and the barrier of an ocean broken down by means of wireless and aeroplane; and in every case the inventor works with old and well-known materials, being merely enabled by the power of his creative faculties (as they are erroneously called) to combine these known materials in new ways.
In the case of the musician, such creative imagination has always been recognized as a sine qua non of original composition, but its necessity has not always been so clearly felt in the case of the performer. Upon analyzing the situation it becomes evident, however, that the performer cannot possibly get from the composer his real message unless he can follow him in his imagination, and thus re-create the work. As for adding anything original to what the composer has given, this is plainly out of the question unless the interpreter is endowed somewhat extensively with creative imagination; and the possession of this quality will enable him to introduce such subtle variations from a cut-and-dried, merely accurate rendition as will make his performance seem really spontaneous, and will inevitably arouse a more enthusiastic emotional response in the listeners.
Weingartner sums up the value of imagination in the final paragraph of one of the few really valuable books on conducting at our disposal.[1]
More and more I have come to think that what decides the worth of conducting is the degree of suggestive power that the conductor can exercise over the performers. At the rehearsals he is mostly nothing more than a workman, who schools the men under him so conscientiously and precisely that each of them knows his place and what he has to do there; he first becomes an artist when the moment comes for the production of the work. Not even the most assiduous rehearsing, so necessary a prerequisite as this is, can so stimulate the capacities of the players as the force of imagination of the conductor. It is not the transference of his personal will, but the mysterious act of creation that called the work itself into being takes place again in him, and transcending the narrow limits of reproduction, he becomes a new-creator, a self-creator.
- ↑ Weingartner, On Conducting, translated by Ernest Newman, p. 56.
