For many years I did not think about conducting from memory. I had used memory when singing, particularly of course in opera. But I had never played the violin without music in front of me, and in conducting I was normally very intent on the details of the scores, and what they could tell me.

In the 80s I experimented with memory in the odd symphony in, by chance, France and Israel. I also discovered that certain striking pieces surprisingly presented themselves to my mind unaided. It could be Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, or a Schütz motet I had not heard for ten years. There was clearly capacity there, waiting to be employed, and I became  interested in using it.

With a Haydn or Mozart or Beethoven symphony there are things that happen so fast that you barely have time to read a score. It’s not so much the speed of the music, more a matter of the compression of one idea after the other, and the need to shape each one well. If you have memorised a piece you just know what to do next. I began to consciously learn all the Classical material that came my way. It made me more observant, it made me listen much more, it made me a better conductor. In particular one can really deliver a work to an orchestra with authority. The conductor becomes the composer, and hopefully gives him his best chance.

Some conductors have a photographic memory,- they can “see” a page of music. I have observed Seji Ozawa, sitting in front of me at  a concert, turn the pages of a piece he was about to perform in the second half, apparently “clicking” on each one as if he was a camera. That doesn’t make you conduct a piece any better, but it sure is a handy memory tool.

I don’t have that gift. I seem to use a much more primitive, even childlike, skill, which mostly involves “hearing” the music, including all its instrumental colours. I say childlike because It’s effectively the way children learn to sing a song before they can even read words, let alone music. It does involve a lot of repetition. Of course I read each score devotedly, studying its melodic and harmonic structure, instrumental balances and colours. But I rarely memorised just from score-reading; I learned by listening. Before I had the advantage of a large personal discography, a potential disadvantage of this method was that I might be listening to a really horrible performance. Luckily my brain seemed to discard the playing style and just learn the notes.

Listening was also the process I used over the years in getting to know works that were new to me. There was the score to learn from, but I always felt much more comfortable to have actually heard the piece. After all music is about sound, not paper.

Again you could argue that listening to other people’s performances could lead to mere copying. And indeed it can; it’s a real danger for young performers, now intensified by the fantastic availability of recorded sound on line. But luckily it seems that if you are a creative person you are automatically immune to that danger. You can listen to a disreputable performance of a symphony and instantly convert it into your own version. My performances do not often sound like other people’s!

I became more and more used to working without a score. It felt freer,  cleaner, easier. Above all I could listen, and check whether or not I was hearing what I really wanted; in particular if the melodic line, the balances and the harmonies were as clear as I wished. Quite often when listening, I even heard things which I had missed in my detailed perusal of the score. It felt as if the music was passing through me, as if beamed from behind me. I was empowered by not having to read the score,- not even having to read a photographic memory of one.

I don’t pretend for a moment that I knew every detail of every score. I could not have sat down and written it all out on music paper. But what I had in my head  seemed to be enough to “play” the orchestra in really quite a lot of detail. In a programmatic piece like Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique I found I was “seeing” the action at the same time as hearing the music. The amount of brain power needed to read a score was now available for other things. With the highly descriptive Fantastique I was effectively conducting the movie!

Another key advantage of memory is in the interaction with the orchestra. If you are “off the page” at the first rehearsal you can scan the whole group. You can pick out the players who are committed enjoyers, and the unhappy ones who are not, and need cheering up. You can also help and encourage the back-desk players, who are always disadvantaged (I’ve sat there). You can treat the whole orchestra as a family. After all the very first rule of conducting should always be “Are the players enjoying themselves?” When debuting with any orchestra I made sure the programme was one that was in my memory bank.

That bank meant all Overtures, all Haydn and Mozart Symphonies, and those by Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and some Bruckner and Mahler. And then (unlike most conductors)  any Concertos that came up. I found it particularly satisfying to work closely eye to eye with a soloist, rather than bury my head in a score.

It was quite a journey from memorising the odd Mozart symphony to memorising Bach’s B Minor Mass, Mozart operas, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Brahms 4, Tchaikovsky 6, Bruckner 3, Mahler 5, or Elgar 1 (around150 pieces in all). I didn’t do it to show off; I did it to conduct the pieces better. And there were others I did not master,- pieces which might sound simple, but which were too confusing for easy recall. My beloved Vaughan Williams is one example: beautiful and touching, but awfully hard to second guess.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere the joy of walking into the Musikverein in Vienna to conduct Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Philharmonic, carrying absolutely nothing- no bag, no score, no baton- only a clear head. I’ve also written of the Missa Solemnis in Bonn, when I explained to my horrified wife that it was just easier “by heart”. But that’s it: playing from memory aims not just for technical excellence, but for more ease, and more “heart”as well.

Conducting from memory is a joy.