phew, that was close

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Yes, folks, very close – if I hadn’t checked ever so quickly, then nearly the entire month of July would’ve gone by without my writing anything new. “Shame”, “Boo”, “Hiss” I hear you say. Or, perhaps we’d all have been far happier allowing this little blog to dwindle to a tiny speck, and finally vanish from the over-polluted musico-blogosphere…

Either way, here I am again, just crawling under the wire. Frantically typing in order to catch the copy-deadline. And what’s prompted this renewed frenzy of posting? (Hardly a frenzy, now, is it? – Ed.) Well, for a start I’ve just acquired a brand new iMac and can actually see what I’m typing – and, oh my, the joys are seemingly endless. One of the many, giddying glories is being able to watch YouTube in High Definition. On a huge great screen. So (and pardon me for what I’m about to do), if I were to watch some YouTube footage of, say, I dunno, Peter Maxwell Davies, then I’d be watching Max on the iMac as if I were at the IMAX.

I may delete that. If you’re still able to read it, clearly all self-control has abandoned me.

Now, after two televised proms in a row – Jurowski on Fri with the LPO, Nelsons last night with the CBSO, both of them passionate, committed performances, and brilliantly conducted – I went on a bit of a YouTube wander. I came across all sorts of wonders I’ve never seen before, which I won’t bore you with here (maybe in a later blog post), and many of them in gargantuan 1080p (that’s nice, crisp HD for those who don’t speak geek).

Inspired by this late-night festival of online video viewing, this morning I tried looking at my own videos, which I’ve slowly been amassing behind closed YouTube doors, in a similar IMAX-like style. I thought all of those imperfections – you know, swoopy upbeats, glinting cufflinks, dodgy wind tuning, facial grimacing – would be magnified beyond tolerance, and I’d be left with no choice but to shut down my account and my career. But in fact, and this is in no way intended to be self-congratulatory, they seemed better than on my old laptop. They actually looked, well, kind of OK. So I took a huge risk, overcame the inertia of more than a decade, and have finally published some videos of myself online. You can view them here on my swanky, shiny, new YouTube channel

It’s been a long time coming. I’m astonishingly perfectionist and self-critical. I’ve looked at so many videos and hated them – I mean of me, not others! It takes me ages, not to mention being strapped to the sofa and having a gun to my head, to ever watch some footage of my conducting. I h a t e doing it, with a passion. But now, particularly after a fine week of studying last week with the wonderful Sian Edwards, I know more than ever that this is exactly what I have to do. For two reasons – firstly to churn out some additional stuff for the hungry YouTube beast, and secondly so as I can grow and develop. Sort out all those stupid things I do. We all have bad habits, as conductors, and some of mine have recently been writ large in front of my eyes (boy oh BOY that was an eye-opening time with Sian!)

But hang on. It’s all very well slapping things up on YouTube, but of course it’s always the good stuff, never the out-takes. You know the bits I mean. Like those lunges at the brass section whilst gurning (a good look, that). Or swishes from side-to-side, basses to fiddles, imagining some evocative legato but in fact destroying all semblance of pulse. And OHHH those impetuous pre-performance utterances which make ones’ buttocks clench (“why oh why didn’t I actually plan what to say?”, “spontaneity? hugely over-rated”).

Yes, any YouTube content has got to be a sequence of highlights (unless you’ve got a career-deathwish). But it’s all the other stuff that I now need to pore over. The out-takes, the stuff on the cutting-room floor, full of hideous habits, embarrassing mannerisms and ambiguous upbeats. I must attend to the simple things. Watch my videos, whether I like what I see, or not. Holding a gun to my head, if necessary. As the master-teacher Jorma Panula once said to a crowd of us years ago, “the video-camera is the best teacher there is”. And the agonising truth is that, if it looks strange on the video, it’s going to look strange in real life – to the orchestra, to the audience. Painful, but true.

Anyway, that’s enough for July. Please do have a look at those videos, if you get the chance. I think I’ve cut-out all the gurning, for now.

no man’s land

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I’m about to disappear on tour, very soon – this time to Bologna, in Italy. Later in August, there’s another tour, to the Czech Republic. And over the past few weeks I’ve been enjoying the final gigs of what’s proved to be a long, intense, but of course great and fulfilling season. What a year!

