To the average layman and even a great many musicians, an orchestral score appears to be about as intricate in appearance as a blue print of a complicated engine. The simile of the blue print and the score is not inapt inasmuch as the blue print represents on paper every detail of the mechanical construction of the engine, and, likewise, the musical score is an exact description on paper of every detail of the musical composition.

No attempt will be made in this book to describe the development of the core from the days of the early Italian opera composers who did not even write out parts for the players, to our own time when hardly anything is left to the imagination of the musician, and everything is written in the music. Likewise, the aesthetic interpretation and evaluation of the musical content of the score will be left undiscussed, to make way for the presentation of the practical aspect of a methodical system of learning to read quickly and accurately the mere notes of the score.

It is related that a celebrated professional magician, in order to train his sense of vision, quickness of mental perception and memory, used to practice looking at a show window for exactly one minute and then writing down from memory the name of every article he saw therein. By practice he was enabled to increase the number of articles remembered from a relatively small number to a total which included everything in the window. Now, what the magician did with his sense of vision, quickness of mental perception, and memory is precisely what the musician must do in learning to read the full score.

Possibly the most confusing thing to the beginner in score reading is the increased demands made upon his vision. Accustomed to reading music in one or two staves, the eye is now called upon to comprehend as many as 24 to 30 staves in a glance. At first this seems an impossible task but like many other seemingly impossible tasks it can be accomplished by patient and systematic practice. Of course, every conductor has his own way of mastering a score and the author can only give his personal method. However, this method has been followed successfully by students, and in practically every case has been found successful.

It is assumed that the conductor has some ability in piano-playing. Naturally, the more the better, although it is not necessary to be equipped with the highest virtuoso technic. A knowledge of the scales and arpeggios, the ability to play Bach’s Two and Three Part Inventions and Well-Tempered Clavichord might be considered a working equipment for the conductor. Let it be explained here, that while the ideal of score reading is to be able to read and hear every note of the partitur without the aid of the piano, the value of the use of the instrument in the process of developing this ability and as a constant means of checking and proving one’s capacity is unquestioned.

The best exercise for widening or broadening the sense of vision is to practice the playing of three or more part vocal scores. A collection of early church music such as “Musica Sacra,” published by Peters, contains the most practical material. Herein are to be found in two, three, four, five, six, eight, ten and twelve parts and staves, the lovely old polyphonic works of the early Italian masters and the patient practice on these, always adding one more part, will do much toward the spreading of a sense of vision that has become limited by the habitual perusal of just one or two lines. The absolute independence of each individual part makes these polyphonic choruses highly valuable as practice material.

The second difficulty of the full score is the fact that not all of the instruments are written in the familiar clefs and many of them are transposed into different keys because of their peculiar mechanical construction.

Following the method employed in the conducting classes of the High School for Music in Berlin, the author has found the use of Bach’s chorales with each of the four parts written in a different clef, most effective in imparting the ability to transpose. These chorales should be taken from the various two-line editions (Peters, Breitkopf & Härtel, C. C. Birchard) and copied by the student on four separate lines, using the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass clefs for the respective parts.

with the Soprano clef this is the first line, with the Alto clef the third, and with the Tenor clef, the fourth. Knowing the position of middle C it should not be difficult to trace the position of the other notes of the scales. The following is an example of the old and new vocal scores:

Passion Chorale (Bach)

For variety, the student might make use of ordinary four part hymn tunes in the same manner. These chorales and hymn tunes in the old clefs must not be merely played through a few times, but are to be practiced daily until the process of playing the old clefs has become as automatic as playing in the treble and bass clefs. This will give the student the necessary mental gymnastics and make the reading and playing of the various transposing instrumental parts comparatively easy.

So much for the purely technical preparation in the process of learning to read and transcribe scores.

The following headings are descriptive of a method of score preparation generally used by modern conductors:

When a building is viewed for the first time hardly anything more than a general impression of the type of architecture, size, symmetry, and color is made upon the mind. The details of construction, materials used, number of floors, style of windows and doors are only comprehended after closer study.

At the first perusal of a score, which should always be away from the piano, the impression made is just as general as in viewing the building. Hardly more than the contour of the melody and bass, outstanding climaxes and general character can be grasped at the first reading.

Next, a reading through either with or without piano, of each individual part reveals the details of construction, and the playing on the piano of the various sections gives the harmonic and polyphonic content of the work. A practical knowledge of Instrumentation is most helpful at this stage of the work.

