Conductors...what's the point of them?

Essential performers of the classical repertoire, or egotistical monsters incapable of making any actual music?

Let's investigate...

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[Lalunez]

I was at a Bach concert and the orchestra and the singers did not look at the conductor once, but that dude was going crazy with his hands. Not sure why he was there but I guess he must have been important.

[alfa_kenny_body]

Honestly I wasn't expecting such a great video
Subscribed!

[classicalperformances]

thanks for adding one female conductor( Lydia Tar) to this entertaining spoof🙂that's not at all a nightmare I had once the movie was announced

[georgealderson]

More entertaining than I had expected but less informative than I had hoped!
I would like to have known the names of all the conductors featured if only for curiosity. However
thank you for your work and I hope you will continue making more videos.

[ZoltanLehr]

Think about it this way. Contractors are like supervisors if everyone in the team does as they supposed to then they are not needed but some people just can't be left to their own devices

[eyolfos]

A couple of brilliant points and one-liners here. The notion of the conductor as the storyteller is my main takeaway, and the punchline that ends the video is actually hilarious. No spoilers here – watch it till the end!

[diegomontilva]

Really well done video, deserves more views

[paules]

It would have been helpful to examine the strange phenomenon of conductors with bizarre baton technique, who just wave their baton about, or, worse, like Gergiev, who just wiggles his hands. Also, conductors love to "shape" the musical phrase physically, as if waving their hands somehow actually changes the sound. At such moments, they are giving music " a local habitation and a name, " as Shakespeare said, but no amount of gesturing can actually change the sound emanating from the orchestra... unless they're conducting with a baton from Harry Potter's favorite wand shop.

[harringtonvo]

Still not buying it. The musicians are always focused on the sheet music… these dudes seem like glorified cheerleaders. Just sayin

[yodorob]

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York is conductor-less and seems to do just fine, with the musicians themselves defining the score.

[maksimivanov]

The explanation still seems incomplete as it doesn't really cover why some pieces, like Mozart's piano concertos, are still successfully performed without a conductor these days, meanwhile most of other performances do use the conductor. OK, one could say later compositions (say, Rachmaninoff's concertos) are probably too complex and require too large orchestras to be played without a conductor, but why do we see this inconsistency around concertos by Mozart or Haydn or their predecessors?..

[andrewsinkinson]

Light travels faster than sound. There. Solved. Visual cue all working together regardless of distance

[poisonpotato]

Theyre just wizards practicing casting spells with their wand you aint fooling me

[bruceweaver]

This documentary failed to show a clip of arguably the greatest conductor of The Twentieth Century: Sir Georg Solti. In the “Orchestra” series he goes into great detail of what his job is, why it is important, and his important role with the players. The Rock Music has got to go! Replace with Prokofiev “Romeo and Juliet.”

[soyeux]

Thank you for this excellent video ! BTW, can you tell us the name of the rock song at the end of the video?

[CatManDoom]

I get it kinda, but for the most part no hah. If the maestro/conductor writes the music, sure. But i dont get whey they are on stage when most of, if not all the actual performers arent even looking at him. Its kinda like modern DJs. Yeah they made the songs, but there is little to no point of a person being on stage fiddling around with minor dials nobody knows what is being done while said song is being played.They can "tweak things" for sure live.But yeah. And i love EDM and classical music hah!

[qwjs]

I used to think they were pointless.
Saw one earlier and decided i gotta look this up and now i know they're not 👍

[slizzardshroomer]

Conductors are Coaches. Any Conductors claiming more than that is a fraud.

[mxetmnu]

As a professional musician, I never watch a conductor.

[countluke]

Do you have conductors you like more than others, even favourites? Now that Karajan is probably not among them (any more)?