[George] Bernard Shaw won the Nobel Prize in literature 99 years ago this year, in 1925. Three years later, he responded to a request from a young director seeking advice, and that letter was later published as a pamphlet titled “The Art of Rehearsal.”
Shaw made his start as a music critic, later writing for The Star, which was an evening paper in London. He wrote under the pen-name “Corno di Bassetto” (Italian for Basset Horn). and was known for his unmistakable, lacerating wit; he once complained of a singer that his diction was, “no more artistic than the diction of the Stock Exchange.”^1
He is known best, for his collection of over 60 plays including arguably his most enduring work, Pygmalion, known to many musical theater lovers by its adaptation, My Fair Lady, the film version of which starred Audrey Hepburn.
The Art of Rehearsal ^2 offers an array of gems which any theater director could make use of, but also adapts quite well to the dynamics of musical rehearsal, theatrical or otherwise. Here are five topics I enjoyed exploring through Shaw’s eyes:
Make a Plan
"If before you begin rehearsing you sit down to the manuscript of your play and work out all the stage business; so that you know where every speech is to be spoken... then you will at the first rehearsal get a command of the production that nothing will shake after ward.” (10)
Marin Alsop says that when going to into rehearsal, “I always have a plan.” Shaw would appreciate this! When I coach other conductors, one of the activities we sometimes work on is equipping ourselves for rehearsal with a thoroughgoing plan, anticipating the coordination issues that might arise and preparing remedies for each. Alsop even described rehearsing her planned rehearsal feedback with a stopwatch as a young conductor so that she could budget her time and edit her verbiage.
In his beautifully written and designed new book, The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, Adam Moss details the process of many artists as they iterate towards their final work. He describes a process that the writers at the HBO series Veep used to work out their ideas, a process they called Alts, in which they’d try a joke many different ways but almost scientifically permutate through different versions, altering only one variable at a time, until they found the best version of the joke. I think of Alsop’s process as a great example of alts, and one geared towards Shaw’s advice - work it all out in advance!
Be Kind and Courteous
“Don't criticize. If a thing is wrong and you don't know exactly how to set it right, say nothing.” (7)
Grammy-Winning Baritone Lucas Meachem offers wise council in his Ten Commandments of Rehearsal, reminding us that, “kindness goes a long way,” offering suggestions like, “congratulate your colleagues for their successes. Show respect to all those in the rehearsal, not just the conductor and director. Be honest and apologize when you make a mistake. Remember to consider others.” This is critical advice for singer, instrumentalist, and conductor alike!
Shaw later writes:
"If you get angry, and complain that you have repeatedly called attention, etc., like a schoolmaster, you will destroy the whole atmosphere in which art breathes, and make a scene which is not in the play, and a very disagreeable and invariably unsuccessful scene at that." (8-9)
It’s a conductor’s job to provide great suggestions for improvement, and that most often implies a deficit, but framing in the positive goes a long way to help create a glide path to success. Conductor David Hoose suggests that, rather than complain to the oboist that the pitch was a little low, instead ask, “could that be a little higher?” A simple change of frame changes the critical and demanding to the aspirational and collaborative!
Don’T Flood
“Remember (particularly during the irritable stage) that you must not tell an actor too much all at once… Not more than two or three important things can be borne at [a time]… and don't mention trifles,” That is, “[d]on't mention any thing that doesn't really matter.” (8)
In an effort to develop my communication skills, both on and off the podium, I read a fantastic book by Mudita Nisker and Dan Klurman last year called Let’s Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication. In it, I learned about a variety of concepts, one of which is called Flooding. In short - speak in paragraphs or sentences, not essays.
Young conductors may sometimes veer off of the middle way and into one of two camps: (1) unsure of what to say or how to fix something, and (2) aware of many things to work on and eager to express them all. The trick is giving musicians just enough to help them and generally speaking, no more than that.
Know When to Hold and When to Fold
“don't say when it doesn't come right: ‘We must go on at this until we get it, if we have to stay here all night’: the schoolmaster again.” (10)
Whether you work with school-age musicians or not, the term schoolmaster is not desirable. Per Brevig, conductor and former principal trombone of the Metropolitan Opera for 26 years, once remarked on the importance of knowing when to let things go. I once watched him contend with a string section who simply had not prepared a tricky but reasonable mixed-meter passage up to a professional standard. In that context, everyone, including the section, knew quite well that they were unprepared, but Brevig never uttered a cross word. After devoting an appropriate effort to help get the close, he wisely moved on.
“If it goes wrong, it will go wronger with every repetition on the same day. Leave it until next time.” (9)
I’ve made that mistake once or twice. Once, I worked with a wonderful orchestra and at the end of a rehearsal, I elected to jump to a different spot in the movement so I could get a minute or two of time on a tricky transition before we broke for the evening. Maybe a good idea in the abstract, but coming as it was at the very end of the night, it was a gamble. I was both determined to fix one last thing, and to end with a win, but it wasn’t to be. One particular wind player was struggling with that spot and felt a bit mentally jammed at that hour, as they later disclosed to me. I channeled Per Brevig and did not complain, but I did ask to do it a couple more times; in the end, I was not able to obtain a successful repetition before I ran out of time.
Everything worked out in the next rehearsal, which is exactly what would have happened if I had let it slide the previous night. Lesson learned!
Come Ready to Work
“Be prepared for a spell of hard work. The incessant strain on one's attention (the actors have their exits and rests; but the producer is hard at it all the time), the social effort of keeping up everyone's spirits in view of a great event, the dryness of the previous study of the mechanical details, daunt most authors. But if you have not enough energy to face all that, you had better keep out of the theatre and trust to a professional producer.” (10-11)
Conductor, Composer, Pianist, and French Hornist Gunther Schuller wrote that “conducting is the most demanding, musically all-embracing, and complex of the various disciplines that constitute the field of music performance.”^3 Leadership takes a lot of work! Conducting is a privilege in the extreme, and at times, it can be a workload in the extreme. Shaw here captures the dynamic of a theater rehearsal just as well as an orchestral rehearsal.
1. Bernard Shaw, "12 October, 1892," in Music in London 1890-94, vol. 2 (New York: Vienna House, 1973), 170.
2. Bernard Shaw, The Art of Rehearsal (New York: S. French, 1928). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b304399
3. Gunther Schuller, The Compleat Conductor (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1997), 2.