Once more, with feeling

Mark Elder, new musical director at the Hallé, intends to return the troubled orchestra to its former glory

On 3 December 1908, the great Hans Richter raised his baton before the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester and softly, magically, from a distant rumble of timpani, a noble tune found its voice. The composer, Edward Elgar, even marked it "nobilmente" - a favourite word of his that came to characterise the pomp of every circumstance. This was the world premiere of his First Symphony, dedicated to Richter, the Herbert von Karajan of his day. Tonight, in that same city, in front of that same orchestra, Mark Elder will give the downbeat, and life, to that same music. Nobilmente.

On 3 December 1908, the great Hans Richter raised his baton before the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester and softly, magically, from a distant rumble of timpani, a noble tune found its voice. The composer, Edward Elgar, even marked it "nobilmente" - a favourite word of his that came to characterise the pomp of every circumstance. This was the world premiere of his First Symphony, dedicated to Richter, the Herbert von Karajan of his day. Tonight, in that same city, in front of that same orchestra, Mark Elder will give the downbeat, and life, to that same music. Nobilmente.

Elder, in his capacity as the Hallé's new music director, is sending a message that he will rekindle a commitment in the orchestra's glorious past to the music of its own country. That he will strive for change without alienation. That he will restore pride in this great institution. That he will create programmes - the familiar and the less familiar - audiences cannot afford to miss.

You have to understand how important and influential this orchestra once was in order to fully grasp the monumental task that Elder has ahead of him. The Hallé torch still glimmers despite recent "troubles". But in the days of Hans Richter and later Sir John Barbirolli, it blazed. Sir Charles Hallé's orchestra was the envy of the musical world. It set the tone. The London orchestras were founded to challenge its supremacy, not the other way around.

Elder honestly believes it can be so again. His role, he says, is Janus-like. It depends which way he's facing; the audience or the orchestra. The orchestra must reach into the community, inspire the audience to grow. The audience, in turn, inspires the orchestra by their trust and pride. The international buzz must be that "something is happening at the Hallé."

Elder's contract has a two-fee structure so he is "affordable" to conduct the orchestra's so-called "industrial concerts" throughout the region. He is determined that the whole of the north of England will get the A-team. Once they've heard Dvorak's gorgeous but rarely played Third Symphony instead of the ubiquitous "New World", then the phrase "hooked on classics" might just get reinvented.

There is no question that Elder's appointment is one of the most exciting and far-sighted of recent times. For 13 years, he and David Pountney drove English National Opera through the most talked about period in its history - the "powerhouse" period. First nights at the Coliseum have never quite been the same since. The booing sometimes started long before the curtain calls. I even remember more enlightened colleagues cheering in retaliation.

Despite many a critical storm, no one at ENO - least of all Elder - ever ran for cover. Risk was all part of changing the way we in this country thought about opera as theatre. Oddly enough - and Elder is quite sensitive about this - changing the world in the opera house didn't do Elder too many favours in the concert hall. His extensive concert work hasn't, until now, brought him a major orchestra of his own. "He's good in the pit", people have said, as if "the pit" and opera were somehow a lower form of musical life.

Elder has never regretted coming to conducting via the well-trodden path of repetiteur. Singing, he says, is at the basis of musical expression. It is the absolutely fundamental way of expressing emotion through sustained sound.

"What you learn through working in the lyric theatre is the way music has to breathe," he says. "A singer can't go on until he or she is relaxed enough to take a decent breath to support the next phrase. Once you've learnt that, you learn something about the natural breath of music-making. When the singers aren't there you still have to breathe with the players. The other thing you learn from working in the theatre is music's ability to portray the psychology of character. By association, by contrast and colour, by timing, music can set off many resonances in the listener - of feeling, experience, memory. Every piece of music has its own inner drama."

So how to realise that inner drama? What does Elder say to those who naturally harbour suspicions as to what really constitutes the conductor's dark art? A great deal. And if there were an orchestra in the room, he would say it by example. First off, it is important, he says, to make as vivid a response to the musical ideas as possible."I have to find the right amalgam between the work I do involving the brain and that which involves the heart. I have to hear clearly when your heart is burning."

Great phrase. But what does it mean in practical terms? "It means, too much brain and the music-making is too objective, too academic. Too much heart and the music seems full of excess." Elder offers as an example the opening of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony. All there is on the page is a single string pizzicato and, out of that, a sustained note for the winds, piano. How to get from just that to a sense of mystery: a door slowly swinging open on to a magical world (his words). How do you get your players to convey that? "I say one thing: strings, wait for the wind. Which may seem odd, given that the strings effectively play first, activating the wind chord. But what I am really saying is: 'Use your ears and your imagination - don't just settle for what's on the page. Hear the wind, feel the effect. Music is about feeling.'"

Some players might feel aggrieved that Elder is such a hard man to please. But despite a "difficult" reputation, he insists that commitment and a sense of shared responsibility are all he asks of any musician. "The conductor who seeks to exert power and gets off on it will, in the end, be missing an element of what makes music matter - as opposed to why their career matters. I want my audiences to be so absorbed, so swept away by the orchestra's commitment, that they will lose themselves in the experience. However, one goes around this knotty contemporary question of what being entertained is all about, if you engage people's imaginations and - as Brecht said - make sure 'they don't hang up their heads with their hat', then you really can change the way they think."

Here's hoping for hats and coats only in the Hallé's cloakrooms.

Hallé Orchestra, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (0161-907 9000) tonight