Conductors are an odd sight. As the most recognisable role in an art form already suspended in a middle-class haze, there is little surprise their actual purpose is confusing. The arms aloft, wand in hand, striking high at the proscenium arch. Wild hair, furrowed brow, deep, vitrified eyes at once closed then open. Just what, exactly, are they doing? 

Toby Purser is Head of Conducting at the Royal College of Music (RCM). And, in his own words, the very definition of what a conductor does changes each time he is asked the question. The day upon which I ask him, he feels “the person best able to and willing to accept responsibility for musical leadership” sits best.  

“It’s no different from a theatre director, without whom we could have some of the best actors in the world in a rehearsal room, but all them performing with individual ideas and approaches that don’t add up to a satisfying whole. With a great director, the actors’ retain their individuality or star quality, and it’s enhanced in the right environment and context.”

Conducting just so happens to be an iteration of directorship that needs to be present at the performance, and just like any other leadership position, should the team play poorly, the blame lies at their feet. A role dependent on precise communication and preparation, everything hinges on their commitment to their interpretation of the music. 

“Once we get in front of the orchestra, we need to be entirely at the service of the composer and the orchestra, and therefore totally on top of our preparation. An orchestra can sniff out in an instant if we are faking it, underprepared, unconvincing, or superficial.

“The difficulty is we need to provide that confidence, while there are numerous possible solutions and approaches to every note of music. This makes it complicated to decide what we believe in and not undermine ourselves with debilitating self-doubt that we may have made the wrong choices.

“In a physical sense, there are several elements the conductor needs to show through their body language, subdivided into when to play, how to play and why to play. The mechanics and psychology of how to do that is something conductors study and hone over their entire lifetime.

“Our aim is to be able to communicate what an orchestra needs to know about the music and their role in it, with the least fuss, and through instantly understandable physical movements. So focusing it into the baton, hands, arms, and eyes enables all of our intentions to be communicated efficiently and without the orchestra having to search for them.”

A 1971 study by Albert Mehrabian concluded that “face-to-face communication, specifically of feelings and attitudes, could be broken down into three separate components: the words we use (7 per cent), the tone of voice with we use them (38 per cent), and our body language while we do so (55 per cent). And if the words themselves are contradicted by the speaker’s non-verbal behaviour, the latter is more likely to be believed.” 

Physical communication is a pillar of human transmission, the funnelling of emotion into a physical display an everyday occurrence. Conductors, as Mark Wigglesworth states in his book ‘The Silent Musician’, “simply take a basic fact of life and use it as a means of creating a clarity of musical style and a strength of emotional feeling.” This is rather difficult over even the highest quality of zoom calls.

Purser was involved in a project at the RCM that involved linking up an orchestra in London, with a large screen situated in front of them, to a conductor in Vienna, via a Low Latency University Fibre Optic Network. 

“Although the lag was minimal, having a conductor on a flat-screen removed the 3D aspect of a living person, meaning the orchestra could not follow with peripheral vision, and likewise making it almost impossible to influence through charisma or energy.

“The conducting became a mechanical exercise in clarity, with rehearsal all needing to be done by speech rather than through wordless body language; the vital, invisible umbilical cord of physical interaction was lost.”

It is this aspect that makes it exceptionally difficult to understand how conductors channel their ‘vision’. Without having prior musical knowledge, there is an apparent lack of reason in the whole affair. The immense subtlety with which they communicate their commands is obscured by having little to no exposure to what is, in essence, a familiar form of communication, body language, but used in such a fashion as to be completely alien to anyone not having experienced it in a musical sphere. For, as Wigglesworth opines, “shaping the invisible might appear either vague or transcendental but beneath the surface, a conductor’s craft is both specific and deeply human”.

Over the years, a number of revered conductors have established a pedagogy hinging on their personal belief of what they should be teaching their students. For instance, one of Purser’s own teachers, the Russian conductor and music theorist Ilya Musin, stated “the conductor must make the sound visible”, and taught around his concept of carrying sound. 

While providing a stumbling block, this diversity of approach to the teaching of conducting lends itself to a diversity of sound. As Wigglesworth phrases it, “if every performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto sounded exactly the same, few would want to hear it again and again and again and again”. And this applies to any orchestral performance, each conductor invoking their personal vision of the music.

This isn’t the only influence a conductor has, as programming comes under their remit. A process somewhat complicated by the shuttering of venues. Even under eased restrictions, social distancing has inhibited the intimacy required of an orchestra to effectively rehearse and perform, therefore bringing chamber music and small-scale ensembles to the fore.

Purser continues, “While an exciting and fascinating part of a conductors’ artistic responsibility, the pandemic has altered my repertoire in terms of needing to programme for smaller forces. And in choosing what we listen to, music often produces a healthy escape from reality when we need it (Beethoven wrote some of his most joyful music at the most tragic moments of his life, as did Mozart - and vice versa). In periods of such uncertainty, anxiety and suffering as we have been going through, I prefer to offer our audiences an antidote to that, with music full of hope, warmth and optimism.”

“Great music is great music, regardless of the pandemic, and like any great artwork, will reveal different layers according to how we look or listen. In fact Mahler described his symphonies as needing ‘to be like the world. It must contain everything’. More than choosing music to conform to the zeitgeist, the present situation is more likely to affect what our emotions are most receptive to.”

The conductor is at that helm, bringing us the world. Having spent hours alone pouring over black markings on a stave, the music now cemented in their mind, a personal symphony. Trying as they might to accurately convey the emotions of an individual likely bound to dust. The conductor as inverted psychopomp, leading the composer unto the breach once more; the moment they raise their arms and strike the air with electrified certainty, and that first note is played, they are risen.