the books and the history of conducting. Most people won’t be watching the film for the issues around conducting. Spice is an expert on music and the “consulting publisher” of the LRB. It’s an outstanding essay that captures aspects of music that are difficult to express in words.

I’ve played flute and bassoon in bands, orchestras, and small ensembles. I’m now working on piano but haven’t played it in ensemble. Anyone who has played an instrument with others must, of course, know what a conductor does. In small ensembles, one member sets the time, when to start and stop, and such with head or hand gestures. Larger groups, like bands and orchestras, require a conductor. In my high school band classes, we had to conduct one small piece. It’s not easy.

Piano gives some idea of what is required of a conductor, as one learns to manage three or four melodic lines. Here’s a simple piece that contains three melodic lines, Edvard Grieg’s Arietta.

There are sustaining notes at the bottom, a series of arpeggios in between, and the melody on top. A Bach fugue has three parts that enter one after the other and then go on to do different things. Here’s Angela Hewitt playing the A minor prelude and fugue from the second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier. The fugue begins at 4:32. The prelude has three parts too. Sorry about the blocking.

Here’s András Schiff playing the same prelude and fugue. Fugue begins at 5:18. Big difference in interpretation.

A conductor is dealing with many instrumental parts, bringing them together. And there are many ways to play each part, many ways to bring them together, many interpretations. Bach allows more leeway than later composers, who provide more annotations as to how a piece is to be played.

Spice gives some history of conducting, tracing it back to Beethoven. It’s been defined as a male preserve until very recently. Only in the past few years have women achieved prominent positions, although not yet the Berlin Philharmonic. One of the things I would want to see in “Tár” is whether her breakdown is treated as an indication that women can’t handle men’s work, including the dark side, or as something peculiar to this individual, or as an indication that power imbalances typical of the showiest forms of conducting cannot continue.

I am also curious as to how the music is integrated into the plot. From the trailers, I suspect that Tár’s breakdown is treated as an individual thing, and that music plays a relatively small role.

Have you seen the film? What do you think? I’m okay with “spoilers.” A good film is more than that.