The Conductor Igor Stravinsky Analysis

Conductors are seen as the leader of an orchestra or band and are given most if not all the credit for the music played. For such a simple task that consists of counting the beats, showing the mood for the music, and giving people cues to enter, conductors are as good as their orchestra or band, not by their talent. In this passage by Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky discusses that the work the conductor puts in is negligible to the work the orchestra it self and that concerts should be about the complex qualities of the music played instead of how the conductor impacts the performance. Stravinsky, who is a composer, explains that conductors play a role that is un-necessary and that the credit they are given is extremely higher that what they should be getting compared to the orchestra/ band who are actually playing the music. This is exemplified not only by his eloquence, but also his ability to characterize his ideas through imagery. In this statement “The successful conductor can be an incomplete musician, but he must be a complete angler. His first skill has to be power politics” and “the conductor is encouraged to impose a purely egotistical, false, and arbitrary authority… accorded a position out of all proportion to his real value in the musical.” Both of these statements exemplifies the way he phrases his words which also

When he states that a successful conductor can be an incomplete musician and that he relies on and is encouraged to engage the audience to set a fake sense of leadership, this shows how much