DICTATORS OF THE BATON

76 S

Ewen, David

Dictators of the Baton

$3.50

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Dictators of tbe Baton

Books by Air, Emn

THE UNFINISHED SYMPHONY
FROM BACH TO STRAVINSKY
WINE, WOMEN AND WALTE
THE MAN WITH THE BATON
COMPOSERS OF TOOAY

HEBREW Music

COMPOSERS OF YESTERDAY

TWENTIETH CENTURY COMPOSKRS

MUSICAL VIENNA
(in collaboration with Dr. Pftderic Euwi)

MEN AND WOMEN WHO MAKE Music

PIONEERS IN Music

LIVING MUSICIANS

Music COMES TO AMERICA

THE BOOK OF MODERN COMPOSERS

of the Eaton

BY DAVID EWEN

ALLIANCE BOOK CORPORATION
CHICAGO NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1943 BY ALLIANCE BOOK CORPORATION

AJ1 rights reserved. No portion of this book may
be reprinted without permission of the publishers.

PRINTED IN THB UNITED STATES OF A M M X f C A

For
ROBERT

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Preface

Several years ago, I published a book about conductors and con
ducting* which was handsomely received by the critics, and
generously acclaimed by the book-buying public. The present
book is not intended to supplant its predecessor but to supple
ment it. The Man With the Raton placed emphasis on the past;
thus the greatest portion of that book was devoted to a history
of conducting and of world-famous orchestras and to the careers
of the distinguished baton personalities of yesterday. Only
incidentally and briefly did it concern itself with present-day
conductors.

Dictators of the Baton is devoted exclusively to the contem
porary orchestral scene in America. In a sense, therefore, it
continues from where The Man With the Baton ended ex
cept, of course, for certain essential (but minor) duplications.
Feeling as strongly as I do that America is the musical center
of the world (a position, I am sure, it will retain long after a
sick and ravaged world is restored to a semblance of normalcy)
and sensing the ever-increasing fascination of American music-
lovers for symphonic music in general and the orchestral con
ductor in particular, I decided to produce a new work surveying
the ground exhaustively.

This book presents thirty of the leading conductors now
functioning in this country. It presents these men in biograph
ical, critical, and personal portraits. Through these men, it is

+ Tb*Man With ike Eaton, Titos Y. Crowell Co., 1936,

IX

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

hoped, the reader will gain an insight not only Into the art of
conducting, but also into the state of orchestral music in this
country, for a part of this work is devoted to brief histories
of about twenty of our major symphony orchestras.

(As the book was going to press, Frederick Stock, for nearly
forty years conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, died
suddenly October 20, 1942 at his home in Chicago, less than
a month before his seventieth birthday. Although the author
speaks of 'leading conductors now functioning in this country,* 1
Dr. Stock's influence on "the contemporary orchestral scene in
America" must surely continue to be felt, and it has therefore
been thought desirable to make no present alteration in the
chapter dealing with Frederick Stock. Editor}

X

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(Contents

PREFACE ....... .......... IX

Introduction
L THE CONDUCTOR - ........... 3

L ARTURO TOSCANINI ........... 39

The Sitmman QonduSor

L LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI ........ ... 63

2. SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY .......... .87

3. DIMITRI MrmopouLos .,..,...,, 104

4. JOSfi ITURB! ..,....,,..... 112

Of zAmtrkm Traditions

L WALTER DAMROSCH ........... 119

2, FREDERICK STOCK . . . ....... 132

Of 8uropi$n Traditions

1. BRUNO WALTER ,..,,....,.- 143

2. FRITZ BUSCH .............. 154

3. Sm THOMAS BBECHAM , ......... 159

4* PIERRE MONTBUX ...... . ..... 167

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

"Batons for Old

1. JOHN BARBIROLLI . . .......... 177

2. EUGENE ORMANDY ............ 192

3. ERICH LEINSDORF ....... , . . , . 205

The ^Dynamic Qonduffior

1. FRITZ REINER ........ ...... 219

2. ARTUR RODZINSKI ............ 224

3. VLADIMIR GOLSCHMANN ...... .... 234

4. FABIEN SEVITZKY ............ 237

5. ALEXANDER SMALLENS ..... ..... 243

Other Orchestras Other

1. HANS KINDLER ............. 249

2. VICTOR KOLAR ...... , ...... 253

3. EUGENE GOOSSENS .......*.,. 256

4. KARL KRUEGER ..... ........ 262

Over the Radio

1. HOWARD BARLOW .... ..... ... 267

2. FRANK BLACK ........... . . 273

3. ALFRED WALLENSTEIN .... ..... . 276

4. ERNO RAPEE -.....,....,.. 280

fynduffors of Tomorrow

1. IZLER SOLOMON . . . , ........ 287

2. DEAN DIXON ... ...... . 292

3. SYLVAN LEVIN ...... ....... 296

L BIBLIOGRAPHY ..... . ...... 301

2. MAJOR AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS ....... 307

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Table of Illustrations

ARTURO TOSCANINI Frontispiece

LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI opposite page 82

SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY . " " 82

DlMITRI MlTROPOULOS " " 82

JOSE ITURBI " " 82

WALTER DAMROSCH ....... " M 130

FREDERICK STOCK ,.,..,., " "130

BRUNO WALTER ........ " "162

FRITZ BUSCH . " " 162

SIR THOMAS BEECHAM " "162

PIERRE MONTEUX ,..,,. f< "162

JOHN BARBIROLLI ...,,,,. ** "194

EUGENE ORMANDY " "194

ERICH LEINSDORF ........ " "194

FRITZ REINER " "226

ARTUR RODZINSKI ........ H "226

FABIEN SEVITZKY " "226

VLADMIR GOLSCHMANN " "226

ALEXANDER SMALLENS " "226

HANSKlNDLER ......*... f< "258

VICTOR KOLAR " M 258

EUGENB GOOSENS *,...... " <f 258

KARL KRUEGER ....,..,,. " "258

HOWARD BARLOW " " 274

FRANK BLACK " "274

ALFRED WALLBNSTEIN ...... <f "274

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

ERNO RAPEE " 274

IZLER SOLOMON ........ ff tf 290

DEANDlXON " " 290'

SYLVAN LEVIN " " 290

Introduction

3&z&^^

The (Conductor

There was a time when the artistic function of the conductor
mystified many untrained music lovers. After all, they argued,
were not the men of the orchestra expertly trained musicians?
And did they not have the printed music in front of them to
guide them? Of what possible use, then, was the man with
the baton? Some of those who questioned the conductor's use
fulness went so far as to describe him as a "frustrated instru
mentalist** (in much the same way that critics are supposed
to be frustrated novelists and playwrights) unable to create
great art themselves, they enter a field in which others create
it for them.

