The Works For Which I Openly Confess My Admiration And
Predilection Are For The Most Part Amongst Those Which Conductors
More or less renowned (especially the so-called "tuchtigen
Capellmeister" [ Qualified conductors.]) have honored but little,
or not at all,
With their personal sympathies, so much so that it
has rarely happened that they have performed them. These works,
reckoning from those which are commonly described nowadays as
belonging to Beethoven's last style (and which were, not long
ago, with lack of reverence, explained by Beethoven's deafness
and mental derangement!) - these works, to my thinking, exact from
executants and orchestras a progress which is being accomplished
at this moment - but which is far from being realized in all
places - in accentuation, in rhythm, in the manner of phrasing and
declaiming certain passages, and, of distributing light and
shade - in a word, progress in the style of the execution itself.
They establish, between the musicians of the desks and the
musician chief who directs them, a link of a nature other than
that which is cemented by an imperturbable beating of the time.
In many cases even the rough, literal maintenance of the time and
of each continuous bar |1,2,3,4,|1,2,3,4,| clashes with the sense
and expression. There, as elsewhere, the letter killeth the
spirit, a thing to which I will never subscribe, however specious
in their hypocritical impartiality may be the attacks to which I
am exposed.
For the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, etc., I see less
than elsewhere what advantage there could be (which by-the-bye I
shall contest pretty knowingly elsewhere) in a conductor trying
to go through his work like a sort of windmill, and to get into a
great perspiration in order to give warmth to the others.
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