In his excellent article of “Conducting” in Grove’s Dictionary, Ralph Vaughan-Williams gives the following rule: “As a general rule no more strokes should be used than are absolutely necessary to mark the time”; for instance no bar should be beaten in three strokes that can be beaten in one, no bar should be beaten in four strokes that can be beaten in two.

This rule is unassailable but there are times when it is difficult for the conductor to judge which style of time-beating to use. The Adagio and Allegro of the Overture to “The Magic Flute” are good examples of such a difficulty.

The Adagio is marked and is usually taken in four moderate beats. The Allegro has no alla breve mark and yet should be taken in two moderate beats.

To beat the Allegro in four gives it precision but takes away from the light and graceful airiness of the figure by giving undue prominence to the third beat. In any 4/4 or 4/8 gesture the third beat is apt to get almost as strong an accent as the first.

The Allegro Vivace of Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony” is also taken alla breve instead of in four beats as marked. A number of present day conductors are taking the March in the “Pathetique Symphony” of Tschaikowski in alla breve time with very marked success.

On the other hand there are types of compositions that need the greater energizing power of the four beats. Percy Grainger’s “Molly on the Shore”[2] is a good example of one of these. He requests the conductor to keep four equally accented beats hammering away throughout the whole piece.

In conducting fast moving tempos one-in-a-bar, the conductor will soon notice the individual bars grouping themselves together in phrases and periods, and it is most helpful to the musicians if some slight indication of the groupings be given in conducting. In fast one-in-a-bar movements four single measures often become one large measure of four beats, and if the beginning and termination of this measure group is indicated by a slightly larger beat, the musical composition becomes more intelligible to the player and listener.

Thus the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

From the sixth measure on

might easily become:

This rearranged phrase grouping should in no way be misunderstood to mean that the tempo should be beaten in 4/4 Andante. Merely, the more compact grouping of faster notes in a slower tempo is often a mental help to both conductor and player in bringing out the proper musical inflection.

A glance at the following example will show how readily the opening theme of the “Eroica Symphony” falls into groups of four measures each.

On the other hand, the Scherzo of the same work is unevenly divided into phrases of four and two measures.

With the advent of Stravinsky and other moderns a new problem of time beating has arisen in connection with the attempt to free music entirely from the formal division of the bar line placed at regular intervals. Not that these composers dispense with the bar line completely, but they place it in such disconcertingly irregular places that the conductor’s task is doubly difficult even when he attempts to indicate it merely with a single down-beat.

The two following examples from Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka”[3] illustrate this difficulty. The tempo is too fast to permit the use of regularly divided gestures, and yet it is very difficult to bring in the single beats with such metronomic precision that the musicians can play all of the individual eighth notes evenly and without hurrying.

EXAMPLE Nᵒ. 1

EXAMPLE Nᵒ. 2

 
The author, in his conducting class at New York University has experimented with several methods, and has finally hit upon the following system of teaching the intricate baton technic involved in the conducting of works like Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka.”

The student is made to sit at the piano and play simple five finger figures with a single accent on the first note which is always played by the thumb.

Playing the eighth notes in a rather quick tempo each exercise is to be repeated until the feeling of the recurrence of the down-beat (which corresponds to the accented thumb stroke) becomes entirely automatic. Care must be taken never to vary the speed of the eighth notes and to accent only the first note.

Translated into terms of this exercise the two examples from “Petrouchka” would be as follows:

The speed of the eighth notes must never vary.

Fractional or uneven time

Beat 3-in-a-measure, merely making the third beat one-eighth note longer.

Beat 2-in-a-measure, merely making the second beat one-eighth note longer.

The Hymn of Jesus:—Gustave Holst (Copyright 1920 by Stainer and Bell, London)

Beat 4-in-a-measure, merely making the fourth beat one-eighth note longer.

ON THE CONDUCTING OF WALTZES

To begin with, a dividing line must be drawn between a waltz played for dancing and the concert waltz. The former is performed in a regular rhythmic manner everywhere, except in Vienna and South America, where the dancers are accustomed to little freedoms of tempo. There is so much really good music written in this form, that it is a pity to hear waltzes “ground out” in the reprehensible one-beat-in-a-measure style of so many of our Military Bandmasters. Portions of Strauss’ “Artist’s Life” Waltzes are given in the following examples, which also contain various modes of beating waltz time to conform with the spirit of the music.

There are many ways of conducting waltz time. Some conductors beat all the beats, others again, only one beat to the measure. Analysis of some of the methods of the great conductors who have not disdained to play the waltzes of composers like Waldteufel or Johann Strauss, has lead us to believe that the three styles of conducting explained in the following diagrams are the ones most generally used.

A—The one-beat-in-a-measure style for passages of flowing melody and great verve.

In order to avoid a monotony of motion, it is best to start the down-beats of each measure, alternately from the left and the right. The dotted line in the diagram indicates the reflex or rebound movement, which brings the hand and arm in a position to start the next beat.

B—Following the heavy down-beat of the measure, the second beat will be indicated by a sharp sideward wrist movement and in lieu of the third beat, the hand and arm will be drawn up to the original position in a more relaxed manner.

DIAGRAM Nᵒ. 2 (Style 2)

Light and delicate rhythmic figures are best indicated by this method.

C—The third method is the regular gesture used in any 3/4 or 3/8 time and indicates each beat.

