Video: Breaking JoAnn Falletta's code

NORFOLK

Some concertgoers may wonder if JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, is as extraneous as a theater director onstage during a play.

The musicians don't seem to watch her, and don't they have the score in front of them

"Conducting is one of the least understood professions," Falletta said. "Everyone is intrigued by it, but at least a significant number of people don't think the conductor is doing anything." 

In fact, she is deeply engaged in many tasks during rehearsals and concerts. Falletta is giving the players their cues and telling them how fast or slow or lyrically or rhythmically to play. She is indicating subtle and very specific qualities of sound. She is keeping the orchestra together and informed, making the many shifts in any piece of music clear, so that the players feel secure enough to perform at their highest level. 

Her role is as critical as that of an air traffic controller, preparing incoming flights and preventing collisions.

During a concert, she said, "You're partly in the zone and emotionally very involved in the music. At the same time, you have to be thinking really clearly.

"You have to be anticipating what is going to happen, you have to be registering what is happening, you have to be cool. You have to remember what the musicians need at any point. Your mind is racing."

Her first classical concerts of the season included Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, with Canadian pianist Ian Parker. To give us an idea how much goes into conducting such a piece, Falletta allowed us onstage for two rehearsals as well as a mid-September performance.

She sat down with us afterward to translate her body language, which we'd captured on video. Vahn Armstrong, the symphony's concertmaster, and his wife and assistant concertmaster, Amanda Armstrong, also offered insight into her moves. The addition of a guest soloist further complicates the communication, Falletta said. The two work out any differences they may have in interpreting the concerto in an hour before the first rehearsal.

During rehearsals and a concert, she glanced back at Parker often to check his tempo and make sure the orchestra was with him. Often the soloist and the musicians cannot hear one another and need her help.

Mostly, though, she faced the orchestra and spoke to them through a fluid series of coded gestures.

Like most conductors, she rarely verbalizes what she wants from the musicians. "You can't ask for it. It's a question of you being able to help them create it by your physical gestures."

No primer exists that teaches a universal sign language for conductors, aside from such basics as the down, left, right and up that defines a four-beat measure. But subtle differences within such gestures can radically alter the sound the orchestra makes.

"Every move your body makes creates a reaction, creates a sound that comes back at you," Falletta said. The reason it takes so long to develop as a conductor "is we can only learn with the orchestra. We only know if it's right or wrong for us by the sound we hear.

"If I want them to play with an aggressive quality, what do I have to show them to enable them to do that? I learn from the reaction of the musicians. And you're constantly filing that away in your head."

By now, her moves are instinctive. She never plans them out and said she may not always remember what she did to elicit a certain sound.

All those gestures are for the musicians, never just for the audience's entertainment. She does not practice before a mirror, she said, and is more focused on the players than the audience.

Compared to a rehearsal, conducting a concert is like being surrounded by "a force field of energy. The amount of energy on stage is daunting. They're coordinating complicated, very refined body movements and they're reading music that's flying by. They're listening to their colleagues. They're watching the conductor.

"If anyone could measure the collective brain activity of the orchestra, it would be frightening."

While the musicians don't seem to be looking, they have strong peripheral vision. They follow her out of the corners of their eyes.

Falletta said conducting is a constant give-and-take. Long gone are the days of dictatorial baton-wielders who disregard musicians' ideas. Wise conductors realize that a better sound comes from an orchestra made up of self-expressive musicians.

"I can't force them to reproduce something someone else did. That totally goes against what music is about. Music is constantly in a state of flux. And if they're expressing themselves, the audience knows that. They feel an energy, a commitment, a profound sense of wanting to communicate something."

Conducting remains mysterious to her, Falletta said.

"You give an upbeat, and there they are. And 100 people understand the upbeat in the same way. It's an unbelievable organism.

"To me, we're standing in the middle of a great work of art. I feel so lucky. I'm always in the middle of beauty."

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com