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Curtain rising, baton falling: The politics of musical conducting in contemporary Argentina

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Abstract

This article gives an ethnographic account of the several processes under which a charismatic conductor is de-legitimized, exploring the relationship between institutions and charisma in an art world where the authority of the cultural producer is diminished by the management of everyday interaction. The article shows how, in Argentina, the politics of musical conducting are shaped by four institutional worlds. They range from the macro economic cultural policies of the diverse state agencies to the everyday interaction world of orchestra musicians, and include meso-processes and mechanisms like the field of musical conducting. This article explores the structure and ideologies of the four institutional worlds, their interplay, the concrete practices that shaped them, their struggles, and how they overlap in causing the diminishing power of charisma. In undertaking this endeavor, the article systematizes the existing sociological corpus on the orchestral world in order to sketch a more complex and complete picture of hierarchies and interactions.

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Notes

  1. One of the best examples of de-legitimization is Richard Sennet’s analysis of Savanarola’s fate. Sennett, R. (1974). Charismatic de-legimation. A case study. Theory and Society, 2. For a musical example, see Sargeant’s account of the victory of Toscanini over Willem Mengelberg. Sargeant, W. (1949). Geniuses, goddesses and people. New York: Dutton.

  2. Liut, M. (1994). Pedro Ignacio Calderón asumió la dirección de la Sinfónica Nacional. La Maga (January 12); Riera, D., & Sánchez, F. (1992). Un conflicto de poderes enfrenta a la Sinfónica con la Secretaría de Cultura. La Maga (May 20); Riera, D., & Sánchez, F. (1992). Los músicos de la Sinfónica Nacional no están conformes con su nuevo director. La Maga (March 3). Riera, D., & Sánchez, F. (1992). Una polémica mantiene paralizada a la mayor orquesta argentina. La Sinfónica Nacional no tiene director y sus delegados permanecen suspendidos. La Maga (April 29).

  3. Several other orchestras have followed this path and dismissed their principal conductor. For instance, the Córdoba Symphony ousted their conductor after 16 years (1982–1988), the Tucuman Orchestra lost their conductor after 12 uninterrupted years (1988–2000), the San Juan Orchestra after six (1989–1995), and the Mar del Plata Orchestra replaced theirs after 10 years (1986–1996). Also, the Colon Opera Orchestra hasn’t had a principal conductor for most of the 1990s decade.

  4. See, respectively, Faulkner, R. (1974). Career concerns and mobility motivations of orchestra musicians. Sociological Quarterly, 14; (1983a) Orchestra interaction: Communication and authority in an artistic organization. In J. Kamermann, & R. Martorella, op. cit.; Kamermann, J. (1983a) Symphony conducting as an occupation. In J. Kamermann, & R. Martorella, op. cit.; (1983b), Conductors’ interpretative style. In J. Kamermann, & R. Martorella, op. cit.; (1990) review of ‘A History of Orchestral Conducting in Theory and Practice by Elliot W. Galkin,’ Contemporary Sociology 19(6); Kamermann, J. & Martorella, R. (1983). Performers and performances. South Handley: Bergin & Garvey; Arian, E. (1971). Bach, Beethoven and Bureaucracy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press; Sennett, R. (1977). The fall of public man. New York: Alfred Knopf; Couch, S. R. (1982). Patronage and organizational structure in symphony orchestra in London and New York. In J. Kamermann, & R. Martorella, op. cit.; Attali, J. (1985). Noise. The political economy of music. Durham: Duke University Press; Galkin, E. (1988). A history of orchestral conducting in theory and practice. New York: Pendragon; Born, G. (1995). Rationalizing culture. Berkeley: University of California Press; Horowitz, I. (1987). Understanding Toscanini. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