DIAGRAM Nᵒ. 3 (Style 3)

In the following extract from Artists’ Life Waltz by Strauss, the three different styles are applied. The various strains and the manner of beating each measure, are indicated by the Roman Numerals which correspond to the diagrams.

• I      Diagram 1
• II    Diagram 2
• III  Diagram 3

From Hector Berlioz’
“Treatise on Conducting”

A dilemma sometimes presents itself when certain parts—for the sake of contrast—are given a triple rhythm, while others preserve the dual rhythm.

If the wind-instrument parts in the above example are confided to players who are good musicians, there will be no need to change the manner of marking the bar, and the conductor may continue to subdivide it by six, or to divide it simply by two. The majority of players, however, seeming to hesitate at the moment when, by employing the syncopated form, the triple rhythm clashes with the dual rhythm, require assurance, which can be given by easy means. The uncertainty occasioned them by the sudden appearance of the unexpected rhythm, contradicted by the rest of the orchestra, always leads the performers to cast an instinctive glance towards the conductor, as if seeking his assistance. He should look at them, turning somewhat towards them, and marking the triple rhythm by very slight gestures, as if the time were really three in a bar, but in such a way that the violins and other instruments playing in dual rhythm may not observe the change, which would quite put them out. From this compromise it results that the new rhythm of three-time, being marked furtively by the conductor, is executed with steadiness; while the two-time rhythm already firmly established, continues without difficulty, although no longer indicated by the conductor. On the other hand, nothing, in my opinion can be more blamable, or more contrary to musical good sense, than the application of this procedure to passages where two rhythms of opposite nature do not co-exist, and where merely syncopations are introduced. The conductor, dividing the bar by the number of accents he finds contained in it, then destroys (for all the auditors who see him) the effect of syncopation; and substitutes a mere change of time for a play of rhythm of the most bewitching interest. If the accents are marked, instead of the beats, in the following passage from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, we have the subjoined:—

whereas the four previously maintained display the syncopation and make it better felt:—

This voluntary submission to a rhythmical form which the author intended to thwart is one of the gravest faults in style that a beater of the time can commit.

There is another dilemma, extremely troublesome for a conductor, and demanding all his presence of mind. It is that presented by the super-addition of different bars. It is easy to conduct a bar in dual time placed above or beneath another bar in triple time, if both have the same kind of movement. Their chief divisions are then equal in duration, and one needs only to divide them in half, marking the two principal beats:—

But if, in the middle of a piece slow in movement, there is introduced a new form brisk in movement, and if the composer (either for the sake of facilitating the execution of the quick movement, or because it was impossible to write otherwise) has adopted for this new movement the short bar which corresponds with it, there may then occur two, or even three short bars super-added to a slow bar:—

The conductor’s task is to guide and keep together these different bars of unequal number and dissimilar movement. He attains this by dividing the beats in the Andante bar, No. 1, which precedes the entrance of the Allegro in 6/8, and by continuing to divide them; but taking care to mark the division more decidedly. The players of the Allegro in 6/8 then comprehend that the two gestures of the conductor represent the two beats of their short bar, while the players of the Andante take these same gestures merely for a divided beat of their long bar.

It will be seen that this is really quite simple, because the division of the short bar, and the subdivisions of the long one, mutually correspond. The following example, where a slow bar is super-added to the short ones, without this correspondence existing, is more awkward:—

Here, the three bars Allegro-assai preceding the Allegretto are beaten in simple two-time, as usual. At the moment when the Allegretto begins, the bar of which is double that of the preceding, and of the one maintained by the violas, the conductor marks two divided beats for the long bar, by two equal gestures down, and two others up:—

The two large gestures divide the long bar in half, and explain its value to the hautboys, without perplexing the violas, who maintain the brisk movement, on account of the little gesture which also divides in half their short bar.

From bar No. 3, the conductor ceases to divide thus the long bar by 4, on account of the triple rhythm of the melody in 6/8, which this gesture interferes with. He then confines himself to marking the two beats of the long bar; while the violas, already launched in their rapid rhythm, continue it without difficulty, comprehending exactly that each stroke of the conductor’s stick marks merely the commencement of their short bar.

This last observation shows with what care dividing the beats of a bar should be avoided when a portion of the instruments or voices has to execute triplets upon these beats. The division, by cutting in half the second note of the triplet, renders its execution uncertain. It is even necessary to abstain from this division of the beats of a bar just before the moment when the rhythmical or melodic design is divided by three, in order not to give to the players the impression of a rhythm contrary to that which they are about to hear:—

In this example, the subdivision of the bar into six, or the division of beats into two, is useful; and offers no inconvenience during bar No. 1 when the following gesture is made:—

But from the beginning of bar No. 2 it is necessary to make only the simple gestures:—

on account of the triplet on the third beat, and on account of the one following it which the double gesture would much interfere with.

In the famous ball-scene of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the difficulty of keeping together the three orchestras, written in three different measures, is less than might be thought. It is sufficient to mark downwards each beat of the tempo di minuetto:—

Once entered upon the combination, the little allegro in 3/8, of which a whole bar represents one-third, or one beat of that of the minuetto, and the other allegro in 2/4, of which a whole bar represents two-thirds, or two beats, correspond with each other and with the principal theme; while the whole proceeds without the slightest confusion. All that is requisite is to make them come in properly.