Tom Service on today's orchestra conductors

'Conductors are like football managers'It's a truth universally assumed that today's conductors differ from their despotic forebears. You won't find Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez or Daniel Barenboim bawling out orchestras the way Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan or Fritz Reiner once did. Musicians no longer cower in fear, scared the maestro will sack them for fluffing their top notes, as Toscanini and Reiner were fond of doing.Today, democrats have replaced despots. Watching Rattle, Claudio A...

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