Then the pendulum of public opinion swung to the other
extreme. In the early 1920% the conductor was apotheosized.
Willem Mengelberg, arrived from Holland as the guest for
Artur Bodanzky's orchestra, gave some luminous performances
and at once became the object of hero worship generally re
served for cinema stars. Furtwangler, Stokowski, Kousse-
vitzky, and Toscanmi helped further to bring about the fetish
of the conductor in the American concert hall. In this adulation
for the conductor many concertgoers soon assigned a secondary
position to the composer; Brahms, or Beethoven, or Wagner
seemed less significant to them than the conductors interpreting
these masters, Toscanini conducting a mediocre work would
pack the house, A lesser conductor, but a fine artist in his own
right, performing masterpieces saw half-empty auditoriums.

DICTATORS OF THB BATON

The conductor could do no wrong. Each little new trick
introduced by some new director became a matter of major
musical importance to music lovers. This man conducted with
out a score; that one, without a baton; a third, radically re
arranged the seating of the orchestra men. . . . Even the dis
tortion of musical compositions in the attempt of a new
conductor to cater to tastes dulled by a steady diet of sensa
tionalism was given applause. The astute and discriminating
musician, of course, rebelled against this deification of the
conductor, realizing only too well (as Daniel Gregory Mason
did, when he wrote In a letter to the New York Times*) > "it
vulgarizes the taste of audiences by making them value sensa
tion above beauty; exaggeration and feverish seeking for effect
above the moderation and balance that alone wear well/* But
the audiences were enchanted.

In recent years, we have arrived at a saner and more intelli
gent conception of the role of the conductor* We recognize
that music is always more important than its interpreter. A
sensational leader like Toscanini, Stokowski, or Koussevitzky
still attracts large audiences, some of whom no doubt are at
tracted more by the performer than by the music performed.
But, for the most part, in symphony halls throughout the
country the composer has, at last, assumed his deserved place,
far above that of the conductor who interprets him. The once
prevalent vogue for guest conductors (which fed on the in
satiable desire of audiences for new sensational personalities
in front of their orchestras), has generally passedlf Most
American orchestras know only one conductor, and that con-

* January 29, 1928.

t Not, unfortunately, in New York, where the financial success of the cen
tenary season inspired the directors of the Philharmonic to iw*n*e Its policy,
launched that year, of bringing many different personalities to tibe head of the
orchestra!

INTRODUCTION

ductor retains his post over a period of many seasons. The
fashion of the publicized prima donna conductor has also
waned, Concertgoers are interested in good, intelligent, artis
tically fashioned performances; if these emerge from under the
baton of comparatively unknown conductors, there will be ap
plause and recognition as were the cases with John Barbirolli
in New York and Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia. In the
early 1920's, a Barbirolli or an Ormandy would have been ig
nored, obscured by the shadows of illustrious European per
sonalities.

Not that the artistic importance of the conductor is mini
mized. Far from it! Audiences realize that he is no longer
merely a human metronome. For many centuries, the only
function of the conductor was to beat time: Taktschlager, the
Germans called him. But in the nineteenth century, conductors
like Karl Maria von Weber, Felix Mendelssohn, Richard
Wagner, and Hans von Billow asserted their personalities, and
left their impress on the music they directed. Today we know
that the conductor is a sensitive artist who can give life, vitality,
sweep, and majesty to a musical work. He is the indispensable
factor in every great symphonic concert: for conductorless or
chestras have long ago proved an absurdity both in the Soviet
Union and in New York. We have learned that while the art
of conducting is the most complex, it offers the highest artistic
awards in the entire field of musical interpretation. Toward
this field many great artists aspire when they feel that they
have exhausted the possibilities of their own instrument. Once,
when Pablo Casals was mountain-climbing he injured one of
the fingers of his right hand, "Thank God/' he thought, "I
won't have to play the cello any longer." He already had in
mind the new world of conducting into which fate was thrust
ing him, Fortunately for those who have been moved by his

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

incomparable artistry on the cello, Casals' finger recovered
But, eventually, Casals paid less and less attention to his cello
and more and more to the baton until the Revolution in
Spain brought his remarkable orchestral activity in Barcelona
to an untimely end. Koussevitzky was the world's greatest
double-bass player, and Georges Barrere the world's first flutist
when they exchanged their instruments for a baton. Jos6 Iturbi
and Ossip Gabrilowitsch were world-famous pianists. Ail these
artists (and many others) partially abandoned their own instru
ments (even in cases where they relinquished a field in which
they had proved their right to a sovereign position, for another
in which they probably could only be second-raters) because,
in directing an orchestra, they were given artistic self-expression
of incomparable richness.

Nor, on the other hand, is there any longer a tendency to
overemphasize the powers of the conductor. We know that
the conductor is no fabulous musician who can make the
Gmajor scale sound like Beethoven's Eraica. Bad music re
mains bad music even with Toscanini guiding the perform
ance. But it has now become an almost everyday experience
of concertgoers that a piece of music which soundb flatulent or
attenuated with a lesser conductor can suddenly acquire charm
and character and artistic purpose when shaped by the hands
of a great interpreter. In the same way, a bad orchestra re
mains a bad orchestra whether led by Koussevitzky or by an
amateur. (Gustav Mahler's dictum that "there are no bad
orchestras, only bad conductors" should receive only discrimi
nating interpretation.) A skillful conductor can conceal some
of the defects in an orchestra; and a great .conductor can make
the musicians under his baton surpass themselves, Where
there are too many gaps, however, neither the science nor the
art of the conductor can create an integrated organism. Your

IN TRODUCTION

everyday music lover also knows that one and the same or
chestra can sound differently on alternate weeks with different
conductors. A great leader can bring an orchestra to great
ness; a poor one can make the very same orchestra sound much
like an amateur ensemble. The centenary season of the New
York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra brought a parade of
conductors to the head of that organization. It was then
forcefully revealed to subscribers how, with different men di
recting, the orchestra actually acquired a different character.
Mitropoulos made the orchestra dynamic, brilliant, showy;
Bruno Walter brought to it a touch of the lyric and the poetic.
Under Toscanini, it once again proved itself one of the greatest
orchestras of all time. With several other conductors why
mention names? it suddenly became slipshod, and its per
formances were tired and lackadaisical. What is true of the
New York Philharmonic is true of every other orchestra. Each
time it comes into contact with a new conductor it changes
its colors chameleon-like, and acquires an altogether new
appearance.