  5. See Becker, H. (1982). Art worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press.

  6. Weber, M. (1946). The Sociology of Charismatic Authority. In H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.

  7. Among others, the works of Gross, A. & Parker, R. (1986). La boheme. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lindenberger, H. (1984). Opera. The extravagant art. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; (1998) Opera in history. From Monteverdi to Cage. Stanford: Stanford University Press; Buch, E. (1999). La neuviene de Beethoven. Une historire politique. Paris: Gallimard; Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books; (1991) Culture and imperialism. New York: Alfred Knopf; Weber, W. (1975). Music and the middle classes: The social structure of concert life in London, Paris and Vienna. New York: Holmes & Meier; Clement, C. (1988). Opera or the undoing of women. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; Hutcheon, L. & Hutcheon, M. (1996) Opera and disease. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; (2000) Bodily charm. Living opera. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; and Robinson, P. Opera and Ideas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  8. R. Sennett, 1977; Gerhard, A. (1998) The urbanization of opera. New York: Columbia University Press; Ahlquist, K. (1998). Democracy at the Opera. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

  9. DiMaggio, P. (1986). Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts. New York: Oxford University Press; (1987) Nonprofit organizations in the production and distribution of culture. In W.W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector. New Haven: Yale University Press; (1987) Classification in art. American Sociological Review, 52; Cultural boundaries and structural change: The extension of the high culture model to theater, opera and the dance, 1900–1940. In Lamont and Fournieur (Eds.), op. cit., 21–57; (1999) Emprendimiento cultural en el Boston del siglo XIX: la creación de una base organizativa para la alta cultura en Norteamérica. In J. Auyero (Eds.), Caja de Herramientast. Buenos Aires: Quilmes University Press; 163–198; Levine, L. (1988). Highbrow and lowbrow. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Johnson, J. (1998). Listening in Paris. Berkeley: University of California Press.

  10. Zolberg, V. (1990). Constructing a sociology of the arts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Myers, F., & Marcus, G. (1995). The traffic in culture. Berkeley: University of California Press; Geertz, C. (1994). El arte como sistema cultural. In Conocimiento local. Barcelona: Paidós; Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson (Eds.)(1991), Rethinking Popular Culture. Berkeley and London: University of California Press.

  11. Peterson, R. (1976). The Production of culture. Sage: Beverly Hills; Kadushin, C. (1976). Networks and circles in the production of culture. In R. Peterson (Ed.), The Production of culture. Beverly Hills: Sage.

  12. Research on the production of culture has focused on such subjects as the nature of culture industries: Hirsch, P. (1972). Processing fads and fashions. American Journal of Sociology, 77; Peterson, R. & Berger, D. G. (1975). Cycles in symbol production. American Sociological Review, 40.; Crane, D. (1992). The Production of Culture. London: Sage.; the tension between cultural production and the bureaucratic organization of institutions: Arian, 1971; Born, 1995; the relationship between the organizations and the characteristics of the cultural products: DiMaggio, 1987; Blau, J., 1988. The Shape of Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.; the role of critics and gatekeepers in the formation of taste: Shrum, W. (1996). Fringe and fortune. The role of critics in high and popular are. Princeton: Princeton University Press.; Sarfatti-Larson, M. (1993). Behind the postmodern facade. Berkeley: University of California Press; the types of cultural markets: Towse, R. (1993). Singers in the marketplace: The economics of the singing profession. Oxford: Claredon.; Plattner, S. (1996). High art down home. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; and careers in cultural production, moving closer to the sociology of professions: Faulkner, 1983; Kamermann and Martorella, 1983; White, H. & White, C. (1965). Canvases and careers. New York: Wiley.

  13. It is probably in Howard Becker’s Art Worlds that we find the first systematic effort of the ‘production of culture’ school. Becker not only formalizes the cultural frame for production of culture, but actualizes some of his ideas about the production of culture and symbolic interactionism presented in Outsiders. The concept of ‘art world’ enables him to argue that the products of the world of cultural production are fruits of collective labor – that art labor is based on cooperative networks and division of labor. Like science for Kuhn, the world of cultural production is based on known and recognized conventions by producers, distributors, and consumers. This clustered network of production, circulation, distribution, and consumption and the recognized and shared conventions make the cultural product more effective and less costly. Becker, H. (1963). Outsiders. Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York: Free.

