In Good Hands by Alice Farnham review – notes from the podium | Music books

From the audience, the conductor of an orchestra is a mysterious, unknowable figure. They stand with their back to us, dancing and waving their arms in a series of incomprehensible gestures that the musicians on stage somehow interpret to make beautifully synchronised sounds. When the conductor turns around at the end of the piece to smile and take a bow, it is almost a shock: it is a real person up there, not some mechanical arrangement of limbs and baton.

It is with the intention of demystifying this secretive profession that Alice Farnham, herself a British conductor of great experience and acclaim, has written this book. Although she states upfront that it is “not a handbook for conductors”, it is structured a little like one, with chapters devoted to subjects such as “The Basics: Hands and Baton” and “Preparation to Performance”. At times, Farnham breaks off from her narrative to include practical conducting exercises that the curious reader can attempt for themselves. Try beating time as a group of friends sings “We all live in a yellow submarine”, she says, and you will soon understand how many aspects of the music (speed, volume, character) the conductor must control.

The book also includes some memoir, with Farnham describing her childhood experiences with music and the musical education that set her on the path to becoming a conductor. She lost her father, a vicar, in a sailing accident just before her 10th birthday. Her account of her time as a “clergy orphan” at a boarding school founded in 1749 for the “fatherless daughters of the clergy” is one of the more moving sections.

A major strand of Farnham’s professional life, reflected in the book, is her work on improving the accessibility of conducting to people besides the white men who have for centuries been the role’s default. She quotes from a 2015 report by Dr Christina Scharff, which found that just 1.4% of the conductors in professional British orchestras were women.

In Good Hands is full of anecdotes that illustrate this inequality. Reviews of performances by female conductors are far more likely to focus on their appearance than their musicality. In 2001 Farnham was told by a senior male conductor (unnamed, sadly) that “women can’t conduct because their breasts get in the way” and that “high levels of testosterone” are required. Even today, she encounters suggestions that her efforts to increase the number of professional female conductors has “gone too far” now that the numbers are approaching double figures.

This book is at its best when it takes readers behind the scenes of the eccentric world of classical music. For instance: the best place in Britain to buy a conductor’s baton is JP Guivier and Co just off Regent Street, where the aspiring “arm-flapper” can try out different sizes and shapes until the right one is discovered. The vast majority of a conductor’s work is unseen: they put dozens of hours into preparing their score before even beginning to rehearse with musicians. And leading an orchestra well is like being an orator, a diplomat and a general all rolled into one – while at the same time keeping dozens of lines of complex music straight in your head.

Perhaps it is because the role itself is so multifaceted that this book tries to be so many different things: an educational aid for aspiring conductors, a memoir, a tell-all look at the famously opaque world of classical music, a manifesto for change in that still very unbalanced realm, a group biography of 16 famous conductors, and more. Sadly, the alchemy that on the podium brings so many disparate elements together isn’t replicated on the page. While there are many enjoyable aspects to this book, it never quite forms a harmonious whole.

From the audience, the conductor of an orchestra is a mysterious, unknowable figure. They stand with their back to us, dancing and waving their arms in a series of incomprehensible gestures that the musicians on stage somehow interpret to make beautifully synchronised sounds. When the conductor turns around at the end of the piece to smile and take a bow, it is almost a shock: it is a real person up there, not some mechanical arrangement of limbs and baton.

It is with the intention of demystifying this secretive profession that Alice Farnham, herself a British conductor of great experience and acclaim, has written this book. Although she states upfront that it is “not a handbook for conductors”, it is structured a little like one, with chapters devoted to subjects such as “The Basics: Hands and Baton” and “Preparation to Performance”. At times, Farnham breaks off from her narrative to include practical conducting exercises that the curious reader can attempt for themselves. Try beating time as a group of friends sings “We all live in a yellow submarine”, she says, and you will soon understand how many aspects of the music (speed, volume, character) the conductor must control.

The book also includes some memoir, with Farnham describing her childhood experiences with music and the musical education that set her on the path to becoming a conductor. She lost her father, a vicar, in a sailing accident just before her 10th birthday. Her account of her time as a “clergy orphan” at a boarding school founded in 1749 for the “fatherless daughters of the clergy” is one of the more moving sections.

A major strand of Farnham’s professional life, reflected in the book, is her work on improving the accessibility of conducting to people besides the white men who have for centuries been the role’s default. She quotes from a 2015 report by Dr Christina Scharff, which found that just 1.4% of the conductors in professional British orchestras were women.

In Good Hands is full of anecdotes that illustrate this inequality. Reviews of performances by female conductors are far more likely to focus on their appearance than their musicality. In 2001 Farnham was told by a senior male conductor (unnamed, sadly) that “women can’t conduct because their breasts get in the way” and that “high levels of testosterone” are required. Even today, she encounters suggestions that her efforts to increase the number of professional female conductors has “gone too far” now that the numbers are approaching double figures.

This book is at its best when it takes readers behind the scenes of the eccentric world of classical music. For instance: the best place in Britain to buy a conductor’s baton is JP Guivier and Co just off Regent Street, where the aspiring “arm-flapper” can try out different sizes and shapes until the right one is discovered. The vast majority of a conductor’s work is unseen: they put dozens of hours into preparing their score before even beginning to rehearse with musicians. And leading an orchestra well is like being an orator, a diplomat and a general all rolled into one – while at the same time keeping dozens of lines of complex music straight in your head.

Perhaps it is because the role itself is so multifaceted that this book tries to be so many different things: an educational aid for aspiring conductors, a memoir, a tell-all look at the famously opaque world of classical music, a manifesto for change in that still very unbalanced realm, a group biography of 16 famous conductors, and more. Sadly, the alchemy that on the podium brings so many disparate elements together isn’t replicated on the page. While there are many enjoyable aspects to this book, it never quite forms a harmonious whole.