Leonid Grin: A Conducting Primer, Part I, Introducing Yourself to an Orchestra

Leonid Grin being interviewed by Estonian TV July 26, 2010 at Pärnu Concert Hall

Part I.  Introducing Yourself to an Orchestra.

There are five rules of conducting according to Finnish pedagogue Jorma Panula:  “Study the score, study the score, study the score, study the score and study the score.”

Conductor Leonid Grin went into considerably more detail in his lecture/master class, “The Conductor’s Mind,” at Neeme Järvi’s Summer Academy in Pärnu Estonia July 27. 

Grin, currently teaching privately in Philadelphia,  knows whereof he speaks.  A student of Leo Ginsberg and Nikolai Rabinovich in the former Soviet Union, where he served as associate conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic, he became a protégé of Leonard Bernstein after immigrating to the U.S. in 1981.  He has been music director of the Tampere Philharmonic (Finland), San Jose Symphony and Saarlandisches Staats Theater (Saarbrucken, Germany).  He has a vast repertoire, including over 30 operas, and as music director in San Jose, won the ASCAP (American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers) Award for Adventuresome Programming.  His former students include Paavo Järvi.

The substance of Grin’s lecture, he said, came not only from his 40-year experience on the podium, but from observations of conductors like Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, Herbert von Karajan, Rafael Kubelik, Kyril Kondrashin and Gennady Rozdestvensky  . . . “great conductors whom I was honored to meet and work with, a great school to be with and to be around.”

Grin, 63, is a natural teacher, and from downbeat to finale, he kept his 19 students mesmerized.  His lecture, held in the Pärnu’s historic Town Hall, brimmed with detail, yet was scrupulously organized and delivered with flair.  He was constantly up and down, demonstrating salient points about what to do (and not) as an aspiring conductor.  He addressed fundamental questions such as how do you introduce yourself to an orchestra?  How do you master a score?  What does “technique” mean?  How do you rehearse?

He began with first impressions.

“Where does a conductor’s job start?  It’s a thing we may not often think about: ‘I work on the podium.  That is the point when I appear.’  But let me tell you, from my experience, a conductor’s job starts from the moment he (or she) opens the back door to the concert hall -- how cheerful we are, how friendly we are towards people at the door.  Musicians are very attuned to the way we approach the podium.  It may seem to us that they sit and play.  They open up their music and one eye is there, but as soon as you appear onstage, everybody is watching -- not in a bad way, they’re just curious.  Who is this man or woman who is standing over our heads?”

It’s “absolutely natural” for orchestra musicians to feel this way, said Grin, “because there’s a conflict of interest between an orchestral musician and a conductor.  Seventy-five to eighty-percent of the musicians who play in the orchestra, when they started to play their instrument, they wanted to be a soloist, or as a string player, to work in a quartet.  Life directs musicians different ways.  They like music and they need to work.  They practice their instrument for decades.

“We don’t have our own instrument, and some of us do not play any instrument.  And we come in front.  Our position gives us leadership, whether we deserve it or not.  ‘I am an orchestra musician.  I have to follow you.  Today you are my boss, whether you are good or quite bad, I have to do it.’  So there are a lot of psychological issues.  And for a young conductor, you stand in front of musicians who have played in this orchestra more years than your physical age.”

Dealing with a concertmaster can be a particular challenge, Grin said.  “You have to ask the concertmaster to change the speed or make the articulation over.  ‘Hey, what do you know?  I’m a violinist.  What instrument do you play?  You tell me what kind of bowing I should have or what the articulation is?’

“Musicians say that in two minutes they know who you are, what they will be dealing with.  And you know what?  It’s not an exaggeration.  It’s a moment of truth.”

A conductor brings an “aura” to the podium, Grin said.  “Musicians sitting with their back to the stage door feel immediately the presence of our energy as we are coming to the podium or the concert stage.  It’s amazing how it spreads around us.”  As an example, he referred to a video of the late Carlos Kleiber conducting Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier.”  “When he comes to the podium, you can see the air around him.  There are lines, kind of in lights, around him.

“There is energy around each of us, not just inner Carlos Kleiber.  Each of us makes electricity, makes vibrancy to the environment we are in.  The orchestra feels it and they are struck blind.  When you pass by violins, they stop playing and they sit and wait.  You come to the podium and they look at you.  Then you command the situation.  The game is over.  In all rehearsals and all concerts, you’re done.”

The most important thing, said Grin, and the chief legacy of his 10-year association with Bernstein, is “be yourself.  Don’t be scared.  Don’t show that you are shaking.  It’s the first mind game.  You lose or win by the way you walk through the back door to the podium.”

How to say hello to an orchestra is another test, he said.  “Talk with respect for yourself.  Don’t say things too quickly.  Don’t be embarrassed or confusing or insecure.  Musicians immediately feel your inner state of being.  We charge them with our feeling and if we are nervous, we make the environment around us nervous.”

The same thing can happen if a conductor is too bubbly, said Grin.  “They lose interest in what else you are saying.  A big mistake is to start to tell the orchestra a story.  You show your knowledge, give them historic facts or tell them a funny story about your life.  After five minutes of rehearsal, your respect is not working.  Musicians come to the rehearsal to make music.  They don’t expect any preambles, any stories.  They came to work and they expect you to start right there.  Say ‘hello, I’m glad to be here, and I am happy to makes this program and work on it with you.’”

Then what?  Grin asked.  “What makes the orchestra follow you, meaning play for you rather than ignore you?”  Again confidence rules, he said.  “From the first Auftakt (downbeat) the orchestra feels your confidence or insecurity.  The second thing is your solid thoughts, the sense of music we are conducting.  From the first phrase, the first four measures, we already know if there is artistic concept, if there is a solid interpretation.”

Here Grin shared with the students a bit of his own solid advice.  “I recommend that you never play through in a first rehearsal unless it is a totally unknown piece.  (Then) they have to read it first to understand it.  But if you’re playing a recognized, known composer -- Brahms, whatever, even Mahler -- if you start to play through because you never conducted it before, well, that’s your problem.  ‘We don’t care.’  So from the very beginning, take the responsibility to correct things on the spot.  This is not to go to perfection when you correct on the first reading, but to show your confidence and knowledge, your ear, your strength, and to let them know that it was to get this perfect and that is all.”

“When you finish,” he said, “then you come back with your plan to read through.  You start working on segments you have selected.”

(to be continued)