The Composer-Conductor Figure between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many great musicians served as both composers and conductors, often conducting their own works or those of other composers. In the nineteenth century, it was common for a talented musician to be a skilled performer (often a pianist or violinist), composer and conductor. Notable figures such as Liszt, Wagner, Mahler and Strauss conducted their own works to promote them and ensure their artistic integrity. Conducting was seen as a natural extension of musical creation rather than a separate career. However, the role of the conductor-composer changed significantly between these two centuries, reflecting the increasing complexity of music, the expansion of the orchestra, and above all, the emergence of conducting as a highly specialised and autonomous profession. Furthermore, while composer-conductors often took great interpretative liberties in the nineteenth century, an ideal of fidelity to the score slowly developed in the twentieth century. This was partly because twentieth-century scores required a much higher level of rhythmic precision and clarity of execution, favouring the development of rigorous conducting techniques. In this volume, twenty-four authors dedicate their chapters to the most important composer-conductors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, addressing them from various perspectives, including gesture, orchestral repertoire, reception, legacy, reputation, press criticism and their role in promoting new music.

Roberto Illiano, Preface
Massimiliano Locanto, Introduction

Early Nineteenth-Century Composer-Conductors

Samuel Nemeth
Berlioz Conducting Berlioz’s Orchestra: Composer Stewardship, Sonic Control, and the ‘Monster Concerts’

Siegwart Reichwald
Building Community: Felix Mendelssohn, the Rise of the Modern Orchestra, and the Expanding Role of the Conductor

Jacques Dupuis
Robert Schumann’s Blithe Conducting? Self-Determination, Nationalism and Musical Work

Mid-Nineteenth-Century Perspectives

Donna M. Di Grazia
Franz Liszt as Conductor, as Interpreter: Perspectives on Sources and Scholarship

José Ignacio Suárez García
Wagner Conducts in Paris: A Reinterpretation of the Concerts at the Théâtre-Italien (1860)

Jacquelin Sholes
Brahms as a Conductor: Fraternalism, Antiquarianism, and Other Points of Intersection with Brahms the Composer

Michael Stegemann
«An iron will, an invincible arm»: Camille Saint-Saëns as Conductor

Fin-de-siècle Composer-Conductors

James Zychowicz
Mahler at the Podium: The Composer-Conductor Reinvented for a New Century

Faith Thompson
Gabriel Pierné at the Concerts Colonne and Beyond

Vadym Rakochi
Seeing the Invisible: Strauss the Composer – Strauss the Cnductor

Vera Val’kova
Sergey Rachmaninoff the Conductor: The Paradoxes of an Artistic Career

Twentieth-Century Composer-Conductors

Alison McFarland
Holst through London and Mars: Holst the Pedagogue and Conductor

Renata Suchowiejko
A Life in Music through Turbulent Times: The Conducting Career of Grzegorz Fitelberg (1879-1953)

Mila De Santis
Alfredo Casella Conductor between Two Worlds
 
Barbara L. Kelly
Performing Internationalism: Eugene Goossens’s Advocacy for New Music

Carol Hess
«I Started Late; It’s a Passion Now»: Aaron Copland’s Conducting Career

Kevin Salfen
Lessons from the Podium: Britten’s Conducting Education

Paul R. Laird
Composing vs Conducting: Leonard Bernstein’s Lifelong Struggle

Levon Hakobian
Gunther Schuller, a «Compleat» Musician

Chloë Rouge
Presences and Absences. Pierre Boulez’s Schedules: Towards an Analysis of Pluri-Activity

Abstracts and Biographies
Index of Names