Saturday morning. It’s been a punishing week and I savour a leisurely start to the day. Six days after I bought my Sunday paper I open the review section of the Observer to read an article I know is there: about Valery Gergiev, Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.
The fact that it has taken me so long before reading this article reflects the very reasons I have to be interested to read it. As a member of the London Symphony Chorus I have been balancing my work commitments this week (and somewhat precariously) with the commitments I made to the chorus when I signed up to sing in three concerts in a single week. It all looked so easy – so tidy – on paper! Gergiev has been our conductor for these concerts: two performances of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe and one of Berlioz’ Damnation of Faust.
As I read, I recognise so much of journalist Ed Vulliamy’s description of Gergiev the conductor. In our rehearsals Gergiev has paid close attention to particular phrases, passionate about the phrasing or volume or speed. At the same time, other parts of the pieces have barely been touched. It did not go unnoticed, for example, that the time we spent on the final movement of Damnation of Faust gave Kate, member of the chorus, only a little time to acclimatise to singing her solo role.
I am also curious to read Vulliamy’s account of Gergiev’s choice to abandon the baton: “So many batons have flown from Gergiev’s hands into audiences and orchestras over the years that he now conducts with a toothpick, or with an inimitable flutter of the fingers“.
Of course, in response to what we see and how we experience what we see, we all form our own story. Reading Vulliamy’s account it is easy to conclude that the orchestra’s members enjoy the precarious fairground ride which is performing under Gergiev’s leadership. In the chorus, responses vary. Some respond with wry amusement to his “inimitable” (should it be “unfathomable”?) “flutter of the fingers“. Some weave tales of a man for whom the chorus simply does not matter and fall prey to anger or despair. Others are excited by the very qualities Vulliamy describes.
The critics, too, form their own story. I heard of Geoff Brown’s account in the Times of our Damnation from outraged colleagues: “Gergiev’s fingers fluttered busily, but his grasp was intermittent. He ignited Berlioz’s orchestral explosions nicely enough, and graded speeds winningly during Act I. Recklessness elsewhere, though, and a bland Dance of the Sylphs“.
Perhaps my own choices reflect a wider choice to be “at choice”. For it is by choice that I sing with the chorus and it is by choice that I sing under Gergiev’s – toothpick. I want to recognise and own that choice and I don’t want to wallow in self-pity or anger when I yearn for a signal that doesn’t come when our time comes to enter. As an observer of leadership, I also want to approach my experience with curiosity – what does Gergiev’s approach and our various responses tell me about what it means to lead?
Above all, though, it is my choice to enjoy the music. Ravel’s exquisite writing never fails to seduce me and I can hear the flute’s evocative solo even as I write. In the Berlioz the cor anglais was perfectly poised and hauntingly beautiful at the beginning of the fourth act and Joyce DiDonato’s Marguerite left me wide-eyed with admiration.
