Page 162 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2025. Glasbena interpretacija: med umetniškim in znanstvenim┊Music Interpretation: Between the Artistic and the Scientific. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 8

glasbena interpretacija ... | music interpretation ...
It remains to be discussed if the fact of Herliczka being a woman is a
purely visual feature. In a review of her debut concert from 1927, we read:
“If one closes one’s eyes while she is conducting, one hears a man, not a wom-
an,” so I will maintain that the knowledge that the conductor is female is
3
gained visually. Since the visual aspect of conducting is very central, we
4
cannot remove this knowledge, but it evidently influences the way a con-
ductor is judged.
Now I would like to list a conductor’s actions or practices from a more
sociological perspective. So far, I can establish that what a conductor does
includes stepping on the podium, being noticed as a person, influencing
the orchestra and the audience by her or his presence, using a baton or not,
moving hands in a significant way to influence the music and so on. I sup-
pose that her activities are also the ones automatically associated with the
profession and not seen in the concert: obtaining and learning the score,
planning and leading rehearsals, giving instructions to musicians to opti-
mise the performance, giving interviews, organising tickets for friends and
many more.
Theodore Schatzki introduces the idea of bundles of practices that link
art and social life in his paper “Art bundles”. 5

[H]uman coexistence transpires as part of bundles of practices and ma-
terial arrangements. As a result, any social phenomenon consists in fea-
tures and slices of such bundles. This holds true of art, too: art is a fea-
ture of, indeed, it is a constellation of linked bundles. 6
What I mentioned just before (preparing a score, conducting a re-
hearsal, planning the time, gesticulating in a concert and many more) is a
conductor’s bundle of practices. Each conductor has an individual bundle
of practices, but some practices are the same with all conductors. The bun-
dle of practices is inevitably linked to the individual’s social world and to
the social world as a whole.

3 Author’s translation, in original: “Schließt man während ihres Dirigierens die Augen,
dann hört man einen Mann, nicht eine Frau.” R. K., “Eine neue Dirigentin,” Wiener
Allgemeine Zeitung, February 16, 1927, p. u.
4 Though thorough research of the meaning of similar remarks often applied to female
musicians is requisite, it lies beyond the scope of this paper.
5 Theodore Schatzki, “Art Bundles,” in Artistic Practices. Social interactions and cul-
tural dynamics, ed. Tasos Zembylas (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 17–31.
6 Ibid., 18. Italics in the original.

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