The Compleat Conductor

What makes for a "compleat" conductor? According to Gunther Schuller, it is a combination of fidelity to the score and going "for the grand line ... the clarification of the inherent structure(s)." Schuller, himself a conductor, has written The Compleat Conductor as a kind of report card on many of this century's foremost practitioners of the art. Using scores from Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and Ravel as his final exam, Schuller measures the work of the world's great conductors--everyone from Toscanini to John Eliot Gardiner--against what's printed on the page, and he finds most wanting in comparison.

The Compleat Conductor is partly an indictment of the failings of other conductors, partly Schuller's reflections on music, performance, and the authority of the score versus the authority of the conductor. Many of Schuller's pronouncements are sure to arouse controversy, but even for music lovers who disagree with his grading system, there's plenty of food for thought in The Compleat Conductor.