Well, that’s what the great Leonard ‘Lenny’ Bernstein is doing here with the Vienna Philharmonic. He’s employing a minimalist method of conducting – but he still is conducting. He’s using his most important conductorial attributes: his eyes and face. All the great ones do – and it’s what makes for almost telepathic communication between conductor and orchestra. Now, I should warn inexperienced conductors, maybe don’t try this with just any orchestra. It has to be an orchestra that can play chamber music together – all very good to great orchestras can do this – and then the conductor is something akin to the ‘secret sauce’. Enjoy! This is Leonard Bernstein ‘conducting’ the Vienna Philharmonic.
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2 replies on “haydn go seek?”
This was exactly what Riccardo Muti mentioned during his talk to a group of music critics in Chicago a couple of months ago. He said it was the ultimate thing for a conductor to be able to conduct with your eyes and eyebrows only. He did a little bit of that during one of the Schubert pieces that we heard with him leading the CSO. The video of Bernstein is terrific.
Beautiful – thank you for sharing that video. What nan amazing conductor.