Baton charge

摘要

When I was lucky enough to talk to Bernard Haitink, while he was at the Royal Opera House as musical director, in the anteroom before his office I spotted a large ceramic bowl with an array of new conducting batons, Was this mere prudence, to have a ready stock, or did he use a new one every evening? I wish I'd asked. Some conductors, like Herbert Blomstedt (or the late Pierre Boulez) never use one, just working with hand gestures. Valery Cergiev can be seen with a stick no bigger than a spill to light a candle, while Sir Adrian Boult's seemed to be of enormous length, Otto Klemperer abandoned his baton for a long period of years then in old age he reverted to using one. In very quiet or intimate music passages some conductors momentarily set aside the baton for greater expressive control.