  14. Richard Sennett (1977) has focused extensively on charisma in music and the birth of the orchestral conductor. However, he has mostly referred to its relations with the audience and the discipline of silence and not with the other performers linking power to a believable public personality. He has dealt mostly with the conductor as the recipient of projections of charisma and mystery (Born, 1995). Another noteworthy work in the same perspective is Irving Horowitz’s Understanding Toscanini. I am combining Sennett’s standpoint with a Weberian perspective on charisma and authority inside the orchestral world.

  15. I have relied heavily on seven key informants, a consecrated conductor, two rank-and-file violin players (one from each major symphony orchestra in the City of Buenos Aires), two young conductors, one successfully studying in the United States, the second virtually unemployed, a female cello player from the Argentino Opera Orchestra, and a young Buenos Aires’ based composer. I have also extensively used newspapers interviews, reviews, and articles and the diverse orchestras’ seasons that constitute Argentina’s organizational system of orchestras from 1997 to 2001 as well as the CV of the conductors. While I use the names of the orchestras and institutions, to protect their identity I have not used the actual names of the players, students, or conductors involved.

  16. Clifford, J. (1988). The predicament of culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  17. See Wolff, J. (1983). Aesthetics and the sociology of art. London: Allen & Unwin.

  18. Dilthey’s Verstehen seems to be the conceptual frame more suited for this kind of comprehensive understanding. In it, the ethnographic authority is based in “sharing a common experience.” Experience that is constituted and reconstituted in a “common sphere,” and works as the frame of reference all “texts,” “events,” “facts,” and their interpretations are confronted against.

  19. Bourdieu, 1984:289.

  20. These are the musical worlds studied by the available literature. Cf. Arian, 1971; Faulkner, 1974a, 1974b; Couch, 1983; Kammermann, 1983a, 1983b, 1988; Born, 1995; Galkin, 1988; Horowitz, 1987; Hennion, A. (1993). La Passion Musicale. Une sociologie de la mediation. Paris: Métaillé.

  21. See Plattner, 1996.

  22. The Metropolitan Opera reported that their Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, James Levine, commands US $1.7 million per year. He is also the conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and after the 2004 season of the Boston Symphony, guest conducts at Vienne, Salzburg, Bayreuth, and Berlin. He was also the conductor for the ‘Three Tenors concert,’ charging around US $500,000 per performance.

  23. The name per se is suggestive as the ‘Direction’ he is in command of did not exist under that name and most of the official administrative offices were called National Direction of Music, National Council of the Arts, etc. The national government also created a new Direction, under the guidance of the Culture Secretary to be called “Direction of Special Events” that guides the Festivals policy. At the end of 2001, the government decided to change the status of the Culture Secretary and created the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, thus making more obvious the link between culture and tourism investment.

  24. Marabotto, E. (2001). La Cultura también se come. Clarín (March 4).

  25. For a detailed argument of the concept linked to the conceptual frame of the cultural action paradigms, please see Canclini, N. G. (1987). Políticas culturales y crisis de desarrollo: un balance latinoamericano. In G. Canclini (Ed.), Políticas culturales en América Latina (pp. 13–61). Grijalbo: México. Also see, Brunner, J. J. (1992). La mano visible y la mano invisible. In América Latina: Cultura y modernidad. Grijalbo: México.

  26. ‘Dirección de música sin fondos,’ La Nación, July 6, 2001.

  27. Both the San Juan Symphony Orchestra and the Tucumán Orchestra were under the same burden. They had about US $1,700 per month to spend on each guest conductor. Even worst were the perspectives of both the Mar del Plata and the Bahia Blanca Symphony, their continuity endangered by cuts on the municipal budgets.

  28. Call to public competition to appoint a new conductor for the Santa Fe State Orchestra at Rosario. Official documentation at www.santafegov.ar/cultura/concursos.html.

  29. Rosario, con batuta santafesina. El Litoral, April 10, 2001.

  30. For instance, the 2000 and 2001 seasons of the Córdoba Symphony were sponsored by the state lottery, a private university, two local banks, and a national express courier firm.

  31. Rubinich, L. (1992). Tomar la cultura del pueblo. Bajar la cultura al pueblo. Buenos Aires: GECUSO; Gonzalez, H. (1992) La Realidad Satírica. Buenos Aires: Paradiso Ediciones.

