This was emailed to me about a year ago by a colleague. Since the subject of conductors came up in the Professional Orchestra thread, I thought you might like to have smile at the following 'recipe':


How to Cook a Conductor

Ingredients
One large Conductor, or two small assistant conductors
Ketchup
26 large garlic cloves
Trex or other solid vegetable shortening (Lard may be used)
1 cask cheap wine
1 lb. alfalfa sprouts
2 lbs. assorted yuppie food, such as tofu or yoghurt
One abused Orchestra

First, catch a Conductor. Remove the tail and horns. Carefully separate the large ego and reserve for sauce. Remove any batons, pencils (on permanent loan from the Principal Second Violin) and long articulations and discard. Remove the hearing aid and discard (it never worked anyway). Examine your conductor carefully - many of them are mostly large intestine. If you have such a Conductor, you will have to discard it and catch another. Clean the Conductor as you would a squid, but do not separate the tentacles from the body. If you have an older Conductor, such as one from a Major Symphony Orchestra or Summer Music Festival, you may wish to tenderize by pounding the Conductor on a rock with timpani mallets or by smashing the Conductor between two large cymbals.

Next, pour 1/2 of the cask of wine into a bath tub and soak the Conductor in the wine for at least 12 hours (exceptions: British, German and some Canadian Conductors have a natural beery taste which some people like and the wine might not marry well with this flavor. Use your judgment). When the Conductor is sufficiently marinated, remove any clothes the Conductor may be wearing and rub it all over with the garlic. Then cover your Conductor with the lard, using vague, slow circular motions. Take care to cover every inch of the Conductor's body with the shortening.

Next, take your orchestra and put as much music out as the stands will hold without falling over, and make sure that there are lots of really loud passages for everyone, big loud chords for the winds and brass, and lots and lots of tremolos for the strings. (Bruckner might be appropriate). Rehearse these passages several times, making certain that the brass and winds are always playing as loud as they can and the strings are tremolo-ing at their highest speed. This should ensure adequate flames for cooking your Conductor. If not, insist on taking every repeat and be sure to add the second repeats in really large symphonies. Ideally, you should choose your repertoire to have as many repeats as possible, but if you have a piece with no repeats in it at all, just add some, claiming that you have seen the original, and there was an ink blot there that "looked like a repeat" to you and had obviously been missed by every other fool who had looked at this score. If taking all the repeats does not generate sufficient flames, burn the complete set of score and parts to all of the Bruckner symphonies.

When the flames have died down to a medium inferno, place your Conductor on top of your orchestra (they won't mind as they are used to it) until it is well tanned, the hair turns back to its natural color and all of the fat has dripped out. Be careful not to overcook or your Conductor could end up tasting like stuffed ham. Make a sauce by combining the ego, sprouts and ketchup to taste, placing it all in the blender and pureeing until smooth. If the ego is bitter, sweeten with honey to taste. Slice your Conductor as you would any turkey. Serve accompanied by the assorted yuppie food and the remaining wine with the sauce on the side.

WARNING: Due to environmental toxins present in conductor feeding areas, such as heavy metals, oily residue from intensive PR machinery manufacture, and extraordinarily high concentrations of E.coli, cryptosporidium, and other hazardous organisms associated with animal wastes, the Departments for Conductor Decimation (DCD) recommend that the consumption of conductors be limited to one per season. Overconsumption of conductors has been implicated in the epidemiology of a virulent condition known as "Bataan fever." Symptoms of this disorder include swelling of the brain, spasms in the extremities, delusions of competence, auditory hallucinations and excessive longevity.

If anyone has sung/played under Simon Rattle (oh excuse me - SIR Simon Rattle) then if you're anything like me you'd like to get his mouth - and preferably his brain - and wash it with Fuller's Soap to get rid of all the filthy sexual innuendo he occasionally comes out with in rehearsals (well he used to when I sang in the CBSO Chorus 15 years ago anyhow - he might be different now. Miracles can happen). He has completely ruined how I listen to the "Ihr Sturtz Neider" bit of Beethoven's 9th forever. And what he had to say about John Adam's "Harmonium" could have been more artistic also (instead of downright tacky). Conductors should seriously be careful on the techniques they use to get choirs and/or orchestras to play how they want them to. Using gross sexual innuendo images is totally unacceptable.

I'd not mentioned it until now, but I also admit that conductors can totally destroy the way you listen to a particular work, by using some quite purile comments.

There will always be the immature few who will un-endingly giggle at sexual innuendo, which only encourages the perpetrator all the more, but to be honest, for everyone else, it gets tiresome and boring. There are people I've worked with in general who don't seem to be able to hold any conversation without dragging sexual innuendo into it. Ignoring their comments, not answering, or changing the subject sometimes stops it for a while, but again, it makes working life with them very tedious.

