Word: conductor
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...camera shots, directs the acts, plans the continuity, bosses the booking, writing, lighting and costumes, dictates the musical arrangements (and frequently hands them out to the musicians), approves the scenery (and sometimes helps shift it) and, in rehearsal, often leads the band over the head of its conductor...
There are many reasons way Munch is such a popular leader. First of all he is one of those few conductors doing their best to destroy the image of the "super-man maestro." When he conducts, he is working with an orchestra, he does not stand on a pedestal and dictate to it. He never plays favorites among the players, as many of his colleagues are accused of doing. A tyrant conductor usually develops a clique of musicians who will support him, and help him keep control, but Munch never needs such a clique. One of the violinists...
...every Munch performance, there is a certain amount of "calculated risk." That is the orchestra never is absolutely sure that everything is going to work out perfectly; consequently they are on edge, always awake, and always sensitive to the wishes of the conductor. This contrasts with the technique of a man like Bruno Walter, who sometimes repeats a few measures so many times that the orchestra becomes bored, and, of course, their playing shows it. Munch never takes a big chance in any performance, but just enough is left in doubt to create the effect he desires. Thus, in performance...
Munch's preoccupation with music has not prevented him from living well off the podium. He is an highly civilized man, deeply interested in painting and craft. Walter Hendl, assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic and newly-appointed conductor of the Dallas Symphony likes to tell about the time Munch came to visit him at his home three years ago. He arrived with a bouquet of roses for Mrs. Hendl, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the evening teaching Hendl different kinds of solitaire which he uses when traveling. Hendl had a wonderful evening, but when...
...completely shake up the orchestra in order to make it sound like a French ensemble. Aside from the impracticality of such a step, Munch looks at the Boston Symphony as a completely different instrument from those he has led in France, not necessar-6The Boston Symphony's new conductor CHARLES MUNCH chats with his predecessor SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY after the Symphony Hall appearance of the Orchestre National of France last fall. the program, led by Munch, included a Toccata by Walter Plston, Naumberg Professor of Music at Harvard...