Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/171

Rh Psychologists have found as the result of careful investigation that the "whole method" of study is much to be preferred to what might be termed the "part method," because of the fact that a much clearer and closer association between parts is thus formed, and there is no doubt but that this point applies very forcibly to the study of music. In an interview published in the New York World in June, 1916, Harold Bauer writes as follows about this matter as related to piano music:

"Now, in taking up a new work for the piano, the child could and should play right through every page from beginning to end for the purpose of obtaining a definite first impression of the whole. A mess would probably be made of it technically, but no matter. He would gradually discover just where the places were that required technical smoothing, and then by playing them over slowly these spots would be technically strengthened. By the time the composition was thoroughly learned the technique would be thoroughly acquired, too. Obtaining first a perfect mental picture of the whole, and afterward working out the details, is better than learning a work by starting with the details before gaining a broad impression of the composition as a whole."

This method of studying musical compositions is especially important from the standpoint of expression. In many an instance, the source of wrong interpretation (or of no interpretation at all) may be traced directly to a method of studying the composition which has not impressed the singers or players with its essential meaning and spirit, and with the significance of the various details in relation to the plan of the work as a whole. This is particularly true of choral compositions, and in taking up such works, it may often be well for the conductor to read aloud the entire text of the chorus that is being studied in order that the attention of the singers may be focused for a few moments upon the imagery conveyed by the words. Such attention is frequently impossible while singing, because the minds of the singers are intent upon the beauty or difficulty of the purely musical aspects of the composition, and thus the so-called "expression" becomes merely