The Conductor’s Challenge

ByFrank Battisti.

This extension and expansion ofGuide to Score Study, co-authored with Robert Garofalo, examines the various stages conductors traverse in arriving at an interpretation. Battisti emphasizes the importance of the conductor’s imagination, personality and ongoing study weeks/months/years in developing an interpretation that is personal, well-informed and faithful to the composer’s expressive intent. He examines the score analysis process including the role and function of a work’s musical elements; the need to balance intellectual understanding and intuitive feelings about a piece and the challenges faced by conductors when transforming an interpretation into a performance. As examples, he traces the procedures he used in forming interpretations of Lisbon and Horkstow Grange from Grainger’sLincolnshire Posy, Copland’sDown a Country Laneand Sinfonia from Stravinksy’sOctet for Wind Instruments.