The Conductor

Artist, Joan Mitchell Blumenthal, circa 1965

The conductor, a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties, is composed and calm.  He wears a blue turtleneck sweater and holds his chin high.  A baton in his right hand, a slender foot long, its far end rests lightly on the music stand.  The score is open to where all that is anticipated will begin.

Off-canvas is an orchestra, unseen, but present.  It is the army before the general, waiting to be addressed and commanded.  The musicians are attentive to the man who soon will triple-tap his baton on the edge of the metal stand.  It is to gain their full attention, which he already has, but the tapping will just be protocol, telling all, “Now, we are ready to perform.”  Then he will raise the baton.

The background is dark, pitch-black, because it is the focus on the man that counts.  He is standing upright, tall and straight, with his left hand resting easily on his hip, fingers relaxed across his mid-section.  He is patient and in control.  He conducts himself every bit as much as he conducts his orchestra, with gusto at one moment, and quietude, the next.  He is thinking, aware, and cognizant of all that is around him.

He has sharp features, high cheekbones and an angular jaw.  His hair could be seen as orderly or tousled, depending on the observer’s impression of the classic conductor.  His arms will undulate through the air, pointing, here, to the brass, there, to the woodwinds, over to percussion, and then to the strings, carrying the melody of the piece the audience so wants to hear.

He is a modern-day David, sculpted as if by Michelangelo, but in the flesh, a thought that would never occur to him.  His mind is filled with adagios and allegros, canons and concertos.

He is a man who lives the life he has chosen.  He needs the orchestra to play the music, but doesn’t really need them to hear it.  They are the tool which produces the sound of the music that is enthralling, mesmerizing, and engrossing his mind.  It is just waiting to escape, to flow down his arm, through his hand, flashing out with the flourish of his baton.  That slender piece of kindling will heat up and ignite the orchestra.  The fire—the music—they produce will spread throughout the concert hall, building from calm into frenzy, engulfing all who are fortunate to sit on the edge of their seats and feel the heat-driven passion of a full symphonic orchestra.

Then the coals seem to cool down, but the embers remain, only to reignite with the next movement calling for a crescendo, another burst of pure passion.

The orchestra converts the conductor’s thoughts into sounds that reverberate and bring glory to the music the composer has placed in the hands of this master maestro, with thousands of notes written on the staffs and played out into a fiery complexity of sound and fury.

Now he is almost set to lift his baton, ever so slightly, and hold it in another frozen moment.  Both the musicians and the audience are suspended, awaiting what they know will come, but their anticipation is no less diminished.  It is the delight in listening to, living through, and reveling in the music they will hear, which has brought them before this man.

The orchestra is utterly at the ready, and the conductor will now do what he is destined to do.  It is his life’s work—make the music come to life.  In this image, with all of this rushing through his mind, he serenely stands alone.

Tap, tap, tap….