  32. Dubatti, J. (1995). Batato Barea y el Nuevo Teatro Argentino. Buenos Aires: Temas de Hoy; Hernán Nazer (1997) La oposición moderno/tradicional en el campo cultural argentino. paper presented at the 3rd National Conference of Sociology, Buenos Aires.

  33. Julio Bocca has redefined the place of classical dance in contemporary Argentina. Starting very young, at age 14, he won several international prizes and become a soloist at the American Ballet Theater. When back in Argentina, he usually dances in non-conventional spaces, such as rock stadiums, thus popularizing classical and contemporary dance. He was chosen as one of the characters most representative of Argentina during the 1990s in a poll by Noticias magazine and in an essay of the Clarín newspaper.

  34. Adorno, T. W. (1973). Philosophy of Modern Music. New York: Seabury; In Search of Wagner. New York: Seabury, 1981.

  35. Among others, Rubinich, L. (1992) Algunos significados de la palabra gorila. Apuntes de Invetigación, 7 (Buenos Aires: Fundación del Sur-CECYP, 2001); James, D. (1988). Resistance and Integration. Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Auyero, J. (2000). Poor People’s Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.

  36. Neiburg, 1999; Altamirano, 1998 and 2000, and Terán, 1992.

  37. Auyero, 2000, 188.

  38. I understand as “cultural policy” Garcia Canclini’s 1987 definition of it. This is: “The set of activities planned by the State, the Civil Society and/or community groups in order to direct the symbolic development, satisfy the cultural necessities of the population and obtain consensus for an specific social order.”

  39. Alberto Ciria has argued that Peronism historically highlighted the role of high culture in the construction of a national identity. Not only have they created orchestras like the Mar del Plata Orchestra, the National Symphony, the San Juan University, and the State Orchestra, but they have created the classical music service of the State Radio and its Youth Orchestra. Ciria, A. (1980). Peronismo y Antiperonismo. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina.

  40. See García Canclini, 1987; Subercaseaux, 1986; and Brunner, 1992. In the US context, see Gans, H. (1999). High culture and popular culture. An analysis and evaluation of taste. New York: Basic Books (revised edition).

  41. See Lipovetsky, G. (1997). El Crepúsculo del Deber. Barcelona: Anagrama.

  42. Emotivo reencuentro de los platenses con su Teatro. El Día, October 13, 1999.

  43. Giorello, E. (1999). Todo Mendelssohn en el Teatro Argentino. El Dia (November 16); Vera, R. V. (1999). Gíntoli salió airoso de su lucha con el sonido. La Nación (November 11).

  44. For years, every time a cultural product from either popular or high culture was considered worthy, the popular chanted expression to denote it was: Al Colón, al Colón.

  45. Mar del Plata has a city sponsored orchestra that was created in the 1940s, and Mar del Plata is one of the other two cities of the state that have an Orchestra.

  46. Le ofrecieron a Ruckauf un papel en la ópera-ballet Edipo Rey. El Día, October 30, 2000.

  47. Músicos en campaña, Clarín, March 18, 2001; Ghitta, V. H. (2001). Zapatillas, si y teatro también. La Nación (March 18).

  48. There is a free bus from the door of the Colón Opera House to the Argentino Theater the day of the performance. This is a more direct way of “stealing” the opera lovers from “Argentina’s First Coliseum.”

  49. The Salta Orchestra project follows the guidelines of the Venezuelan state orchestras. They are trying to create a new audience as well as new players. They are having youth and children’s concerts and concerts in the inner part of the state. They are sponsoring chamber groups, youth orchestras, and a school of luthiers.

  50. See Zukin, S. (2001). How to create a cultural capital: Reflections on urban markets and places. In I. Blazwick (Ed.), Century city. London: Tate Modern., to understand the relation between “buzz” and the artistic mode of production in contemporary cities that link tourism and culture.

