A second point which is very harmful to classical music, is the hypocritical showing off of the conductors.^Barbirolli

Natural music aims at moving the depths of one’s soul, and to put it in a natural order; for that, one should totally devote oneself to music, i.e. whilst making music and then, of course, when listening to music one should ideally close one’s eyes, and just be attentive.^Beethoven

Only then can music expand from the musician’s silent levels of life to those of the listener.^Beethoven

But if you attend a performance of classical music nowadays, you see true gladiators at the conductor’s rostrum, who put on a show, so that I wouldn’t be surprised if they had practised it at home in front of the mirror.^Beethoven

They are pining, being angry, melting away, and then again raging, and sweating – that it is downright ridiculous.^Beethoven

Take a look at the musicians’ faces at the same time, who in fact play the music. There you don’t see anything of the stupid flood of emotions which the conductor is seemingly going through, and which are not really laid down in the music.

The musicians must be concentrated when playing, and have no time at all for this hypocritical show that is foreign to music.

If I think it through to the end, what these musical torreros perform in front of the audience, then Beethoven should have raged through the world like a madman when composing his work – a titan of insanity, so to speak. ^Beethoven

Imagine, you saw someone behaving like that in the street, like so many star-conductors do in a concert hall today. You might feel like ringing up the closest psychiatric hospital.^Beethoven

To me it only shows that these conductors haven’t a clue out of which silent, unspectacular climes of life a natural classical composition grows. ^Verdi

Their show serves the purpose of business, and has nothing to do with music, yes, indeed, it kills the music, and is responsible for the fact that classical music loses its natural attractiveness, and that its inner wealth fails to reach the listener.^{Beethoven / Shakespeare}

With a revival of the ethical fundaments of classical music among the interpreters, we could celebrate the resurrection of music;^Beethoven the conductors would no longer have to take aerobic lessons, and the audience would also change.^Grillparzer

You would be surprised to see who would come then. Those would no longer be people who attach any value to the sweating maestro bowing in front of them, so that they can shine in the light of his expensive and exhausting fame.

They would be simple people, who come because they love music, and who didn’t come before, because they didn’t feel comfortable with all that unnatural fuss.^Beethoven