On Simon Rattle Conducting
Brahms’
Symphony no.4
Moving his hands as if culling the sounds from the
air-- with care--
He coaxes the music with minimal shapes and delicate
grace.
The slightest pulses of his hands to trace the much
larger waves of music’s energy.
Pitch, dynamics, timbre; nuance and gradation;
resolution—
As waves crash or ebb and flow, commensurately.
His right hand directs the melody, while the other
imitates the tremulo of the strings,
With faintest tremors of fingers and flicking of
wrist.
As a conductor, he conveys that less is more in this
role,
a role so essential yet properly circumscribed,
as the real music is crafted not from him but from
the musicians
as it pours forth from their instruments.
He intuits that he needs only to be a skillful
beacon,
a lighthouse in the void of unfolding creation---
in the space and silence between the sounds that are
made.
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