Painting: Levine but It's Not Adam

  Sciatica- and tremor-prone conductor James Levine has been a source of inspiration to me. I find him all the more compelling a subject-matter because I'd expect from him bombast and extravagant arm-waving. But the Boston Symphony orchestra (BSO) conductor exhibited neither.  Levine attempts to signal musicians with the slightest move of his fingers. He knows his crew. Heavy rehearsals helped. An orchestra builder.  A man with a vision. As he put it, “My mission is to work an orchestra until its responses are the maximum from the minimal gesture.” Levine wants people’s ears, not eyes; then again, he's no photogenic Ozawa... I'd love to achieve the same effects with oil on canvas, given my allergy to some pigments. The fewer pigments, the better - but then again, the process of painting can be a dictatorship, however freeing the end-result may feel (or maybe it's the other way around), and the colors are the despots, loud and clear. Some painters thus try to emulate at their own ri