Especially Where It Is A Question Of Understanding And Feeling,
Of Impressing Oneself With Intelligence, Of Kindling Hearts With
A
Sort of communion of the beautiful, the grand, and the true in
Art and Poetry, the sufficiency and the old
Routine of usual
conductors no longer suffice, and are even contrary to the
dignity and the sublime liberty of the art. Thus, with all due
deference to my complaisant critics, I shall hold myself on every
occasion ulterior to my "insufficiency" on principle and by
conviction, for I will never accommodate myself to the role of a
"Profoss" [Overseer or gaoler.] of time, for which my twenty-five
years of experience, study, and sincere passion for Art would not
at all fit me.
Whatever esteem therefore I may profess for many of my
colleagues, and however gladly I may recognize the good services
they have rendered and continue to render to Art, I do not think
myself on that account obliged to follow their example in every
particular - neither in the choice of works to be performed, nor
in the manner of conceiving and conducting them. I think I have
already said to you that the real task of a conductor, according
to my opinion, consists in making himself ostensibly quasi-
useless. We are pilots, and not mechanics. Well, even if this
idea should meet with still further opposition in detail, I could
not change it, as I consider it just. For the Weymar orchestra
its application has brought about excellent results, which have
been commended by some of my very critics of today.
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