Brad said: The "hidden > curriculum" of Beethoven's 9th is: obey the conductor > or else!, however "humanistic" may be the words thus > generated by the chorus.
Not true. The hidden message is "listen to your colleagues and stay WITH them no matter what." Conductors are like train conductors, they just try to keep the balances even and the collisions from happening while shaping the whole of the textures and form. You learn to think together and that means everyone. Chaos and Anarchy are not practiced because in the orchestra they are seen as silly foolishness up in front for the whole world to see. That is what drama, plays and the opera is supposed to show about such things as the Seattle and Montreal conferences. Instead we put the theater companies in jail. The level of expertise in the orchestra would bankrupt your average corporate hierarchy. As for working conditions. It is tremendously expensive to maintain an orchestra since there can be no productiviy increase in the way that lean and agile manufacturing works today with downsizing. Orchestras and choruses are lean no matter what. Very few of today's business leaders, management types or economists truly understand the orchestral model. Peter Drucker after studying it said that it was the model for all corporations in the future because of the level of expertise, individual initiative required and intimate connection with the conductor. To call the conductor fascist or into obedience is like only considering sex as such and I don't. REH
