Author: Harold C. Schonberg

Publisher: New York : Simon and Schuster

Published: 1967

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13:

"'He is of commanding presence, infinite dignity, fabulous memory, vast experience, high temperament and serene wisdom. He has been tempered in the crucible but he is still molten and he glows with a fierce inner light. He is many things: musician, administrator, executive, minister, psychologist, technician, philosopher and dispenser of wrath. Like many great men, he has come from humble stock; and, like many great men in the public eye, he is instinctively an actor. As such, he is an egoist. He has to be. Without infinite belief in himself and his capabilities, he is as nothing. Above all, he is a leader of men. His subjects look to him for guidance. He is at once a father image, the great provider, the fount of inspiration, the Teacher who knows all ... . He has but to stretch out his hand and he is obeyed. He tolerates no opposition. His will, his word, his very glance, are law.' With this pyrotechnical description of the genus, Harold Schonberg begins his historical survey of the Great Conductors and their art. For the great conductor--from the time-beater of the thirteenth century to the maestro of today--is always the inspired leader who can impose his authority on the musicians who make up his orchestra. Thus it was with Bach, whom Schonberg pictures leading his forces seated at the clavier or with violin at his shoulder, and singing any part that was being wrongly performed. Thus it was with Handel, who threatened to throw a prima donna out of the window if she would not sing the notes as written. Thus it was even with Beethoven, because of his deafness a tragically bad conductor, who nevertheless tried to impose his will on the performers by practically creeping under the desk for pianissimo and jumping high with outstretched arms for the opposite. Before us through the pages of this book march the great conductors of the past and of the present. Schonberg evokes Lully, who beat time on the floor with a cane--so powerfully that he drove it into his foot on one occasion and died of the resulting gangrene. We meet Berlioz, 'in constant motion on the podium, exuding electricity ... who held absolute sway over his troops and played on them as a pianist upon the keyboard,' and Mendelssohn, the gentle, well-mannered aristocrat who ripped up scores and screamed at musicians who showed up drunk and fractious. And so through all the important composer-conductors--Wagner, Liszt, Mahler, Strauss. Then the moderns: the elemental Arturo Toscanini, the loving Bruno Walter, the witty and acrimonious Thomas Beecham--on and on to the youngest to earn a chapter to himself, the phenomenal Leonard Bernstein. With biography, anecdote, vivid description, and more than a hundred well-chosen prints and photographs, Mr. Schonberg gives a striking picture of each of these men, and dozens of others, showing just how and why they influenced the performance of classical music and how they developed a new and modern art--the art of conducting."--Dust jacket.