As I noted earlier in “Suspension of Belief” one depiction in film/TV that always nauseates me is an absolutely incompetent portrayal of musical performance or direction. The most recent such “gagamaggot” butchery of a depiction of musical direction I’ve seen was given by Academy Award-winning director Peter Dougan Capaldi in an acting role in the 2006 Midsomer Murders episode, Death in Chorus, where he played a “perfectionist” choral director. Badly. Very, very badly. I’d walk out of the first rehearsal run by someone as incompetent as the director as portrayed by this yutz.
*sigh*
And the actors and the director of the episode apparently didn’t know any better, either.
Gagamaggot.
A few minor points in illustration:
The “conductor” stops rehearsal at one point by means of some meaningless arm-waving and shouting, which results in a ragged tapering off of the chorus’s singing. Why? Probably because whoever wrote the thing had no idea how musical direction works (when done properly), nor did the director or the actor playing the part. The most basic amateur music groups I ever directed would cease together, cleanly, upon receiving a simple”release” from me. It’s one of the most basic of conducting gestures, essential in any conductor’s repertoire and used ALL THE TIME by even the most minimally competent director.
And what does this idiot shout at the chorus about? Not “coming off the line cleanly”! *sheesh* As if they could given the fact that he has no idea how to cleanly indicate an ictuslet alone a simple release.
And what was that idiot doing holding his left hand in that awkward position? It indicated nothing, accomplished nothing and was little more than a distracting hand-wave. Useless. (With such a small group, in such a compact venue, the piece conducted in the offensive opening scene really needed nothing but sensible use of one hand, anyway. The yutz wasn’t in front of a symphony orchestra with a 100-voice chorus, after all!)
Economy, efficiency (and they are not the same thing) and clarity: the three “watch dogs” of good conducting–of even marginally competent conducting.
I recall an experience 16 years ago when I approached the director of an Army band after a local concert, tossed a quick sketch of a release and simply said, “Dr. Elizabeth Green, right?” and smiled. The director responded, “Right!” and we were off into a discussion of the program on a footing of mutual understanding that we had both had decent grounding in some musical basics, at least.
It’d be impossible to establish any sort of musical common ground with an idiot like Capaldi, from the evidence of his portrayal of a choral conductor.