II

What, then, is this strange alchemy which can mak$ a con
ductor convert orchestral dross into gold?

One can dissect a conductor, as the biologist dissects the
frog, and learn some of the anatomical qualities which go into
the making of greatness.

The ear, first of all; a conductor obviously must have un
usual aural sensitivity to musical sound, to tone colors, to dif
ferent shades and tints of orchestral texture. A Toscanini can
detect, even while a full orchestra is blaring fortissimo, that a
flutist has given the wrong accentuation. A Koussevitzky can

DICTATORS OP THE BATON

perceive, through the labyrinth of a musical score, that a
rhythmic pattern is not in exact design. A conductor whose
hearing is not quite so acute is likely to tolerate a performance
which is not fastidiously correct in details.

Then comes the brain. The conductor must have a compre
hensive musical training which embraces a working knowledge
of most instruments of the orchestra. To this he must add a
good memory. A conductor must know the music he is direct
ing thoroughly, every note of it, for only then can he give
specific directions to his performers.

Finally, the conductor must have that innermost sensitivity
which comes from the heart. He must feel the emotional
qualities of the music he is directing keenly and spontaneously,
if he is to impress these emotional qualities on his men*

But ear, brain, and heart important and indispensable
though they are to the conductor are not everything. There
are any number of wonderful musicians who have these three
attributes. A friend of mine is a case in point. He has per
fect pitch: His ear is so sensitive that he can tell the speed of
a moving train by the pitch sounded by the wheels on the
tracks. His knowledge of musical scores is so exhaustive that
he rarely consults the printed page. He is a profound musical
scholar. He adores music, feels it in every fiber, and reacts to
it emotionally. Yet he is not a great conductor (though he
has conducted frequently); he is not even a good conductor*

If a knowledge of the score, and musical training and equip
ment were the essentials of conducting, then, surely, composers
would be the ideal interpreters of their own works* The con
cert world has had sufficient experience in hearing Stravinsky,
Ravel, and Richard Strauss conduct their own music to realize
that this is not the case. Strauss, as a matter of fact, is a re
markable Mozart conductor, yet in the direction of his own

INTRODUCTION

music he Is generally accepted as only a third-rate performer.

Evidently we must search beyond anatomy in our dissection
of the great conductor. In our search we come to an element
difficult to describe, but the presence of which is electrically
felt: an element which, for want of a better word, we may
speak of as "personality." I am inclined to consider a mag
netic personality as important to a conductor as is scholarship,
and much more essential than either perfect pitch or a photo
graphic memory. Without such a personality, no conductor
can hope to achieve greatness. Toscanini, Stokowski, Kousse-
vitzky, Mitropoulos have the capacity to galvanize the men who
play under them, and the audience as well. No sooner do
these conductors come on the stage than one feels the contact
of some inexplicable electric currents. The very atmosphere
suddenly becomes highly charged. In such an atmosphere,
a performance becomes cogent and dynamic, bursting with
vitality.

&&&J^ i ^.fflSt?ySLJt Jl

often capable ^^f^^^M^ *& in &&**** ^L^SSJ^

only the, $C3KZJ2^^ kit alfr n ^ at ftf 'inspiring.

A minor orchestra under a great conductor will sound like a
major one; and even a major one will outdo itself in the pres
ence of genius. Soloists have frequency confessed that playing
under Toscanini or Kousseviteky made them achieve heights
which they formerly thought unattainable. In the opera house,
singers have frequently surpassed all previous efforts, driven
on to new artistic peaks by the irresistible drive of a new
conductor.

Genius with the baton, as in every other field, Is the capacity
to take pains. A great conductor who hears the score vividly
with his "mind's ear," must be unsparing of himself and of
others in his attempt to bring his conception to life. He must

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

remain dissatisfied with his preparation until the details have
been scrupulously absorbed by the orchestra, until he has not
only concentrated on the general effect but also laid stress on
every accent, nuance, shading. A lesser conductor is likely to
become fatigued, mentally and physically, before he has
achieved his goal. He is tempted to be more easily satisfied
with results. A great conductor is as meticulous and as un
yielding in the rehearsal of a work he has performed a hundred
times as in that of a new work; one of the truly infallible signs
of conductorial genius is the capacity to approach a thrice-
familiar score with freshness and enthusiasm, as though it were
an altogether new creation. Too many conductors, directing
the Beethoven Fifth Symphony or the Tchaikovsky f&thetique
or the Brahms First, for the hundredth time, have lost their
capacity to respond to this music. In earlier years they had
performed these works magnificently; but after two or three
decades they are capable only of tired and listless performances.
Too many conductors are at their best only in the performance
of new works, into the preparation of which they can hurl
themselves with herculean energy and painstaking care. Tos-
canini or Koussevitzky or Bruno Walter, however, will direct
a classic of which they have long since learned every note by
heart as if the music had been written the night before, as if
every effect in the score came to them as a new discovery. At
one time, Stokowski, rehearsing the Schubert Unfynhhtd Sym
phony, felt that the violins were taking a beautiful theme too
mechanically as a result of their lifelohg association with it.
Because he was able to retain his freshness for this music,
Stokowski recognized the stilted quality of the playing; and he
remedied it by having each violinist perform it individually,
and criticizing his execution.
Some great conductors succumb to staleness; it is the one

10

I NTRODU CTION

weakness in their artistic make-up. I recall, for example, a
rehearsal of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony conducted by
the late Felix Weingartner in Salzburg. In his time, Wein
gartner was undoubtedly one of the greatest of Beethoven in
terpreters. But old age did not bring to Weingartner (as it
brought to Muck and Toscanini) richness and wisdom and
maturity; only weariness and exhaustion. The rehearsal I
attended proved that Weingartner had lost all enthusiasm or
interest in the symphony, and to such an extent that he dis
regarded (or did not hear) the most obvious errors in rhythm,
and the most flagrant violations of tempo. At one point, his
concertmaster, Arnold Rose, was compelled to rise in his seat
and behind Weingartner's back to beat the proper time values
furtively to the other men so that the performance might remain
cohesive.

