Conducting

As so many members, more than emailed, desire to conduct, we will have to hold auditions so that we can work with a more manageable sized group. Watch this space. In the meantime however, here is a start list of reference books. Whether you conduct or not, some are essential books to own.

Either order at the leading book stores, both MPH and Kinokuniya have good suppliers, or online via Amazon of course.

• Available at MPH is ‘The Cambridge Companion to Conducting’ priced RM125.90. This is a collection of 21 essays from 21 different conductors currently alive (!) covering; practice, history, issues and is a good book with which to start. ISBN: 0-521-52791-0.
• ‘The Composer’s Advocate – A Radical Orthodoxy for Musicians’ by Erich Leinsdorf, published by Yale University Press. ISBN: 0-300-02887-3.
• ‘The Compleat Conductor’ by Gunther Schuller. The first 107 pages make for essential reading on the art of conducting followed by 500 pages studying classical repertoire. ISBN: 0-19-512661-0.
• ‘The Conductor’s Art’ by Carl Bamberger. A collection of essays from conductors who are long since dead, but again, essential reference. ISBN: 0-231-07128-0.
• For an alternative look at the business side of the art, the ‘The Maestro Myth’ by Norman Lebrecht is a must.

Dover print Wagner’s treatise on conducting and most of the ‘greats’ have published something at some time or another.

What you must remember is to take it all with a pinch of salt because until you get up there yourself and ‘feel’ how to ‘play’ an orchestra, will you really know!!.