Music critic Tom Service packs off to conducting school. How hard can it be? “As a critic, I’ve spent years talking about what conductors do, blithely assessing their interpretations, gestures, and podium antics, as if I knew how to do it better. Of course, with the virtual orchestra of my imagination, I can kid myself that I do, but what the course made me realise is just how hard it is to communicate your intentions to a group of musicians.”