Highlights? Ok. Yes, highlights  – there must have been some of those, right? Well, go on then. Mahler (there’s the little dude, on the right) – lots of Mahler, of course – including a tenth and seventh this year, and more to come (right next to his birthplace, next month, plug plug); A Rite of Spring that I truly enjoyed (I’m sorry, everyone, but I tend to leave Le Sacre, masterpiece as it is, to those conductors who do it really well – and there are plenty out there); and another pair of children’s concerts with the brilliant James Mayhew, in autumn last year, featuring Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty – neither of which I’ve conducted before.

2011 opened with Eroica - always, always, an important one; I embraced (ok, assaulted) Shostakovich’s towering, powerful “Leningrad” – twice; and I mustn’t forget two more masterworks, both of which I conducted for the first time, and will certainly visit again: Martinu’s Frescoes and Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin. Then, as the season drew to a close last month, there was the Emperor with John Lill, followed by the 4th with Charles Owen. What a joy and pleasure it was (always is!) to work with such musicians.

And on top of all this, my latest CD is teetering on the brink of release. It’s the one I’m most proud of, by quite a long chalk – watch this space… My website launched – finally, after so much faffing from me. And I began writing this blog (who knows why) and people like you were daft enough to read it. Thank you!

Right. That’s quite enough trumpets and blowing.

So, yes. What else?? Well, I’m actually going away to s t u d y. Going to spend some time being reminded how to hold a stick, and flap in a helpful fashion. It always amazes me how many conductors continue to study once they’re well into an established career. I mean, amazes me in a good way. There are quite a few that spring to mind – you know who you are…! I guess this happens in other walks of working life, too, but I don’t notice as much. I mean, do plumbers go off for plumbing masterclasses in August? Is there a baking equivalent of Tanglewood, for those wishing to improve their breadmaking in an intense, all-consuming nine-week environment? If I searched hard enough, would I find a tractor-driving summer-school, perhaps off the top of Scotland, where I could hone my ploughing under nurturing, non-competitive, restorative conditions? While I’m here, it also amazes me (but not in such a rapturous fashion) how many conductors don’t do this, but that’s another blog post, coming soon, entitled “never discuss other conductors on the internet”.

I’m pretty excited: this may well be my most intense summer of study, certainly for a while. Apart from the Proms, a little travelling, mowing the lawn so I can find the cats again, and those tours – I’m knuckling down to some work. Mainly because conducting is one of those skills which one develops in a really odd fashion. Away from the instrument, of course. And, even with a good teacher, and an understanding orchestra, one learns only by experience - on one’s feet. Bad habits are agonisingly easy to develop. Just like the grass growing outside my front window, I may catch a glimpse of something and suddenly recoil – thinking “how on earth did it get like that?!”

So, during my no man’s land of time this summer, on my traffic-island of calm between tours, I’m stepping through the doorways marked “practise”, “study” & “tai chi”. And probably “Ikea”, “B&Q” & ”Kohinoor” too, but they’re unlikely to have such a tangible effect on my conducting.

For anyone who’s been involved in music-making with me this season – I humbly thank you. And I also crave your forgiveness for various excesses, plus hope the osteopath’s bill isn’t too high. I’ll be sending various tweets, blog-posts and instagram photos from the road this summer (maybe the garden too), but in the meantime, have a wonderful summer, everyone!

this is a waltz (honest)

So, my dear friend and collaborator James Mayhew has been doodling again. This time from the back of the hall, as we rehearsed on Thursday last week. (For more on this – at least from James’s perspective – switch blog channels and read all about his Dancing Paintbrush)

I was on stage, rehearsing. Sorting things out for the de Havilland Phil concert this weekend (see flier below, featuring a very well-known pianist). There must’ve been an awful lot of waltzing in there somewhere, because there’s a lot of waltzing in the programme. So I imagine there’s a lot of waltzing in this picture, too. Stands to reason. Ok, so there might be a bit of La Mer in there too, which could just imbue his artwork with a certain aquatic quality, but I like to think that he’s captured a waltz here, in all it’s glory. Good on you James, and thank you – this is a truly beautiful painting!

Vienna comes to Hatfield

So, it’s a waltz. Perhaps. Or so I like to think.

Now – the lovely problem is that, of course, capturing a waltz in such a perfect, frozen-in-silver(-rose) kind of way such as this makes it seem so elegant, so light and so simple. Which is the way waltzes are. Or should be. Conducting them like that, hard as it is (ok: it’s near impossible) is what I strive for.

But like I say, it’s hard! Breathtakingly subtle. In gently trying to inflect them, to turn their myriad corners and bring their inevitable rubato to life, one can trample all over their tender shoots, or snap them completely. Yet, do nothing, and the music dies - as if killed by the dullest of routiniers. Uninspiring, unimaginative. Boring waltz-killers. There are plenty about!