  51. Performing at the Colón is a way of showing that the orchestra can perform at the top level. The Tucumán Orchestra (1996), the San Juan University Orchestra (1975), the Mar del Plata Symphony (1988), and the City Symphony Band (2001) have performed there. The Salta Symphony Orchestra planned a performance there for the 2002 season.

  52. Arian (1971) has shown this same relationship between musical conservatism and the corporate patrons of the Philadelphia Orchestra. A closer look at the Córdoba Symphony Orchestra and at the Argentino Opera Orchestra shows that they did not include a single contemporary work and the only Argentinean composition performed is a standard from the early twentieth century (Carlos López Bouchardo), keeping their play inside the standard canon for Symphony orchestras (Beethoven, Debussy, Brahms, Stravinsky, Bartok, Musorgsky, Fauré, Liszt, Dvorak, Mahler). A look at the rest of the season programming shows the same conservative spiri,t as we found repeated cycles of “Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies” (Córdoba 2000 and Mendoza 2000), “Beethoven’s five piano concerts” (Santa Fe 2001), “Our pianists” series (Cuyo 2001 and La Plata 2001), and “The Music and the Nations” (Tucumán 1997, Córdoba 2001, and Mendoza 2001). Verdi’s Requiem was programmed during 2001 by Mendoza, Santa Fe, Rosario, OSN, OFBA, and Córdoba.

  53. See Bourdieu, P. (1983). Campo de poder y campo intelectual. Buenos Aires: Folios; (1988) Espacio social y poder simbólico. In Cosas dichas. Buenos Aires: Gedisa; El campo intelectual: Un mundo aparte. In op. cit.; (1990) Alta costura y alta cultura,’ in Sociología y cultura. México: Grijalbo. Algunas propiedades de los campos. In op. cit.; (1992) Las reglas del arte. Barcelona: Anagrama.

  54. See Max Weber’s classic articles “Politics as a Vocation” and “Science as a Vocation,” included in Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber, Oxford University Press, 1946 edition.

  55. Peterson, R. (1986). From impresario to arts administrator. In P. DiMaggio (Ed.), Non profit enterprise in the arts. New York: Oxford University Press.

  56. This is the main argument of Weber, S. (1993). Taking place: Toward a theater of dislocation. In D. Levin (Ed.), Opera through other eyes (pp. 107–144). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  57. The Director has invited himself to conduct one of the top Youth Orchestras during the 2002 season, profiting from the home the National Direction of Music has given to the orchestra during 2001.

  58. Elias, N. (1983). The court society. New York: Pantheon., and (1993) Mozart. Portrait of a genius. Berkeley: California University Press.

  59. Faulkner, R. (1974). Career concerns and mobility motivations of orchestra musicians. Sociological Quarterly, 14, 143.

  60. These prizes are awarded every 10 years and represent an index for the ranking of importance of the orchestras as it is awarded by a jury of specialists (critics, musicologists, and retired musicians).

  61. During his tenure, especially in the 1998 and 1999 seasons, he did not include any work or commission by Argentinean composers.

  62. Gran Velada de la Filarmónica. Los Andes, June 1, 2001.

  63. Over the last seasons there have arrived from Venezuela: Riazuelo (Santa Fe 2000 and 2001), Rugeles (Santa Fe 2001), Rahn (Santa Fe 2000 and Cuyo 2001), Amaya (Tucumán 1999), and the Principal Conductor of the Salta Symphony Orchestra; and from México: Díaz Muñoz (OSN 1997 and 2000 and OFBA 1997), Diemecke (OFBA 2000 and 2001), Carrasco (Santa Fe 2001), Barrios (OSN 2001), and Ibarra (Cuyo 2000). Unlike Argentina, those two countries have a national system of youth orchestras that produces high quality players and conductors. As Rice 1996 suggests for Bulgarian music, there has been a close relation between the extension of social rights during the populist and welfare state in those countries and the social organization of music through formal, large, fixed, and directed groups. The Venezuelan program started in 1973 and has taken away many children and young people from the shantytowns and turned them into musicians and luthiers. México started its own similar program near the end of the 1980s under the sponsorship of the OAS and UNESCO. In Argentina, similar enterprises (The Colón Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Libertador San Martín Youth Orchestra, the University o Rosario Youth Orchestra, the Córdoba city Child and Youth Orchestras) have been diminished by the absence of a national plan of youth orchestras, lack of funding, and the low chances of developing young conductors. On the contrary, most of the youth orchestras of Venezuela have developed into full fledged symphony orchestras and their young conductors, nourished by an OAS Fellowship Program, have developed into principal conductors of those orchestras. See Rice, T. (1996). The dialectic of economics and aesthetics in Bulgarian Music. In M. Slobin (Ed.), Returning culture: Musical changes in central and eastern Europe (pp. 176–199). Durham: Duke University Press.

