In perfect harmony
Henrietta Bredin talks to the conductor Brad Cohen, who mentored Alex James in Maestro It is worth remembering that the BBC, despite its recent, excessively well-aired problems, gives us a great many stimulating, well-made programmes, on both radio and television. Rather surprisingly, given its format and the yawning, ever-present potential for dumbed-down disaster, the BBC2 Maestro series, aired in August/September this year, turned out to be all of those things.
How could this be? A talent contest for ‘celebrities’, in which they were required, with no previous experience, to conduct a full symphony orchestra? It could hardly fail to trivialise a skill which takes years to acquire and which even musicians find hard to analyse or describe. What actually happened was fascinatingly revealing. Although the major failure of the series was a lack of focus on the learning process and the different ways in which the contestants worked their way towards interpreting the music, what emerged with great clarity was exactly how difficult and subtle a business conducting is. And the contestants all learnt a phenomenal amount in a ludicrously short space of time, sharing an admirably high seriousness of intent and a determination to do their damnedest with a wildly daunting challenge.
The Spectator’s own Alex James was one of those contestants and, by coincidence, his mentor (each participant was guided by an expert teacher) was Brad Cohen, a conductor I have worked with and known for a number of years. What was the whole experience like from the professional’s point of view? And what, I wondered, when he was first approached, made him give due consideration to the proposal rather than responding with an immediate, ‘Thanks but no thanks’?
‘My agent had an email with the subject heading “Brad Cohen: Maestro”, and I thought, “Well, that’s polite”. Then I realised it was about a television show. I can’t remember the exact wording now but it was a very clear, intelligent brief, about wanting to make a serious job of popularising classical music. There’s a tradition of handling the whole notion of classical music with kid gloves and approaching it in an attitude of respectful prostration, which I think is incredibly distancing and unhelpful. As soon as I met the producing team, I knew that it would be all right. They were professionals and they felt the same way as I did about stripping away the veneer, letting in a bit of air and freshness.’ The series started by showing the eight contestants — five men and three women — struggling through a week of ‘baton camp’, trying to learn the pieces of music they had each been allocated and how best to communicate an interpretation to an orchestra. Given that not all of them could actually read music, this was hard going, to put it mildly. In Alex’s case it was immediately evident that he was, however nervous and unsure of himself, able to see the orchestral players as individuals and colleagues, not as an amorphous and alarming mass. Brad agrees: ‘You could tell he was just a musician with other musicians — it was a normal situation for him, even though it was not the sort of music he’s used to. Also, he’s got a vulnerable, approachable quality that makes him very endearing. The players warmed to him immediately. And his face reflects his emotions to such an extent — his expression when the orchestra first played on his beat was absolutely amazing; it was an epiphany for him.’ Intriguingly, one of the things to emerge during the series was, beyond the technical specifics, how physical authority, a certain grace and sureness of gesture, is crucial to making a vital, live connection between conductor and performers. Clarity of beat is a blessing but two competitors communicated equally well in radically different ways: comedian and writer Sue Perkins (who could read music) with vigorous precision and the DJ Goldie (who couldn’t) with the baton-free, flowingly boneless undulations of a giant squid.
If you watched Alex have a go at his first set piece, from Bizet’s Carmen, his eyes are screwed up in ferocious concentration, he’s audibly counting ‘one, two, one, two’ to himself, he’s making mad jabbing movements with the baton in his right hand, his left hand is frozen in a rigid spasm of effort and his shoulders are somewhere up round his ears. And, like all the other participants, he’s waving his arms about in time with the music, which as a result, with no direction to anticipate rather than follow the playing, grinds to a near halt.
How did the members of the BBC Concert Orchestra deal with this? Brad draws a deep breath at this point. ‘They were fantastic, and it was an amazingly difficult issue for them. They were asked to play exactly what they saw and they said, “That’s absurd. We don’t do that in real life, so why would we do it now?” Orchestral players follow a conductor if they respect him or her but it’s a relationship; it’s not just command and follow on every gesture. It’s like riding a horse, a constant two-way response. They had to decide how far they could let it go, whether they should ever let it collapse altogether. Certainly in the first week I counted at least three occasions when it should have fallen apart completely. But they decided, quite rightly I think, that they would never let that happen. And somehow or other they always pulled things together so that they could carry on. It’s not just the contestants who would have been criticised. The orchestra would have come in for a lot of flak and possibly been blamed for letting people down, which would have been unfair.’ Despite the enormity of their task, all the contestants managed to make substantial improvements in their ability to understand the music and convey something of that understanding to the orchestra. By the time Alex conducted Verdi’s Dies irae with full choir (‘That was the one he did best,’ says Brad), his body language was markedly more fluent and communicative. There was never any doubt as to his total immersion in the music. ‘It was terrifying,’ Alex admits, ‘but it cleared up a lot of mysteries for me. I found out that it’s studying the score that’s the really hard bit. Trying to hear it in your head, interpreting and planning. Then, when you get up there, you’re a prism for this astonishing musical energy. And it’s just a fantastic noise to have under your hands.’ He and Brad seem to have got on like a house on fire and are hoping to work together again. Certainly Alex can’t wait for another opportunity to stand up in front of an orchestra. And he’s already got a booking — at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 6 December for a Christmas by Candlelight concert with the Brandenburg Sinfonia and English Baroque Choir. Should be festive. ❑ Maestro: The Inside Story will be shown on BBC2 on Christmas Day at 6 p.m.
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