And of course, as a conductor, one has to make the most musical music within a waltz-beat. In other words, in one. Make the music flow, the lines sing, the contours melt and dance – all within just one beat. One fluid motion, containing all. Can’t do too much, shouldn’t do too little. And you’re always on a knife-edge between the two. Yet it shouldn’t ever appear like that, or else, again, you’ll kill the whole thing. Waltzes + fear don’t mix well! I firmly believe they should be compulsory in every kind of conducting competition – not the Danse Sacrale, or some piece written yesterday, but waltzes. Plenty of them. There are, after all, plenty of them…

Well, I’m going back to nursing my inner waltz, in preparation for the concert tomorrow. I’ll leave you with one of the few true masters (no, I don’t mean Strauss). Please don’t miss the point and think “it’s nothing to do with him” and “the orchestra do that anyway”! There is truth in that, but it’s far from the whole story. And if, after watching all of this, you still feel that way, then I suggest a diet of Zen koans (because they sum up the endless secret of good waltzing). Or maybe some polkas.

Oooh, and before I go, here’s that flier. I’ll tell you how the waltzes (not to mention the great Emperor with John Lill) go in my next post. There may even be a photo from my dressing room

where did all that time go?

Boy oh boy. I knew it’d been a while, but I didn’t quite realise it was over two months since I last wrote on here. Stratospherically poor on my part – I can only apologise to the hoardes of my followers: I’ve let you down, both of you.

I do have the vaguest of excuses. Most of my at-desk-computer-time has been spent tweaking things for my recently-launched website (you must’ve seen it, right?) So, there’s been less time for all that conductor-related navel-gazing I enjoyed in the spring. But it’s all change now, I promise. A new regime, with plenty more posts in the pipeline.

In fact some (yet-to-be-written) blog posts have been bubbling-under for some time now, like a good stew. I’ve even come up with some potential titles. Some forthcoming posts could be entitled:

• Waltzes – why they’re so fracking hard – or is it just me?
• Batons, bullshit and bewildering befuddlement – ruminations on why conductors need to get away from obsessions with the stick – or is that just me?
• Figure 70 in Le Sacre – why does MTT do it in 2, when every orchestra I’ve done that with haemorrhages a-rhythmically all over the place?* [this is a working title - I'll get hootsuite to shorten it automatically]
• Le Sacre in general – why does Gergiev do it with a cocktail stick, when every orchestra I’ve done that with (…you get the picture)
• The desperate perils of applying for an American Visa – or How I learned to stop worrying and love shelling-out £1.23 a minute to arrange an interview
• Pencils. And their pivotal role in how much one smiles during score-marking

*Ok, maybe not – but they do moan, for sure. Except the percussion, who for once are happy. And then, it is written in 6/4. Someone please pass me a shovel.

I may even upload some photos of some dressing rooms – that is, after all, what this blog is about. A bit.

And perhaps a photo of a cat, they always seem to work…

part cat, part ninja. All naughty

Yup. See? Got you hooked right back in now with the Schmoo-picture.

So, I promise plenty more in the coming days. Watch this space! And of course I’ll give you all a nod about new posts on my facebook fan page. It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do…

sun & studying

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Spring has sprung. At least in my little garden it has. The second day in a row when it’s warm enough to sit out there. Of course we conductors live a little bit of a charmed life, don’t we? Apart from all the travelling and agonising decisions about bow-tie-tying, we get to spend every working day in the company of genius. And, no, I don’t mean our managers. I mean Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart – whoever we’re spending the day with. Of course we’re lucky. And sometimes we get to study that genius in the sun. Hard life (note to self: must remember not to moan any longer, ever)

I’ve two Dvorak symphonies to resurrect – ones which I’ve done before (one of them often) but not lately: No 6, which isn’t played so often anyway (http://ow.ly/1secyc), and the famous New World symphony, which is. And I’ve a premiere of a four-movement 45 minute work by Elfyn Jones coming up too, alongside the Dvorak 9 (http://ow.ly/1seczN)

Before I head back to Mr Jones, I was ruminating earlier upon this, whilst staring idly at my roses rather than analytically at my score…

TIPS FOR SCORE-STUDYING IN A SUNNY GARDEN

• Mobile phone: off (ok, silent. One step at a time)
• Sun: on
• Score: open, not already over-marked
• Mind: open, not prone to repeat the assumptions of the past
• Pencils: good ones – I love those Japanese ones, they’re black – “tombow” I think they’re called. Every mark you make looks slicker, somehow (see “pencils I have used” blog for further info*)
• Metronome: see mobile phone (and. don’t. get. distracted. by. twitter)
• Car-alarms: infrequent (not around here, then. Alas)
• Coffee: not too much, or the imagination runs too fast (see metronome). Unless you’re preparing Symphonie Fantastique, when it’s fine – imbibe often for full-on Berlioz-madness effect
• Cats: quietly basking, not inanely asking (for food/attention/another toy because the other one’s now behind the compost heap)

(*must try to get out more)

Feel free to add some more via the comments.