Ill

For what end does the great conductor strive in his perform
ance? Obviously, to recreate in a living performance what a
composer has put down on pap^t 1 - On the surface this may
appear a childishly easy assignment: the notes are there; all
the conductor has to do is to read these notes correctly. But
there are subtleties and complexities involved in bringing life
to the printed page, and it is in these that the conductor be
comes hopelessly enmeshed unless he has science, art, and
personal magnetism to assist him.

There are questions of tempo, of accent, of retards and accel
erations, of dynamics which can only be suggested in the score,
and concerning which each conductor must decide for himself
in the light of what Ihe feels to be the intentions of the com
poser. Here musical scholarship, taste, even intuition might

11

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

serve the conductor In the choices he makes* After a!!, there
is no one set interpretation. The Tchaikovsky fatMtique con
ducted by Koussevitzky and Toscanini becomes two strangely
different works; yet each is correct as far as the notes on the
page are concerned. It is a question of musical style. Kousse-
vitzky gives stress to the emotional impact of the music, high
lighting the melodic material, and permitting himself the
luxury of a sentimental handling of tempo and phrasing, Tos
canini, who is impatient with Tchaikovsky sentimentality, gives
a more impulsive reading: the tempi are accelerated; the pro
portions of the music are given expanse; in the movement and
sweep of the Toscanini reading, the heart-moving emotion of
the music is slighted. In place of sentiment, we have drama.
Which is the correct interpretation? -Chacun & son got/L

In questions of tempo and dynamics, too many conductors
because they lack the imagination, and the independence of
true genius lean heavily on tradition. This has bean par
ticularly true of the German school of conductors, Wagner's
music should be conducted in this-and-this manner because (so
one Kapellmeister will insist) Anton Seidl conducted it that
way, and Hermann Levi before Seidl, and Wagner himself be
fore Levi. But tradition, as Mahler once pointed out astutely,
is only a lazy man's excuse for not thinking for himself. Too
often it leads a conductor to perpetuate the sins of his prede
cessors. One example will illustrate this point In 193Q> Tos
canini was invited to Bayreuth to conduct two Wagner music-
dramas. As the first foreigner to invade the sacrosanct Ger
manic halls of the Wagnerian shrine, he was the object of
great antagonism. This antagonism reached something of a
fever point after his performance of Tannhausef because cer
tain pages of the Venusberg music were played at an unheard-
of pace. The critics growled; competitive conductors called

12

INTRODUCTION

the interpretation scandalously out o tradition. Finally, Tos-
canini invited a few critics to his apartment. There he took the
disputed passage, pointed out the metronomic markings in the
score, and with the aid of a metronome convinced even the
most doubting of these Thomases that it was he who was right,
and not a generation of Wagner conductors.

But more than questions of tempo and dynamics must be
answered by the conductor. There is the problem of orchestral
balance. The orchestra, after all, is composed of many different
parts: strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion. These different
parts are, in turn, divisible into other classifications: the strings
iato violins, violas, cellos, basses; the woodwinds into flutes,
clarinets, oboes, and bassoons; the brass into trumpets, horns,
trombones and tuba. To blend these different components into
a sonorous whole calls for sensitivity of ear, immaculate taste,
and a complete mastery of the potentialities and weaknesses of
every instrument in the orchestra. With%3^oscanini (as with
Mahler before him) balance is achieved wilfr suchjsupreme
skill that the music is always transparent; it is pr ^sifele to detect
even the subsidiary voices of the orchestral choir! With Kousse-
vitzky and Stokowski the balance is adjusted so ihat the orches
tral tone becomes sensuous and brilliant. \

Then there are questions of $1$le. Obviously Mozart is not to
be performed in the manner of Tchaikovsky; nor Tchaikovsky
in the manner of Beethoven. A conductor must understand
the manners and idioms of different composers and iimst- have
the technique with whicjfi to express these idioms. To play
Mozart with feeling fojr it$ sensitive architectonic construction
and its classic style, Beethoven and Brahms with Germanic
breadth and expansiyetjtes, Debussy with a richness of color
this calls for taste/a ;gOTp of historic perspective, and sound
musical judgment^

13

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Frequently, what may seem to the layman an insignificant
interpretative task may prove formidable to a conductor, There
are numerous conductors who can play, say, the Rties of Spring
by Stravinsky with extraordinary effect; yet many of these same
conductors are completely incapable of recreating a beautiful
melody for strings with simplicity and purity, with sensitive
phrasing, with an exquisite sense for line and color* To perform
a Rossini melody in the manner of Toscanini calls as much for
the resources of a conductor's art as to interpret a complicated
modern score; sometimes I am inclined to think that it is an
even greater achievement. I recall visiting a conductor's class
at the Berkshire Music Center where the young men (all of
them unusually gifted) were called upon to direct an orchestra
in difficult works by Hindemith, Stravinsky, and Schonberg.
They went through thr^itsk with unbelievable skill and self-
assurance, revealing jpt they knew the music well, and that
they knew preciseL^Jhat they wanted from the orchestra. One
of these young onen, whose performance was particularly strik
ing, was also a&ked to rehearse a Haydn symphony. He sud
denly lost control of himself, He knew the Haydn music, and
yet he was incapable of projecting the lyric pages or achieving
sensitive balances.

It does no/ take an intricate work to reveal the gifts of a
conductor. /Let him conduct an air with a simple accompani-
willow whether he is a man of genius, With
all the notes will be there; but with a
master, the notes become part of a beautiful texture, and one
recognizes that in the design each single note has a definite
role. The melody suddenly acquires wings and soars.