I do wonder if someone who feels the need to do this in (almost) everything they talk about, requires psychological help, since it cannot exactly be classified as normal behaviour.

Well said.


Good point - though there was nothing much I can do about it in this case though as a 2nd sop in the back row (though looking back maybe I should have written to the CBSO Committe - I probably would do now, but when you're young you don't always think about it or haven't the confidence).


I must admit, it did cross my mind: brilliant as SR is, I couldn't quite make the connection between his high musical intelligence and his total dumbness how he communicated certain things with the Chorus.

Mind you the Orchestra got quite disgruntled with him at one point because he used to bring his little toddler (Sasha) to rehearsals - the tot would run around the Hall while the orchestra rehearsed. But after a while the orchestra got fed up this - I think some of them even bought their toddlers into rehearsals as well just to make a point! So in the end poor old Sasha was banned from rehearsals forever!

There was a conductor who asked the orchestra for a double entendre . . .



. . . and they gave him one!

funniest thing i've come across in a long time - thanks for posting!

Incidentally has anyone done any singing/playing under women conductors? For the first time in 28 years I sang in a choir conducted by a woman and she was FANTASTIC! Head and shoulders above any male conductor I have sung under - her beat was clear, she extracted expression and beautiful phrasing from the choir by her movements, and her comments were never crass or degrading, yet she was also fun to work with, but also serious-minded about the music.

It's amazing how many conductors do not give a clear beat - and then we get told off for not coming in at the right place: I feel like saying "well come up here and try and sing to your own beat mate!" It's so simple to give a very clear beat - but it's almost as if some male conductors deem it beneath them to do so.

I met an old teacher of mine a month or so ago, and we were talking about a certain conductor. And I cannot follow his beat at all, which means I really struggle when I have to play solos where the speed changes. And she admitted that she couldn't follow him. Infact, hardly anyone I know can actually understand him.

Well one conductor I remember didn't even have an upbeat or down beat at all - his arms just went round and round in a circle and you couldn't tell which beat was which!

I know the feeling. This one gets very into the music, and just sort of waves his arms around. Which is great apart from if you're trying to play along.

We had a stand in conductor at band that DID have a downbeat and an upbeat, but as she brought the baton up, it was on the beat. So it was sort of an upwards flick. And she'd gradually move from left to right.

TOTALLY POINTLESS, GIVE IT UP.

Do you think these people know their conducting is so hard to follow? Grr.

That was probably around the time one of my schoolfriends started refusing to babysit ever again. Apparently she could be a bit of a handful (then again what toddler isn't).

I've played for him too! He closed his eyes, assumed a beatific smile, Andrew Davis style, and stirred an imaginary pudding...

...blows my little theory that women conductors are better than men then!

Anyhow I found little gem of a quote in this month's Classic fm magazine: apparently conductor George Szell said, when asked what he thought of Leonard Bernstein, that "conductors must give signals to the orchestra - not choreography to the audience!"

The antics of some are for show and for the benefit of the audience, I'm certain of that. Conductors mop their brow and love to turn to the audience at the end looking hot and ruffled, as though they've just completed a 20 mile hike carrying a 50 kg rucksack.

If there were Oscars awarded for over-acting conductors, there are quite a few who'd be in fierce competition with one another.

What the audience don't notice are wind players with sweat rolling down the sides of their faces. String players with rashes on their neck from where a violin has been stuck under their lower jaw for the last two days of rehearsals. Playing in an orchestra is physically and mentally hard work, and yet many see music as an 'easy' option.

oh, yes - rings a bell! I think I've sung for him too.

LOL some can look as if they've been dragged through a bush backwards and yes I think they like that image! Especially the messy hair!

Mind you I would say that, having conducted a small church choir several years ago in the short musical "A Grain of Mustard Seed" (which was a musical about the chap who started the Sunday School movement in the 1700's) I was quite surprised at how demanding conducting is - not so much physically, but mentally because you have to concentrate for everyone - sops, altos, tenors, bass, and the piano and if you don't remember to bring them in, they won't come in (obviously it's a bit easier with professionals as they have the confidence to come in when they should anyhow). If the conductor makes a mistake then it seems to throw them all out so I had to be really mentally alert. I was totally whacked after each rehearsal and totally drained after the performance. And that was only a little amateur thingy we put on.


Well I've just started to learn the flute - I got it six months ago and took my Grade 1 a couple of weeks ago and sometimes I'm shattered after only half an hours practice: my arms ache, my neck aches, my mouth and throat get dry, the front of my tongue is sore from where it sticks into my teeth, my diaphragm aches and my poor first finger of my left hand now has a permanent dent in it which is quite sensitive after practice! I can't imagine the stamina you need to play in a orchestra - and sitting down at that. It's much easier to play some instruments standing up.