After this detailed study, the work should be read through mentally at about the speed of actual performance, the climaxes noted, the emotional content determined, and a diagram of the form fixed in the mind. There is always a danger of losing the perspective of the work as a whole if too much detailed study is indulged in. The ability to read and hear music without the aid of an instrument is absolutely essential for the conductor. It can be acquired to a degree by proper study. Such works as Wedge’s “Sight Singing and Ear Training” (G. Schirmer) and Robinson’s “Aural Harmony” (G. Schirmer) are invaluable helps. “Musical Form” by H. Anger (Augener) is a most practical treatise on the subject and contains clear instructions for analyzing the piano Sonatas of Beethoven and the Fugues in Bach’s “Well-tempered Clavichord.”

Upon being questioned as to his opinion of the importance of the conductor’s “ears” or hearing, Wilhelm Furtwängler, the eminent German conductor, made the following reply: “Generally considered, there is no such thing among conductors as a good or bad ‘ear.’ There is only a greater or lesser mastery of the material, that is, the score and its every detail. One can only hear individual mistakes in the complicated mass of sound when one knows completely just what the composer wanted.” (Pult and Takstock, Dec., 1925).

Of course there are conductors who learn the content of a score quickly from listening to the orchestra as they rehearse. But, it matters not how clever the conductor is, his orchestra always senses when it is being used as the means of their leader’s learning the score and their respect for him is lowered. There is a fable of a young conductor who wished to impress himself on his men by a display of sharp hearing. He secretly wrote in a false F♯ in the second bassoon part of a particularly loud and boisterous passage. At the rehearsal in the midst of the orchestral rumpus he suddenly stopped the orchestra and cried out impatiently, “F sharp, F sharp in the second bassoon is wrong,” only to be answered by the first player, “Beg pardon, Sir, the second bassoon is absent today.”

To play a full score accurately and fluently on the piano, is an art in itself and in the course of musical history we hear of only a few musicians who really could do this. Saint-Saëns, Liszt, and Von Buelow were said to be proficient in this difficult art, and undoubtedly their marvelous piano technique was a most important factor in their prima-vista score transcriptions. To fluently play a printed pianoforte arrangement of a Beethoven Symphony takes as much technique as to play one of his sonatas. We must not forget the comparative simplicity of even a Wagner score when compared with such a work as Varese’s “L’Amériques” or “The Rites of Spring” by Stravinsky, and it is just likely that any of the three masters just mentioned would have great difficulty in reading Honegger’s “Pacific 231” at the piano.

For the average conductor then, the piano does not become the supreme channel for expressing the score, but is used merely as an aid to his mental and spiritual master of its intricacies.

There still remains for discussion one phase in the work of score preparation, and that is—memory. Just as among concert players the old custom of playing from the printed page has given way to the one of playing and singing everything from memory, so have modern conductors taken to dispensing with their scores in performance.

The increased amount of preparatory work involved in memorizing a score certainly gives one an increased insight into the composition and to be freed from the necessity of reading the printed page gives a much greater authority and command in the whole attitude of the conductor at the performance. We never read of any great military commander leading his troops to battle with his eyes glued on the map, and we have all heard of the conductors who have their heads in the score when they should have the score in their heads. Arturo Toscanini memorizes every detail of the score before the first rehearsal and conducts even the rehearsals from memory. This, of course, is such miraculous achievement in the mastery of the purely technical that it ceases to be technique and becomes an integral part of the conductor’s being.

The improved gramophone with the new process records of the great orchestral, choral and operatic masterworks can be put to splendid use by the student of conducting. Score in hand, these records should be listened to until completely absorbed and then they should be conducted. The operatic arias are particularly good practice for practising the art of conducting accompaniments.

In concluding this chapter the following paragraph from Adrian Boult’s “Handbook on the Technique of Conducting” is most fitting. He says, “In conducting there is a double mental process. There is the process of thinking ahead and preparing the orchestra for what is to come, that is to say, of driving it like a locomotive. There is also the process of listening and noting difficulties and points that must be altered, in fact of watching the music, as a guard watches his train. At rehearsal the second of these is the more important. Occasionally one must take hold and drive one’s forces to the top of a climax, just as a boat’s crew on the day before the race does one minute of its hardest racing, but takes it pretty easy otherwise. The main thing at a rehearsal is to watch results and to act on them. At a performance it is the other way about—the conductor must take the lead. It is then too late to alter things like faulty balance or wrong expression, but the structure and balance of the work as a whole and the right spirit are the two things of paramount importance.”