Beyond these considerations \(and there are others) there
comes into prominence the intellectual background of the con
ductor. "To know Beethoven,** Bruno Walter has said, "you

\

14

I NTRODUCTION

must also know Hamlet and Goethe." Like every artist, the
conductor must draw repeatedly from the well of his own expe
riences and backgrounds when he is interpreting music. The
richness of these experiences and backgrounds will, in turn,
influence the depth and maturity of his performances. A pro
vincial mind cannot recreate Beethoven or Wagner without
betraying its narrowness and limitations. A conductor who is
a great musician that and nothing more can never hope to
rise above a certain degree of competent mediocrity. It is no
accident that the greatest conductors of all time, from Mahler
and Muck to Toscanini and Bruno Walter, are men of extraor
dinary cultural equipment. In speaking the majestic accents
of music, these conductors consistently reveal the enormous
span of their interests. Dimitri Mitropoulos stressed this very
point when he remarked: "The conductor in himself is noth
ing. It is the infinite amount of culture back of him that is
the conductor. First he must have a sensitive and carefully
trained musical mind. Then, he must have something to say
to his people."

IV

To know a conductor one must have seen him at work during
rehearsals. For a conductor to convey his conception of a
musical work to his men is often a soul-searing assignment.
He calls every resource at his command to assist him in con
veying his own vivid impressions to his musicians. Frequently,
musical terminology is not explicit enough in describing the
wishes of the conductor. Stokowski will give a talk on meta
physics or religion to set the mood for his men. Before re
hearsing a Balinese composition, he brought a pagan icon to
the stage and set it in front of the orchestra. Toscanini, in

15

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

explaining the fluidity with which a certain phrase was to be
produced, dropped a handkerchief. ("Tike this the music
should sound/' he cried, 'like this dropping handkerchief! 1 *)
Still another conductor might walk up and down the stage in
the manner of a robot to interpret a rigidly rhythmic page of
music. The description or analysis of exact mood, color, and
tone quality which a conductor hears so clearly within him
sometimes defies the science of a conductor's technique* He
must make his explanations to his men through histrionics,
gestures, speeches. It is finally understood and assimilated by
the orchestra often only as a result of sweat and tears on the
part of the conductor.

It is, therefore, to be expected that in this process the con
ductor's temper should become short, his humor bitter, his
orders dictatorial, his vocabulary lewd. Some conductors (Sir
Thomas Beecham is one) maintain their equilibrium amazingly,
and go through a rehearsal with good mood and bright humor.
But most conductors are martinets who treat their men harshly.
Toscanini has heaped the most vulgar expletives on his men,
Stokowski and Kousseviteky are merciless in their criticisms,
and devastating in their denunciations, There are hot words
and a great deal of anguish. Once Toscanini left the platform,
went to the corner of the stage, sank into a chair and started
weeping like an insulted schoolgirl Another conductor once
jumped from his dais and attacked an offending reed player
with blows of the fist Stokowski once dismissed one of his
veteran performers in the heat of a rehearsal,

When they yield to humor it is usually coated with acid,
"This is no sty," cried Stokowski to his reed players, "You
are squealing like pigs!" "Madam/* said one conductor to a
soprano whose intonation was painfully inexact, "will you
please give the orchestra your A?* When an oboe player,

16

INTRODUCTION

upon being instructed about the phrasing of a passage, re
marked, "Any fool can see that/' his conductor answered, "111
have to take jour word for that, sir!" Occasionally but this
is comparatively rare it is the musician, and not the con
ductor, who has the last word. In California, Klemperer was
rehearsing a Beethoven concerto with Artur Schnabel as soloist.
Schnabel was offended by some of Klemperer 1 s tempi and, be
hind his back/ signalled to the men the tempo he preferred.
He was caught in the act by the conductor, who looked down
on Schnabel haughtily and exclaimed: "Herr Schnabel, the
conductor is here!" He was pointing to the platform as he
spoke. "Klemperer is here! "Ah," answered Artur Schnabel
sadly, "Klemperer is there, and I'm here. But where is Bee
thoven?"

The wonder of it is that for all his evil temper, vile tongue,
and ruthless manners, a truly great conductor is adored by his
men. To work under him is not easy, to tolerate his attitudes
not pleasant. Yet Muck, Mahler, Toscanini, and Koussevitzky
perhaps the four most domineering leaders in baton history
have also been among the most worshipped. No one knows
the true worth of a conductor as does the musician who plays
under him; and no one displays such schoolboyish and humble
adoration for true genius as your everyday orchestral musician.
The man in the orchestra knows when he has participated in an
inspiring performance, knows when the leader in front of him
has made him soar to heights. When confronted with genius,
the musician becomes idolatrous. More than once has a bitter
and stubbornly fought rehearsal ended with the musicians rising
spontaneously in their seats and cheering their conductor. The
heat and the bitterness of the battle are forgotten. What re
mains unforgettable is the victory of having a musical com
position emerge into a palpitant work of art.

17

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

V

Fashions in conducting have come and gone. To too many
of these have audiences been tempted to ascribe exaggerated
importance. There was a time, about two decades ago, when
it was fatal for a new conductor to make a debut conducting
from a score. One leading orchestral manager explicitly in
structed all his conductors that they were to direct every work
from memory. Conducting from memory is, of course, of ines
timable value to a director: it was Hans von Btilow who first
insisted that "a score should be in the conductor's head, not the
conductor's head in the score." But it can be of value only if
the conductor is so familiar with every marking on the printed
page that to consult it is superfluous. He is, then, free to con*
centrate his attention on his men, and by doing so is often in a
better position to master them completely than if he divides his
attention between them and the printed page. But a perform
ance from memory in which a score is only half-learned is far
worse than a scholarly performance from score, Carelessness,
superficiality, and confusion are inevitable results. There were
times when a conductor's memory lapsed so badly that he was
forced to beat time haphazardly until he could recover himself;
in the interim the performance lapsed into chaos. Ten years
ago or so, when every other visiting conductor felt It was his
duty to conduct from memory, irresponsible performances were
so prevalent that these conductors were frequently described by
their men as "guess conductors/'

Very often, a conductor who knows his score comprehensively
prefers to have it in front of him even though he does not
consult it during the performance. It reassures him* puts him
at his ease, knowing as he does that it is there ready for con
sultation if his memory suddenly becomes capricious. Tosca-

18

INTRODUCTION

nini has frequently said that conducting from memory is an
unnecessary strain for a conductor with good eyesight.

A great deal of public attention has been focused on the
question of gesturing* A conductor's gestures are important
in enunciating the rhythmic pattern and in directing the phrase,
in giving important cues, and occasionally in drawing a beau
tiful effect from the orchestra. There are times when an espe
cially eloquent gesture on the part of the conductor will evoke
a particularly eloquent response from the orchestra. Karl
Muck's dynamic beat as decisive as a hammer blow pro
duced chords from the orchestra shattering in their effect.
Furtwangler used to make his orchestra sing by raising his face
toward the ceiling, lifting his hands shoulder level, and then
swaying his body slightly backwards. Stokowski produces a
luscious lyric line from the violins with a majestic sweep of the
left hand. Toscanini draws a poignant passage from the or
chestra by pressing the thumb of his left hand on his heart,
while his right continues tracing circular movements.

