Conclusion

Summary

The British conductor … is, comparatively speaking, a new factor in our musical life. He, that is the interpreter-conductor, is largely a product of the twentieth century and our own time.

Dan Godfrey, Memories and Music (1924)

The secret of conducting is domination. That can be achieved in various ways; sometimes by magnetism, as in the case of Nikisch and Landon Ronald; sometimes by intellectual weight and assurance and calm majestic grasp of the whole artistic material, as in the case of Hans Richter; sometimes by unflinching strictness and discipline, as in the case of Henry Wood; sometimes by sheer native enthusiasm for the work, as in the case of that unique person among conductors, Thomas Beecham.

Filson Young, More Mastersingers (1911)

When Ronald addressed the ISM in 1913 on ‘The Advance of Conducting and Orchestral Playing’ he took the opportunity to assert that conductors should be ranked second only to composers. The priorities within his speech encapsulate the stage that the British conducting profession had reached as the dark period of World War I drew closer. In October that year Godfrey gained permission to take the BMO to London on a Sunday in order to record ‘some of the most popular items played by them’ with the Gramophone Company. By then Ronald was fully established as a company insider, au fait with the technology, performance issues, personalities and marketing aspects. These early orchestral recordings had to be accommodated within 4.5 minutes of playing time, and so were ‘mostly of small orchestral pieces’. Ronald and the NSO had been the Gramophone Company's house orchestra since 1909. As Worthington has discussed in detail, their extensive recordings ‘were designed to appeal to a broad audience’ and despite their comparable quality have tended to be overshadowed by those of Nikisch and the LSO and BPO in 1913.

This new age of recording reinforced the promotional importance of the conductor to the branding and popularity of the product, not only accentuating the celebrity value of conducting but also associating particular types of repertoire with exponents. concepts of the role and status of the conductor had transformed in the nearly half century since benedict and cusins had begun their philharmonic society conductorships in liverpool and london. barnby and sullivan had not lived to witness the extent of the change.