Re: Gouldian conductors?

[HampLabs / Yankee Magnetic Software <bobmer@javanet.com>]

> King Fai wrote:

> >I wonder if there are any conductors, present or past, who could be called
> "Gouldian" in this sense ... who dare to defy conventions just to be true to
> their artistic visions (...)

For me, this phrase conjures up the American movie (calling it "cinema" or
"film" only pretends to transfer it from the trailer park to Uptown) composer
and conductor Bernard Herrmann. Composing for movies liberated Herrmann from
ALL conventions, and he had precisely the mind and imagination to make full use
of it. Many of his compositions -- my absolute favorites are "Vertigo" (with
its lurid orchestral tarantellas) and "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." Of course
both are wonderful movies just as popcorn-munching darkened-theater movies, but
a dozen Herrmann scores stand alone brilliantly as orchestral music.

His thematic and historical range is also startling, from the Gay Nineties
cigar-smoking score for "Citizen Kane," to the eery, haunting jazz saxophone
accompaniment to Travis Bickel's descent into New York City loneliness,
isolation and violent madness in "Taxi Driver" (his last score).

His most talked-about defiance of tradition was his all-strings "Psycho," his
reflection of the surprise of a black-and-white movie making a Hollywood
resurrection in the Sixties.

Herrmann was a protege and champion of Charles Ives, a lonely struggle during
both their lifetimes (Ives never heard any of his orchestral music performed
during his lifetime), but one which certainly prepared Herrmann for defying
convention.

I might point out another obvious similarity to Gould -- writing and conducting
for the movies is entirely a recording-studio process, and I don't think anyone
ever heard Herrmann "missing" the glories of live performances.

In one Hitchcock film (I'll leave which one as a Trivia Question to see if
there are any other Herrmann devotees on this list) you actually get to watch
Herrmann conducting a huge orchestra and chorus for about 15 minutes. At the
end of many decades of close and brilliant collaboration, Hitchcock and
Herrmann finally fell out. Hitchcock's first non-Herrmann film, "Torn Curtain"
-- well, it's a mess for many reasons, but the score is soooooo terribly wrong,
tawdry and dimensionless.

I suppose Herrmann himself would recommend you first encounter his scores with
their movies, and we're all very lucky -- just recently a magnificent
reconstruction of "Vertigo" (James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes) was
released and has begun playing uncut and uninterrupted on cable. I can't
recommend it highly enough. (It's an emotionally intense movie, not for the
timid or squeamish.)

Bob / Elmer

PS ... I would feel guilty about bringing in a non- or extra-classical artist
into this thread, but just recently we had a long thread about Screamin Jay
Hawkins, and I didn't start it.