When a conductor is master of his baton technique his right
hand clearly enunciating the beat, while the left outlines the
phrase he is capable of conducting a good performance with
out the benefit of a single rehearsal. His gestures are capable
of transmitting his wishes to his men. If he is a great con
ductor he can actually give a good account of himself and his
orchestra even if they are performing together for the first
time, each unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of the other.
There have been numerous conductors, as a matter of fact, who
preferred to do their detail work at the actual performance,
feeling that it afforded opportunities for greater spontaneity.
Nikisch was such a conductor; Stokowski te another.

Good baton technique calls for the most sensitive physical
and mental coordination, Nicolai Malko, the conductor,

19

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

pointed this out when he said in an interview: "If his coor
dination is out for the minutest fraction of a second, if his
reflexes are not in perfect working order, the performance will
suffer. ... To train his body should be one of the conductor's
tasks, since during the performance he can express himself to
the orchestra solely through physical movements, facial miming,
and all the intricacies of what may be called 'sight signals/
... In order to make this physical activity the manifestation
of imaginative agility, the conductor needs a body that is re
sponsive to instantaneous demands. More than other musi
cians he must rely on physical or motor consciousness. A vio
linist or pianist has always his instrument under his hand. The
conductor must establish the same control at a distance/**

Another conductor, Leon Barzin, gives an interesting ex
ample of how the lack of perfect coordination in a conductor
can result in a defective performance: "A well-known con*
ductor was having theme trouble, as it is called in radio par
lance. His programs were excellently performed all except
his theme, that musical bit that serves as a label to identify a
particular program or orchestra. The conductor appealed to
a fellow musician to watch closely to see if the souite of the
trouble could be located, The diagnosis was simple, Through*
out the program the conductor's coordination was perfect and
the performance of his orchestra was a natural reflection of
his capability. But in playing the theme he would invariably
'throw' his knee before his stick, with the result that part of
the orchestra would respond to the signal of the lociee while the
remainder of the orchestra would follow the stick/*

Mr* Barzin then goes cm to comment: 4 *Ox>rdkatio0 means
control from the tip of the toe to the very end of the stick* so that
no motion of any part of the body may confuse the musical

* In an interview witb Ludwig WkUcfa la Wt Bt#4* t $&mxy t 1941.

20

INTRODUCTION

content of the chore. ... A definite sign of a conductor's lack
of coordination is his need to explain all his meanings through
speech rather than through his stick during rehearsal periods.
There is no question that a certain amount of speech is needed.
But if you talk to your violin all day it will not play the passage
for you. You must create the sound, the precision, the inter
pretation. So should the baton. It saves a great deal of time.
The average orchestral musician is a sensitive human being,
who reacts to the slightest motion, even that of a muscle, if it
is intended to convey a musical message."*

The corybantic gestures of Sir Thomas Beecham, with his
ecstatic motions of the body and elaborate patterns of the stick,
have a decided effect on the orchestra. Yet, in the final analysis,
the most effective conducting is that which employs the simplest
means. A conductor's gestures are meant for the orchestra, and
not for the audience. Those conductors who bear this in mind
find that simplicity is often more eloquent than complexity.
Some conductors can give the most minute instructions with
their eyes. Some conductors magnetize their men with abrupt,
decisive beats with the wrist. Generally speaking, the greater
the conductor, the simpler and more economical the motion
though, to be sure, there are exceptions. Muck used to strike
the beat with short, crisp strokes of the baton; at times his
motions were so sparing that they were not perceptible to the
audience. Toscanini merely uses a broad circular motion of
the right arm, while frequently his left is static, resting on his
hip. Conductors like Stokowski and Koussevitzky (though
permitting themselves indulgences at random passages) utilize
comparatively simple and clear rhythmic patterns, and most
restrained movements of the left hand, sparing cues. Many

* "Facing the Conductor," by Leon Barzin in Be Your Own Music Critic,
edited by Robert B. Simon, Jr., Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1941.

21

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

conductor do not move their bodies at all while conducting.
But each conductor must evolve his own gestures, those which
are most natural for him, and which best express his personality.

Stokowski, Coates, Mitropoulos, and Rodzinski have in recent
years set the fashion of batonless conducting. Actually, a Rus
sian conductor, Vassily Safonov, preceded them in this. But
conducting without baton can never acquire a widespread vogue
with conductors because the experience of a century has taught
them that tempo and rhythm can be articulated more precisely
and graphically with a stick than with bare hands.

It was not until 1820, in England, that the baton first came
into prominence with Spohn Before that, varied were the
means conductors used to beat time! In ancient Egypt, a musi
cian would clap his hands to designate the beat. In ancient
Greece, he wore a special leaden shoe with which he would
stamp out the time in regular intervals. In later centuries, some
time-beaters favored a handkerchief tied to the end of a rod; at
the Sistine Chapel a roll of paper was employed; at the Paris
Opera, Lully used a heavy walking stick which he used to
pound on the floor. Some conductors, who beat time while
playing their instruments in front of their orchestras, con
ducted with movements of the head. Not until 1807 did a
musical theorist insist that a wooden rod, or baton, was the
most effective instrument for the hands of the conductor. And
not until 1820 was the baton emancipated. In that year Spohr,
to a guest appearance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
of London, amazed his musicians by drawing out of his pocket
a little stick and beginning to direct them with it- "Quite
alarmed at such a novel proceeding," wrote Spohr in his auto
biography, "the directors protested against it, kit when I be
sought them to grant me at least one trial they became pacified.
... I . . . could not only give the tempi in a very decisive

22

INTRODUCTION

manner, but indicated also to the wind instruments $nd horns
all the entries, which ensured to them a confidence such as
hitherto they had not known. . . . Incited thereby to more
than attention, and conducted with certainty by the visible
manner of giving the time, they played with a spirit and cor
rectness such as, until then, they had never before been heard
to play. Surprised and inspired by this result, the orchestra,
immediately after the first part of the symphony, expressed
aloud its united assent to the new mode of conducting, and
thereby overruled all further opposition on the part of the
directors. . . . The triumph of the baton as a time-giver was
decisive/' And it has remained decisive up to the present time.