NB: just for fun. No prizes awarded. Serious score-study suggestions can be found in multiple textbooks. And have no place here.

Right, back to the sun…

great teachers, inspiring people

An odd coincidence, which I wanted to share.

Later today I’m heading to London for further rehearsals on a programme including Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini and Debussy’s incredible Nocturnes (concert is listed here under the “events” tab for April 2nd http://www.facebook.com/RobinBrowningConductor). Before this I’m heading to Chiswick for another session with an amazing Alexander teacher called Glenna Batson. Glenna is from the US, but is in town again. She’s a remarkably perceptive woman – somehow able to delve to the heart of an issue. She’s inspiring, and an all-round life-changer. You can find more info about her on her website http://www.glennabatson.com/

And – here’s the other part of the coincidence – I just found, earlier today, a website for an old teacher of mine, Joseph Gifford. I’ve not seen Joe since he last taught me, in Vermont, about five years ago. But I never forget him! Nor his infectious, profound, and often moving way of shifting the patterns within our bodies. And our brains. Changing the way we think, or not think. The way we control, or not control.

Joe was a dancer, too. And, like Glenna, knows about Alexander Technique. He uses it – and Yoga, Feldenkrais, improvisation, and humour – in all his teaching. After sessions with Joe, as a conductor, I’m more centered, freer. Liberated to let the music show itself, rather than constantly getting in it’s way like I usually do http://www.josephgifford.com/

I mentioned elsewhere that I’ve a blog-post (not yet posted) about Kleiber & Musin. It’s brewing somewhere, I must dust it off and publish it – and be damned! But today’s little coincidence, of these two fabulously inspiring teachers crossing my path on the same day, reminds me that not all great lessons in life, certainly not in conducting-life, are learned where one expects them. Eg from one’s “professor”, or whilst on the podium. These two, Joe and Glenna, are dancers, movement specialists, Alexander-aware people. People who float into a room, and out again – touching one’s soul but not the floor. They aren’t conductors. But there’s still so much for musicians such as me to learn from them. And from people like them. Inspiring people.

Of course, there’s plenty to learn from cats, too – that’ll be in my next blog-post. Maybe. Not Musin at all, but about my little black cat and what she teaches me about Bruckner

rosin: the new catnip

Can. resist. no. l o n g e r . . .

This blog needs a shameless cat photo. And here is one. Schmoo never exhibits any shame, so he’s a shameless cat. Behaving, here, pretty darn shamelessly.

Quick query to any cat-lovers reading (or those knowledgeable about felines – not necessarily the same thing): WHY does little Schmoo love climbing into open fiddle-cases? Any of them, no matter who they belong to. He’s lethal. Doesn’t matter if they’re empty (fine – it kind of curves around him) or not (see below, he couldn’t care less) – he just loves them.

Schmoo loves his cosmic catnip banana (TM, available from a small pet shop in Woodbridge, Suffolk. And Amazon, apparently) but nothing makes his paws curl like a violin case.

Ummm…?

dreadful (but contains a lovely painting)

It’s dreadful, and I’m sorry. It’s been ages since my last post on here. I’ve no excuses, except being busy with gigs, travelling and studying. But here I am again, with a quick update.

I’ve written a blog post which I’ll post very soon about Kleiber and Musin – I just want to be happy with it first. They’re both huge names, and I hate the idea of writing controversial cr#p – which people read – and it not being the way I like it.

Also, I’ve some photos coming of recent gigs, soloists, dressing rooms (oh I’m sure you can’t wait for those!) and maybe a little cat. Or two.

