orchestra21

Look ma, no hands!

‘We are in Vienna,’ imagines NPR’s Robert Krulwich. ‘Leonard Bernstein is on the podium. The Vienna Philharmonic is on the stage, Haydn’s Symphony no. 88 is in the air, and our question is: Where are Bernstein’s hands?  Why isn’t he using his hands? He’s moving nothing – except his face.’

Replies Ezra Block: ‘My friend George Steel, Director of the New York City Opera, calls this technique ‘eyebrows only,’ though as you can see, his chin is working, his eyes are darting, his mouth is up, down. He’s liking, noticing, saying thank you using only his face muscles.

Believe it or not this works. Gustav Meier, one of my mentors and Leonard Bernstein’s teaching partner at Tanglewood, often has his students place hands in pockets while leading particular passages in coaching sessions. Invariably things sound better in response – the human face, as Ezra Block notes, communicates engagement and involvement far more effectively than our hands ever could.

But there is more going on here. When conductors rein in the frequently distracting histrionics of gyrating arms and whipping batons and instead work harder to internalize sound – ’being’ the music rather than ‘doing’ it – we encourage a much greater focus within the ensemble on the act of listening. And that, if I’m not mistaken, is our job.