Some other conductor (was it Furtwangler?) began in this
country the style of directing an entire symphony or suite with
out permitting applause between movements. Since a sym
phony is usually composed of different movements which have
no direct relation to each other, the value of having it per
formed without a breathing space for applause appears to
have questionable artistic merit. But the fashion seems to
have caught on with the public, and it is rare these days to
find an audience bold enough to give vent to its emotions at
the end of a movement with handclapping.

One of the more regrettable fashions adopted by numerous
conductors is that of violating the original intentions of the
composer by altering tempo, rhythm, by deleting a few bars
here and there, by exaggerating dynamics, etc., for the sake of
giving a "new" or "individual" reading. Hans von Billow was
one of the most notorious of these violators; he would consider
it a part of his day's work to revamp completely an entire
movement of a symphony according to his own tastes. In the
hands of a truly great interpretative artist such revisions are
usually in good taste, and a musical work may profit by such

23

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

treatment. But, needless to state, such a practice is open to
unfortunate abuses. In the !920's, when conductors were com
peting with each other for the admiration of a volatile public,
"individual" readings were an almost everyday experience,
Even such a reputable and self-effacing musician as Mengel-
berg was soon guilty of them. But most great conductors
realize that simplicity is usually the greatest virtue of a musical
reading. Stravinsky was perfectly justified in writing: M I have
a horror of ... interpretation* The interpreter of necessity
can think of nothing but Interpretation* and thus takes on the
garb of a translator, traduttou-traditot^; this is an absurdity in
music, and for the interpreter it is a source of vanity inevitably
leading to the most ridiculous megalomania,*'* A great per
formance is one in which the composer's intentions are fully
realized, and not one in which the personality of the con
ductor clashes with that of the composer. To speak what is in
the score iw> more, ao less is still the supreme achievement
of the great musical interpreter.

VI

One vogue which seems mercifully on the decline is that of
the prima donna conductor, who, incidentally, is no twentieth
century phenomenon, nor a product of American commer
cialism. During the past century there lived in Europe several
outstanding conductors who were the last words in baton show
manship. Some of our present-day symphonic leaders may
frequently indulge in quixotk behavior to attract the lime
light of attention. But even the most eccentric of their antics
pales into insignificance in the face of the vagaries of one
Louis Antoine Jdlien. Jullien brought spectacle and his-

* Strwimky: An AtttMo$r*pby, Simon and $dhtj$&r t

24

INTRODUCTION

trionics to orchestral conducting at a time when the art was
still in its infancy. In doing this he anticipated the twentieth
century prima donna by several decades. Born in France in
1812, the son of a bandmaster, he began his music study in
the Paris Conservatory where he was the despair of his pro
fessors because he would frequently bring in cheap dance tunes
as serious composition exercises. He left the Conservatory
abruptly and became a leader of dance music at the Jardin
Turc. Financial insolvency forced him to escape one lonely
midnight to England. There, fortune smiling on him, he was
able to procure an engagement as conductor of popular summer
concerts at the Drury Lane Theatre. In 1842, he became con
ductor of orchestral concerts at the English Opera House
where he achieved his greatest triumphs. And from this time
on his eccentric story begins.

He had a flair for the spectacular which impelled him from
the first to increase his orchestra to gargantuan proportions
(actually augmenting its size to twice that of any existing or
chestra anywhere) and to feature at one of his earliest concerts
two symphonies in succession. This flagrancy likewise inspired
him to adopt a dress which made him the most distinct figure
on any concert platform* His clothing was tailored with me
ticulous perfection; his hair showed the fastidious care of a
coiffeur; his long black moustache was waxed into rigidity. A
brightly colored velvet coat was always thrown open to reveal
an elaborately embroidered shirtfront. He rarely wore a cravat,
permitting the graceful lines of his neck to rise Shelley-like
from an open collar. Jewels sparkled on his fingers. During
his performances he stood on a crimson platform etched in
gold. In front of him was a hand-carved music stand also gilt
stained; behind him, an ornately decorated velvet chair which,
in its elaborate splendor, resembled a throne.

25

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Jullien was soon the most talked of figure in London. No
toriety and publicity inebriated him, fed his ego, inspired him
to follow one extravagant idea with another. Before long, he
introduced at each and every concert a quadrille of his own
invention. At a climactic passage, he would seize the violin
and bow from the hands of his concertmaster, or would tear a
piccolo from the breast pocket of his velvet jacket and (swaying
elaborately as he accompanied the ecstatic motions of his body
with exaggerated grimaces of the face) he would play with
the orchestra. At the end of the performance he would dra
matically sink into his velvet throne, overcome by exhaustion.

Before he conducted music of Beethoven he would have a
pair of kid gloves brought to him ceremoniously on a silver
platter. Before the eyes of his public he would put on these
gloves with great dignity and begin to direct the sacrosanct
music. For other important musk he used a special jeweled
baton. And he would always direct the musk with such
flourish and elaborateness that a contemporary newspaper
the Courier and Enquirer was tempted at one time to make
the facetious comment that Jullien "used the baton to direct
the audience."

Jullien died insane, in Paris, March 14, I860.

Hans von Bulow, famous contemporary of Wagner and
Brahms, often considered the first of the great modern con
ductors, also blended histrionics with artistry. Volatile by
temperament, unpredictable in his whims and moods, eccentric
in mannerisms, strongly addicted to selj>dlsplay, and pro
foundly gifted as a musician, Hans wn Bulow was essentially
a twentieth century prima donna conductor, born fifty years
too soon.

In his conducting, von Bfilow always glorified himself as a
personality, His gesturing was extravagantly elaborate, di-

26

INTRODU CTION

rected more at the audience than at his players. His interpre
tations of the classics invariably wrenched effects from the
music in order to emphasize strongly the great individuality of
the conductor effects which caused such conductors as Wein-
gartner to wring their hands with pain.

Circus tricks were always evident at von Billow's concerts.
When he repeatedly had his orchestra (his orchestra, mind
you, not himself) perform classical symphonies entirely from
memory, it was purely a stunt to electrify his audiences, with
no resultant musical value. Von Biilow never succeeded in
immersing himself in his art sufficiently to forget that an audi
ence was behind his back. In a particularly effective passage,
he would turn sharply around while conducting in order to
notice his audience's approval. And, like a famous conductor
of our time, he was addicted irremediably to making speeches
before his performances; too frequently, it was not clear what
caused the speech or what its essential message was.