  64. Riera, D. & Sánchez, F. (1992). Una polémica mantiene paralizada a la mayor orquesta argentina. La Sinfónica Nacional no tiene director y sus delegados permanecen suspendidos. La Maga (April 29).

  65. Riera, D. & Sánchez, F. (1992). Los músicos de la Sinfónica Nacional no están conformes con su nuevo director. La Maga (March 3).

  66. Liut, M. (1999). En agosto regresará la Mayo. La Nación (July 23).

  67. Schutz, A. (1964). Making music together. In Collected Papers II. Studies in Social Theory. The Hague: Martinus Nihjoff.

  68. Galkin (1988) and Adorno, T. W.(1976). Introduction to the Sociology of Music. New York: Seabury., refer extensively to the failure of the Soviet symphony orchestras that experimented playing without a conductor.

  69. Kamermann (1990) makes the case for a non-deterministic model of the development of the conducting profession, by showing that the single leadership arose at varying rates in different places and from different sources.

  70. The few exceptions are the OFBA 2001 program and the 2001 season by the OSN, which abound in new compositions (11) by Argentinean composers.

  71. Among others, we can cite during 2001 the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Banco Nacion, Fundación San Rafael, Ars Nobilis, AMIA, and Museo Fernández Blanco seasons. Among other groups, we can name the Camerata Bariloche, the La Plata Chamber Orchestra, the Buenos Aires Chamber Orchestra, the Spring Chamber Orchestra, the San Telmo and the Argentino trio, the CEAMCE quintet, etc.

  72. After the dissolution of the State Radio Youth Orchestra, some orchestras have assumed the task of training individual players into orchestra musicians. However, some of them work as para-professional orchestras of cities with small budgets (like Lanús, Hurlingham, Quilmes, and San Martín). Among the ones that work as school orchestras, I want to cite the Colón Opera House Youth Orchestra, the Libertador San Martín Symphony, the Córdoba Youth and Children Symphony, and the University of Rosario Symphony. The National Conservatory has a small orchestra that is seldom used by the students; the Catholic University and the La Plata School of Music do not have a school or youth orchestra to perform or practice in. At present, these are considered to be the most representative musical pedagogic institutions.

  73. There is a strong difference accordingly to the played instrument. Violas, French horns, and bass are very much looked after by Argentinean Orchestras. For instance, some of the French horn players of the NSO play at the Colón Opera Orchestra, even though both are full time jobs. The same happened between the NSO and the City Philharmonic, which share the bass soloist. Instruments like violins and flutes, however, are in abundance. Some of the youth orchestras, for instance, have so many flutes that all the players rotate from concert to concert.

  74. The only exception was the Cuyo University Orchestra, which had eight orchestral soloists during a season of 14 concerts.

  75. Stephen R. Couch, “Patronage and Organizational Structure in Symphony Orchestra in London and New York,” in Kamerman and Martorella, op. cit.

  76. Riera, D. & Sánchez, F.(1992). Un conflicto de poderes enfrenta a la Sinfónica con la Secretaría de Cultura. La Maga (Buenos Aires, May 20).

  77. An important feature is the presence of a music-broker (in the case of the orchestra I worked for, MB, second chair of the City Philharmonic, and first of the chamber group) who secures the freelance musicians and guarantees his own progress within the scale of prestige, reputation, and power. I attended some of the meetings where he and the conductor pinpointed the names of the desired players. He knew most of them either from his job at the City Philharmonic (he usually recommended the union delegates) or by his work as a freelance player at recording companies (playing as background for pop music) and at Broadway-like musicals. He created his own network of musicians and had a certain inter-dependence with the conductors in the decisions on whom to call.

