TODAY, serving the globalized and media-driven society of our time, major orchestral institutions strategically control commercial ‘message-making’ on behalf of their conductors. Now the function of conductor is synonymous with leadership, celebrity, power and the embodiment of interpretative wisdom – a change of image that came about in continental Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century following the deaths of Wagner and Brahms. In Britain, however, it was only as recently as the twentieth century that this personalitydriven and centralized concept of the conductor's role became normalized. This chapter focuses on two previously underexplored individuals and examines the commercial aspects surrounding conductors and their roles as mediators of art music during this time of change. It probes the ways in which two prominent musicians in Britain, Julius Benedict (1804–85) and Frederic Cowen (1852–1935), exploited, valued and promoted the function of conductor within their careers, thereby revealing a clearer sense of the extent to which they led and shaped their own progress as conductors. The ways in which their overall contributions mirrored current traditions, while also contributing to the genesis of the function itself within the scope of the commercial marketplace in which they operated, provide insights into the changing status of conducting as an art.

Prior to World War I, conductors in Britain generally promoted their own careers and depended heavily on perceptions of musical pedigree, productive networks, projected personality and, in some cases, showmanship to do so. John Spitzer has shown that similar trends prevailed in the context of nineteenthcentury America, where, for orchestras, ‘selling the conductor’ was not a common marketing strategy. The agency of the recording industry came to play a vital role in the commodification of conductors. However, not until 1913 was the ‘first celebrity orchestral recording’ produced; and, as Robert Philip has shown, not until the late 1920s did the orchestral recording industry blossom.

In Victorian Britain, the notion of the conductor as a focal and high-status artistic leader emerged gradually. The practices and expectations of visiting European composer-conductors in London (including Weber, Spohr, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Wagner, Strauss and Mahler) broadened horizons. Stretching across the mid century and into the 1900s, the significant contributions of conductors including Michael Costa (1808–84), Charles Hallé (1819–95), August Manns (1825– 1907) and Hans Richter (1843–1916) have been the subject of detailed research and evaluation.