In praise of … conductors | Editorial

It's easy to claim that orchestras would be better off with no one in charge on the podium. But just try itSir Peter Maxwell Davies, the master of the Queen's music, is giving up conducting to spend more time composing. But he has quit the podium by blowing a musical raspberry at "lazy and limited" orchestral conductors, exempting only Pierre Boulez and Simon Rattle as "real masters". Too many others, he says, do too many concerts, churn out production-line performances, and prefer to keep thing...

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