interpretation in music is merely the process or means for securing the larger thing called expression, and in discussing this larger thing, the activity of two persons is always assumed; one is the composer, the other the performer. Which of these two is the more important personage has been for many decades a much mooted question among concert-goers. Considered from an intellectual standpoint, there is no doubt whatever concerning the supremacy of the composer; but when viewed in the light of actual box office experience, on an evening when Caruso or some other popular idol has been slated to appear, and cannot do so because of indisposition, it would seem as if the performer were still as far above the composer as he was in the days of eighteenth-century opera in Italy.
It is the composer's function to write music of such a character that when well performed it will occasion an emotional reaction on the part of performer and listener. Granting this type of music, it is the function of the performer or conductor to so interpret the music that an appropriate emotional reaction will actually ensue. A recent writer calls the performer a messenger from the composer to the audience, and states[1] that—
As a messenger is accountable to both sender and recipient of his message, so is the interpretative artist in a position of twofold trust and, therefore, of twofold responsibility. The sender of his message—creative genius—is behind him; before him sits an expectant and confiding audience, the sovereign addressee. The interpretative artist has, therefore, first to enter into the spirit of his message; to penetrate its ultimate meaning; to read in, as well as between, the lines. And then he has to train and develop his faculties of delivery, of vital production, to such a degree as to enable him to fix his message decisively, and with no danger of being misunderstood, in the mind of his auditor.
This conception of the conductor's task demands from him two things:
- ↑ Constantin von Sternberg, Ethics and Esthetics of Piano Playing, p. 10.
