Music’s Most Mysterious Profession

The conductor is a con artist. Or: The conductor is God. Musicians frequently encounter both of these extreme views of music’s most mysterious profession. It’s not surprising that conductors elicit suspicion as well as adulation. The very act of conducting—waving a wand to summon ravishing or ethereal or earsplitting sounds—can look like either inexplicable magic or embarrassing nonsense, a kind of tuxedoed air guitar. With most kinds of musical performance, the listener can sense, in their…