Wooden affairs

The concern here being the musical Henry Wood of the Promenade Concerts, whose musical career more or less coincided with that of the Queen's Hall in Langham Place, the hall where the promenade concerts were invented. In some ways, the successors of the earlier concerts at the Crystal Palace, some of which were conducted by Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan. The business of bringing good music to a wider public.

A chap who was brought up in a middling sort of family, living in Oxford Street, with a father perhaps best known for his skill at building model engines. But also musical. I don't know how many family homes are to be found there now.

Not to be confused with the very roughly contemporary British painter (reference 5) of the same name or the Alaskan watercolour painter of nearly the same name, the source of the walrus above.

With the particular concern being the short book ostensibly directed at wannabee conductors, described at reference 1. A short, easy going book of about 120 small pages. Easily read in a couple of days. A book which was published shortly after the author's death in 1944, this perhaps accounting for the sometimes sloppy editing. The Wood of this book was a great name dropper, no doubt also a great showman, with Wikipedia suggesting that the name dropping sometimes went a bit further than the vérité warranted.

The overriding impression was that it is hard to become a conductor and hard to be a conductor. The first because of the range of knowledge and skills needed, the second because of the hard work involved, bringing orchestras and choirs up to the mark, day after day, place after place. Wood was lucky in that he seemed to know his vocation from an early age and he had parents who would afford to support him, to get him to singers musicians, conductors and concerts, while he learned.

He started out with small opera companies, such as existed in large numbers at the end of the nineteenth century, which perhaps accounts for his preference for a low concert pitch, better suited to the human voice than the high concert pitch which better advertised other instruments. For all of which see reference 4. From where I associate to the long running controversies about musical temperament. A topic which I worry away at, with plenty of evidence of same in these pages. Possibly because it is another example of mathematical purity colliding with the real world. Possibly starting at reference 6.

But he must have had enormous talent and enormous energy to fight his way to the top of this difficult trade. Maybe he was lucky in his time; the glory days of big orchestras, when there were not so many entertainments competing for our time. When famous musicians could trace their lines back to famous composers. A few other snippets follow.

Wood points up all the management stuff that has to be done to keep an orchestra afloat. The need to raise enough money to pay for it. To have a proper music library and a librarian with neat handwriting. To find enough time and space for rehearsals. To keep all those tricky musicians up to the mark, all too likely to get up to all kinds of stuff - perhaps smoking, sleeping or flirting - behind their stands - particularly when they have a long wait for their next turn.

Wood is very keen on rubato. What the composer writes down is only his best approximation to what he wants, and this is not likely to include all the subtle rubato needed to bring that out. Rubato which works within the rhythm of the music.

He is also very keen on rehearsals. You do not get good music from 100 musicians who turn up on the day and crank out what is in the music in front of them. To get good music, even from famous or familiar pieces, you have to work up to it in rehearsal. The musicians need to spend a lot of time together making music - a requirement which can compete with the need for variety and stimulation, the need to keep boredom at bay. Musicians who had, perhaps, when young, wanted to be soloists or conductors themselves. Problems which a good conductor can resolve with his energy, enthusiasm and musicianship.

He points to the difficulties of translating librettos, all to likely to result in singers being asked to sing impossible words at impossibly high notes. Or in the translation not allowing the singers time and place to breath - something a conductor needs to pay attention to.

Lastly, in the closing pages, he warns us about the abuse of charity which takes the form of organising charitable events, perhaps getting some eminences to give their services gratis, but most of the receipts from which wind up in the pockets of the usual suspects. Leaving very little for the charity concerned. A wheeze the rich are still very much alive too when they dress up their swanky beanos as charitable events. Makes the rest of us take our eyes off the ball.

A lucky find.

References

Reference 1: About conducting - Henry Wood - 1945. The Sylvan Press.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/end-of-october.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wood.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch. 

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Woods_(painter).

Reference 6: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2009/04/dream-time.html.