Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/16

4 the singers to phrase properly, often without either the conductor or the singers being aware of how the direction was conveyed. It is at least partly because we instinctively imitate the mental state or the emotional attitude of the pianist or the vocalist that we are capable of being thrilled or calmed by musical performances, and it is largely for this reason that an audience always insists upon seeing the artist as well as hearing him. In the same way the musicians in a chorus or orchestra must see the conductor and catch from him by instinctive imitation his attitude toward the music being performed. This point will be more fully discussed in a later chapter, when we take up interpretation in conducting.

In setting out to become a conductor it will be well for the young musician to recognize at the outset that by far the larger part of the conductor's work rests upon an art basis, and that only a comparatively small portion of it is science; hence he must not expect to find complete information concerning his future work in any treatise upon the subject. It is one thing to state that there are three primary colors, or that orange is the result of mixing red and yellow, but it is a very different matter to give directions for painting an effective landscape, or a true-to-life portrait. One thing involves science only, but the other is concerned primarily with art, and it is always dangerous to dogmatize concerning matters artistic. To carry the illustration one step farther, we may say that it is comparatively easy to teach a pupil to strike certain piano keys in such a way as to produce the correct melody, harmony, and rhythm of a certain composition; but who would venture, even in these days of frenzied advertising, to promise that in so many lessons he could teach a pupil to play it as a Hofmann or a Paderewski would? Here again we see clearly the contrast between science and art, matters of