Two Rivers Ridge: Capturing Art

Abstract

A musical conductor often uses a score from which to lead an orchestra. Novices in the audience may see the conductor as useless; the musicians have their parts of the score so why is a conductor needed--as a traffic officer to keep violins from interfering with the flow of the horn section? Far more, however, the conductor is an artist who sees the whole, the parts, the whole as a sum of the parts, and the whole as greater than or less than the sum of the parts. Two different conductors using the same score will produce music that is identifiable but that sounds different as it reflects their personalities as artists. In that regard, the musical score is the scientific instrument: it is the score that is transferable and allows for repetition, at some level, of results. How then, might one characterize the performance of the artistic effort of the conductor? When the conductor simultaneously becomes a composer as he/she conducts, as is often the case with improvisational ensembles that respond musically to and with the conductor, that question becomes even more vexing.