Episode 4 - The Stanislawski method for conductors

Hi, I'm Baldur Brunimold and this is the Conducting Coaching Podcast, where we talk about conducting from the inside. When I was a student, a lot of my conducting education focused on technical elements, score study, analysis, repertoire, conducting technique, technique meaning how to move the hands, how to move the baton, you know, so what sort of science to give. And when I saw myself or when I was on the podium, I often felt I'm not quite expressive enough. Maybe I was blocked or I was just thinking too much and not really quite free to express, but I was looking for something that would allow me to be more expressive on the podium. I was looking at this transmission of emotion, you know, that we know from everyday life. We can stand next to somebody and feel exactly the same emotions, you know, the sadness, the joy that somebody else feels just because we have this unspoken connection to each other. We have this, this is a really primal language it comes from, it's sort of inbuilt and we have this since we are kids. It's a kind of empathy that allows us to transmit feelings from one person to the other. And this is fundamentally, of course, what you do when you're conducting. But I was looking for something that would allow me to work on this. So I discovered the Stanislavsky method. Stanislavsky method is a method for actors. Stanislavsky was a famous actor, a Russian actor that worked mainly in the first half of the 20th century and what was special is he analyzed the process of what acting really means, what goes on inside an actor, what makes an acting performance. Stanislavsky's goal was really to make acting more realistic and more authentic. When he started acting the late 19th century to be realistic wasn't really a name for actors, they would sort of declamate their lines and then impose a certain emotion that usually didn't come out of the analysis of a text. So Stanislavsky was searching for a method to make acting more involving and more convincing. He had his own theatre company called the Mosque Art Theatre, which was a type of laboratory or a breathing ground for new acting techniques and for experiments. They also had a certain mission for a wider social appeal, so it was all quite experimental and very interesting. They were quite famous, they toured Europe and the States and so on, but he said what really got him to work on the finer psychological details or the subtext of the place was their work on the place of Chehov. Chehov was the starting point for exploring psychological details in the text and fundamentally then connecting them to the inner emotions of the actors. From 1966 on, Stanislavsky started to investigate the relation between the theatrical text or roles and the inner emotions of the actors more in depth. He invented techniques like improvisations for the actors to delve deep into their subconscious and into their emotional memories. So the inner life of each actor became part of the acting process. For conductors, this analysis of the text would be obviously the analysis of a score, which is more abstract material than a text, but the mechanisms at play are still the same. And what is interesting about Stanislavsky's method is that it shows us a way to connect our inner self to the music we want to express when we are on the podium. So the track to me to the Stanislavsky method as well was that it was very psychological and very subjective and completely the opposite to the formal and academic type of analysis I learned when I was at the conservatoire. In my time there was even a type of resistance against looking at the more emotional aspects of music, which in many ways are the center of the creative work when you are on stage. So Stanislavsky there was like a new world for me. As a little side note, it's quite interesting when I delved a bit deeper into this to see that there was also somehow a musical connection to Stanislavsky's method, because his inspiration in part came from the mining and theatre. The mining and theatre existed at the same time as the mining and a court orchestra just around the time when Hans van Bülo took over and when they premiered the fourth symphony by Brahms and so on. And this company was pioneering certain aspects that one can maybe compare to the orchestra and then sort of had an influence on Stanislavsky. I mean what was special about them is their detailed type of attention in rehearsals to details and their fidelity to the text, which was not very common at that time. The structured work of a company and the high directorial standards, this was something that mining and was famous for and not just the theatre group of course, also the orchestra. And that's what then influenced Stanislavsky to go even two or three stamps further. I really admire Stanislavsky's methodical approach, analyzing the process of performance during his whole life and telling deeper into the details of how intellect and emotion interact. I think this is a really super fundamental process for conductors as well. Later in his life he put his research together into a kind of method for actors, gradually incorporating physical action into the analysis of a role. In this physical approach, he incorporated exercises like improvisation into the preparation process. And all of this is meant to connect the physical action with the inner emotions and play. Now what does this mean for ask conductors? Working with the Stanislavsky method or adapting the Stanislavsky method to your preparation can help you to transmit musical ideas, characters and emotions in a much more eloquent and believable way. The aim is really to become a role, to become a piece in the most natural and believable way when on stage. It's sometimes difficult to achieve this kind of flow when you're in rehearsal or you have your head full of other things, but the Stanislavsky method can show your way to make your assimilation of a work and the physical expression of it part of your preparation. For your preparation it will mean that you need a different type of analysis, an analysis that is not just formal or technical. You need a score learning process that lets you connect the music to your inner feelings and to your inner imagination. In practice this will mean that you will once you've passed the process of learning the music and what is inside the score, you have to practice without any help. With that I mean with no piano or with no external help as such you have to produce the score by yourselves in your imagination or just sitting in front of the score and reproducing the music by singing, harming, tapping, whatever you can do. Or even you can practice in everyday situations where you distract it or so and just imagining the sounds. And when you imagine these sounds then you get the extra dimension of bringing your feelings alive inside you. When you go through your score and then still find blind spots where you don't know exactly what to feel or how to make a sound tangible inside yourself, you have to go back and work at that again and study again. I would really recommend that you start with small portions and let things really resonate inside you and try to physically feel the sound in front of you. Go back and practice this inner reading again and again and again. Then secondly it means you have to activate your physical action when you study, meaning it helps to conduct, it helps to have your face and your gestures engaged when you imagine music. That makes a more direct connection between your physical expression and your imagination. And you will need that when maybe you're a bit blocked or when you can't express so easily because you're nervous. If that connection between imagination and expression is really short, your body or your gestures your face, the unconscious and the unconscious type of expression will still do what you need them to do. Thirdly, I would recommend that you record your rehearsals because they always takes and habits that get in the way of the direct relation with the music and with the musicians. Make sure you eliminate meaningless gestures, meaningless words and you look at yourselves for example if you're still connected when you're rehearsing or if you're answering a question always stay on the message and stay connected to the music. Some of the things you do in a rehearsal they're really unconscious and you have to look at them from the outside in order to eliminate them or to correct them. Stanislavski shows us that conducting works from the inside to the outside and not the other way around. The movements and gestures are the consequence of the imagination and what's going on inside of you and not the other way around. You can't just learn gestures and apply them to the music that's not really conducting. The true authenticity comes from genuinely feeling things inside, imagining the music and having the physical language to transmit this to the players or to the public. There is a technical aspect to conducting. There is a physical clarity in this transformation but this just has a meaning when it's filled with emotion and connected to your inner imagination. Conducting works when it's authentic and this authenticity comes from the music being rooted deep inside yourself and you having the physical tools to transmit it. Thanks for listening. To send us your comments or suggestions please write us a message on Instagram and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with all the conducting coaching news and events. [BLANK_AUDIO]