The director of an orchestra in which I played during high school issued a strange threat once during a rehearsal.
"If this doesn't sound good enough, I don't have to conduct it," he told us. "I will get my neck wrung upstairs, but I don't have to conduct it."
I shouldn't have been surprised. This was the same director who told his orchestra during another rehearsal, "Those of you who want to fool around, that's it for me. Someone else can conduct!" He then walked offstage, leaving an awkward silence in the room for several minutes. Eventually, he returned and said, "Let's start again with measure (such-and-such)..."
If he still conducts high school or college students, I hope that he longer resorts to such histrionics. What does an orchestra director ever achieve by walking off or threatening not to conduct?