  78. Americans call these orchestras pick-up orchestras. Venezuelans call them “vente tu” (You, come!) orchestras. In Argentina, they are considered “changas” or “curros,” which are words normally used for informal kinds of jobs.

  79. According to one of the juries of the contest for principal conductor at Rosario, the bases of it were violated when the musicians asked not for a Curriculum and Project contest, but for a competitive contest where all conductors were called to perform. The bases stipulated that “they would call competitive contest only if the participants presented the same curriculum.” As a result of that, all the important conductors deserted the competition and the finals were conducted with just 13 of the 33 original applicants for the position.

  80. As Weber (1946, 248–249) notes, “the very existence of charismatic authority is specifically unstable... The charismatic leader gains or maintains authority solely by proving his strength in life... he must prove itself in that those that faithfully surrender to him must fare well.”

  81. I am following the Section IV ‘Profetas’ of Weber, M. (1997). Sociología de la religión. Madrid: Istmo.

  82. See Sadri, A. (1992). Max Weber’s sociology of intellectuals. New York: Oxford University Press.

  83. If the price of the guest conductor is US $3,000, then that is the fee for the principal conductor when the time is due at the guest conductor’s orchestra. Most conductors tend to offer the guest conductors what they perceive as their maximum fee according to the exchange circumstances. If a conductor has a range between US $2,500 and $5,000 what he does is invite the conductors of the provincial orchestras paying them US $3,000, if the orchestra is from another Latin American country the fee will be $4,000 and if it is from Europe, the top of the range: US $5,000. He just reserves the US $2,500 fee for provincial orchestras with small budgets and without a principal conductor.

  84. I explicitly follow Bourdieu’s equation of Weber’s charisma with Mauss’s mana. Mauss, M. (1950). The Gift. New York: Norton.

  85. Bourdieu, P. (1998). The Economy of Symbolic Goods. In Practical Reasons. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  86. The City Symphony Band season at the Colón Opera House was paradigmatic, as the three concerts were not conducted by its Principal, but rather by the conductors of the NSO (who invited him for the 2001 season), the City Philharmonic (who programmed him for the 2002 Autumn season), and the Córdoba Symphony Band (who had invited him during both 2000 and 2001).

  87. For instance, Guillermo Genioli was invited to conduct at Cuyo in 2001 and at Mendoza in 1999. Alberto Soriano conducted at Tucumán in 1998, San Juan in 1999 and 2000, La Plata in 1999, and Córdoba in 1999 and 2000. Marco Giordano, even though one of the more prominent conductors at the Colon Opera House and a former conductor of the NSO, has not been invited in recent years to conduct symphony concerts in the Argentinean circuit.

  88. By this means the more prolific conductor of operas outside the Colón and Argentino Opera House has started to forge a career, Sebastián Fernández, conducting not only at the provincial level in Argentina but in minor opera houses in Italy, while awaiting a call to the Colón Opera season where he works diligently as a Chorus unionist.

  89. Bourdieu, P. (1992). Las Reglas del Arte. Barcelona: Anagrama.

  90. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of the self in everyday life (pp. 239–241). New York: Doubleday. See also from Goffman (1961). Asylum. Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. New York: Anchor.

  91. Schechener, R. (1985). Between theater and anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

  92. See Sennett, 1977; Lamont and Wu, 1989; Galkin, 1988; Kamermann, 1983b.

  93. Priscilla Ferguson claims that the more circumscribed the field, the more solid ground for sociological scrutiny. Unlike vast or imprecise fields like the “field of power” that invite lots of speculation by the author, the musical and especially the conductorial sub-field provide a delimited space for investigation. The more limited focus facilitates situating the field both as a historical entity and as a sociological concept. Ferguson, P. (1998). A cultural field in the making: Gastronomy in nineteenth century France. The American Journal of Sociology, 103.