In the meantime, there’s this… After my concert last night with de Havilland Philharmonic http://ow.ly/4iz5B, friend and regular collaborator James Mayhew visited my dressing room. He’s an author and illustrator, and came to one of my Berlioz rehearsals to make some sketches. James presented me with this beautiful painting (below). If you look carefully, you’ll see there are many references to all kinds of musical works – Peter and the Wolf, Firebird, Danse Macabre, Baba Yaga, and more – they’re all there. (Plus some odd-looking guy with a stick, near the middle.) These have been pivotal pieces in our work together, as part of our hugely successful family concerts at the Weston Auditorium, Hertfordshire: http://www.writeaway.org.uk/content/stories-ballet-childrens-classical-concert

So, yes, James popped in and gave me this great picture. It’s a lot better than a photo of my cats, taken on a shaky iphone, I’m sure you’ll agree (although that’ll probably be my next post)

Bless you James. And here’s to many future concerts together – showing the youngsters of this world how amazing live music can be!

getting scared late at night

I know the novelty may soon wear off, but I really must get out of this late-night blogging habit. It’s addictive, for one thing. And I need my sleep, as I’m now back rehearsing every day, and (should be) studying every day. But also because I’m liable to talk b+ll+cks and dribble on about nonsense. Like now.

But hear me out.

We all get scared, not only at night. And we all get scared doing our jobs. Especially if we’re firemen, say, maybe a spy, or someone who works* with John Galliano. [*edit: "worked"]

And conductors get scared too – screaming brass players, or screamingly empty diaries. Maybe a wayward soloist, with a death wish, hell-bent on finishing first. And certain pieces terrify us. Ok, me – they terrify me. Eroica is one of them. But that’s a whole blog on its own.

Debussy scares me. There, I’ve said it. Let me try to explain why. Or, rather, I’ll ask you why – because I really don’t know. And this is where I’m curious to get some feedback here, some comments below (go on, you can click the links, or the tabs or the thingamabobs, it’s dead easy.)

Today I spent a long while working on his Nocturnes, both at my desk and with one of my orchestras (http://wimso.org/wso_concerts.html). I still feel a bit scared. Unsettled. So let’s cascade. Why does Robin find Debussy scary?

1. His music is amazingly good, achingly well-crafted, beautiful, poignant, not one note or even a slightly-perfumed-gesture in the wrong place…

2. His music is very tricky to play well, or to prepare well enough – there are difficulties of balance, texture, tuning, colour, nuance. Plus some of the most subtle, sophisticatedly supple, rhythmical details in music. And heaven help you if you even slightly misjudge the interplay of tempi. Check out one of the truly greatest Debussy conductors – Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht – if you’re interested in hearing the music flow like it should…

3. His harmonic language is unsettled, or unsettling. Deliberately so in places. Many places.

Nope. That’s not it. None of these things.

Don’t get me wrong – I love it, and admire it hugely. It’s in 3D. Surround-sound music: even looking at the flat pages of a score, you see it in colours, with the details in relief.  When you’re lucky enough to conduct it, it’s like swimming around within liquid chords, like standing in a billowing wind-tunnel of whole-tones.

But it still scares me. Not like war, or bald tyres on wet road kind of scary. Nor weak lager, bland curry or American sitcoms kind of scary. But like clowns, chill-up-the-neck kind of scary. Is it just me? Probably. I wonder what it is. No other music has that effect. Fêtes – 2nd movement from the Nocturnes – scares the ____ out of me, for example. (It probably has that effect on the wind players, but for slightly different reasons.)

Ok, enough of me on the analyst’s couch. Sorry for hijacking the blog for some counselling. I’m genuinely curious. And I’ll stop now, before I start hallucinating. Now that would be scary

PS Did I mention Inghelbrecht? http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=68795

the joys of twitter

I was planning a little review of Haitink’s Alpine Symphony (at the RCM) from the other night. But I was ill, and couldn’t make it. I realise that many proper reviewers (far more proper than I) haven’t let such trivia as not actually being there stand in the way of a review over the years, but I really think that I ought to at least be there myself before writing something. Particularly for my very first post masquerading as a concert review. In truth, I might say one or two bits about Haitink and his, well, overwhelming Haitinkness, in due course. All in good time.

So, I wasn’t going to write anything at all. Spare you all the nonsense and non-entities of nothing-really-to-say. And just then, a teeny pairing of tweets flitted across my screen. As they’re perfect in their succinctness, I’ll leave them to speak for themselves. (Bear in mind I’ve cut and pasted, but you shouldn’t need to be fluent in your @#tags and whatnot to translate).

Posted by Tom Service – Dan Harding with me on tomorrow’s @MusicMattersR3: the secret to great conducting. Revealed! At last.

Reply from Evan Tucker – @tomservice @djharding @MusicMattersR3 secret to great conducting is simple: don’t fuck up what other people are doing.