  94. One of them, Camilo LaRue, was brought to the City Philharmonic by him to work as his assistant and inherited his post. He is regularly called to conduct ballet at the Colón and the Argentino Opera House. A second one is the coach of the Córdoba Symphony and the Principal at the Córdoba Symphony Band. A third one, his former Assistant at the National Conservatory, Sebastián Fernández, is a freelance opera conductor and worked the last two seasons for the Córdoba Opera. A fourth one, Roberto Boboni, was Soriano’s Assistant at a top youth orchestra and is now conducting the Avellaneda Opera season.

  95. On the other hand, both Guillermo Genioli and Alberto Soriano figure prominently in the CV of many young Latin American conductors who studied with them under the sponsorship of the OAS from 1991 to 1994.

  96. At Córdoba, the roster of performers is easily explained by the features already presented: one of the concerts is conducted by the coach of the orchestra, who conducts regularly the Córdoba Symphony Band, the inaugural concert of the season was conducted by Jorge Iltristo who helped the orchestra perform at the Colón Opera House, a third conductor is Federico García to whom the National Secretary of Culture pays half of the cachet, a fourth conductor is an Argentinean who resides in Russia, where he is a coach of the Majarisnky Theater. The marquee singer and the private producer who brought the idea of a season to the state authorities imposed the conductor for the opera season, Sebastián Fernández.

  97. According to this logic, the conductor of the NSO tops the chart because while he was characterized by both musicians as a seven in musical talent, he was given a 10 in his negotiation skills. He was, then, an 8.5 conductor.

  98. He was one of the most important conductors in Argentina’s history. He constantly barked at musicians and was famous both for his fights in rehearsals with some of them and for his love for tango-playing. He died in 1998 after being the Principal of the City Philharmonic, the NSO, the San Pablo Philharmonic, and the Bogotá Philharmonic.

  99. Weber (1946, 254, 263–264, 299).

  100. “Ligia Amadio dirige concierto de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile,” La Tercera, Santiago de Chile, January 24, 2001. Pulgar, L. (1999). Soy una Loca. La Tercera. Santiago de Chile (May 7).

  101. Cavazza, J. L. (2001). Juan Rodríguez debuta esta noche como titular de la Orquesta Sinfónica Provincial de Rosario. La Capital. Rosario (March 29).

  102. Part of the inaugural speech of the new conductor, as told by several musicians and answers by the then conductor, when asked by several musicians for a conducting opportunity for another Argentinean conductor they liked.

  103. Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press (p. 5).

References

  • Newspapers: Clarín, La Nación, Página12, and Ambito Financiero (National newspapers), Los Andes (Mendoza), La Voz del Interior (Córdoba), El Tribuno (Salta), La Capital (Rosario), El Litoral (Santa Fe), El Día (La Plata), La Maga. Revista de Cultura (Buenos Aires).

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Acknowledgments

I want to thank the late Robert Alford for his thoughtful comments, helpful insights, and patient advice on previous versions of this article. Craig Calhoun, Richard Sennett, Thomas Ertman, Michael Blim, Ailsa Craig, and Kate Strully made pointed criticisms and suggestions. For my first thorough readings on Adorno on music, I praise Stanley Aronowitz. Gastón Burucúa has been a constant support and the first person to encourage me to pursue a serious sociological study of music. I presented an early draft of this article in Buenos Aires at the Centro Para el Estudio de la Cultura y la Política. The article greatly benefited from the comments there by Lucas Rubinich, Gastón Beltrán, and Rodrigo Hobert. A second draft of it was presented at the Privatization of Culture Seminar at the New School, and greatly benefited from the discussion there by Vera Zolberg and George Yudice. For her editorial assistance, I am grateful to April Marshall. This research has been generously financed by a CONICET fellowship on the interplay between production and consumption in Argentinean classical music.

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  1. Sociology Department, New York University, 295 Lafayette Ave, 4th floor, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Claudio E. Benzecry

  2. Centro de Estudios en Cultura y Política, Fundación del Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Claudio E. Benzecry

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Benzecry, C.E. Curtain rising, baton falling: The politics of musical conducting in contemporary Argentina. Theor Soc 35, 445–479 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-006-9009-6

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