One example will suffice. At a concert in Hamburg, which
took place shortly after the death of Wilhelm I a concert
in which von Biilow conducted a Beethoven symphony, and
Johannes Brahms was piano soloist in his own concerto von
Biilow suddenly turned around to the audience, immediately
before the performance, and inexplicably elaborated upon the
genius of Felix Mendelssohn, somewhat irrelevantly comparing
that composer to Kaiser Wilhelm. Then, just as mysteriously,
he heaped praise upon the genius of Johannes Brahms. "Men
delssohn is dead; the Emperor Wilhelm is dead," von Biilow
whined at the end of his oration. "Bismarck lives; Brahms
lives/' Then, impetuously, he wheeled sharply around, and his
baton descended for the opening bars of Beethoven's Eighth
Symphony.

Artur Nikisch the incomparable Nikisch he was called by

27

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

his admirers was one of the greatest conductors of his gen
eration, perhaps of all time. But Nikisch was also a prima
donna. He was as meticulous about the elegance of his ap
pearance on the platform as he was about the quality of his
performances. Before he stepped on the stage he was careful
that his tight-fitting clothing should reveal the graceful out
lines of his body to best advantage. And he was scrupulously
fastidious that the elegant movements of body and exquisite
hands, the latter encircled at the wrists by lace cuffs that puffed
somewhat foppishly out of the sleeves of his dinner coat* should
present a picturesque sight to his audiences.

Nikisch knew the value of showmanship. He was one of the
first conductors to utilize the then sensational practice of con
ducting entire programs from memory. He was the first con
ductor to treat his audiences with rigid discipline, and would
severely upbraid them, in beautifully polished phrases* when
they disturbed the music by moving in their seats or rattling
a program. At one concert, he stopped a Bruckner symphony
in the middle of a passage to scold a noisy woman in the
front row.

When, in 1912, Nikisdb toured throughout America with the
London Symphony Orchestra, he experienced unprecedented
triumphs. Newspapers spread his picture across the front
pages, speaking of him as the "$1,000 a night eonductor/*
His shock of brown hair, his poetic eyes, evont his fingertips
were rhapsodized in prose and poetry. Legends were created
about his phenomenal memory and profound musicianship.
He was stopped on the street by sentimental admirers who
would kiss his hand; and at the concert he could not escape
from the adulation of a mob that wanted to embrace him. He
fdund himself a legend. People flocked to his concerts not so
much to hear the music as to watch him. This strange adula-

28

INTRODUCTION

tion drove at least one critic to express resentment. "In the
highest form of instrumental art (except chamber music where,
thank God! there is still a bit of holy ground!)," wrote Henry
E. Krehbiel in the New York Tribune, "as in the hybrid form
of opera which chiefly lives on affectation and fad, it is the
singer and not the song that challenges attention from the
multitude. We used to have prima donnas in New York
whose names on a program insured financial success for the
performance. . . . For prima donna . . . read the conductor,
and a parallel is established in orchestral art which is even
more humiliating than that pervading our opera house/*

The year when the above paragraph was written was 1912.
It might very well have been published in yesterday's paper
about some of our present-day conductors.

VII

There are conductors who can fool some of the audiences
some of the time. But there has never been a conductor who
could fool his orchestra any time. The orchestra has the ca
pacity to sniff out a faker or a genius before a conductor has
been many moments on the platform. Orchestra men fre
quently tolerate complete ignorance on the part of an inexpe
rienced conductor in the mechanics of conducting, because be
yond such ignorance they recognize a spark of true talent.
There have been occasions when a concertmaster gently took
a novice aside and then and there gave him instructions in the
elements of baton technique; the rest of the orchestra waited
tolerantly for the instruction to end, and did not permit itself
to be prejudiced against the conductor. On the other hand, in
the presence of sham, orchestra men can be fiercely intolerant.
On one occasion a conductor in place of giving the violins

29

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

explicit directions as to dynamics* lapsed into prose-poetry.
"The music should sound as if you were playing on top of a
high mountain, overlooking a bank of clouds. You are fanned
by the winds. . . ."

The concertmaster interrupted him roughly: "Look, just
tell us whether you want the music played loud or soft," Or
chestra men will tolerate elaborate lectures on various and at
times unrelated topics during rehearsal hours from a Stokowski
or a Koussevitzky, but in a mediocre man this conduct is insuf
ferable.

However, there are times when even a great conductor over
steps the bounds, and in trying to impress his erudition upon
his men tries their patience severely. A case in point is the
famous Klemperer-Labate incident which took place during a
New York Philharmonic rehearsal* Mr, Klemperer had re
peatedly rehearsed a certain passage, and each repetition was
preluded by a lengthy discourse* Finally Labate, the first
oboist, crisply interrupted with "Mister Klemps* you talka too
much!"

There was the time a young and highly publicized conductor
came to serve as guest for one of the great American orches
tras. His first few moments on the platform were particularly
impressive. He was playing new music, yet he was rehearsing
from memory. Besides this, in correcting a passage, he could
actually recite every note on the page. Was this another Tosca-
nini? But, after a brief period, there was something about his
directions which indicated that, though he could recite the
notes by rote, he did not always have a clear idea what the
music sounded like. To test him, one of the reed players per
formed entirely different notes than those written in his music.

* From A Smattering of l^normce^ by Oscar Lewtf, copyright, 1939, 1940,
reprinted by permission from Doubleday, Doran And Company, lac

30

I NTROD UCTION

The young conductor continued beating time with his stick,
oblivious of what had actually taken place. From that moment
on, it was bank holiday for the players. They realized that
the young musician tried to palm off a freak memory for con-
ductorial genius; that, actually, he did not have the least con
ception of what was in the music he was conducting. They
interpolated their own phrases into the work, changed the
tempi, inserted strange dissonances. One of the violins turned
his music sheet upside down and played the music accordingly.
Through it all, the conductor smiled beatifically, and after the
rehearsal was over praised the men for their wonderful coop
eration. The interesting epilogue to this strange story is the
fact that it actually took the critics and audiences a few con
certs to realize what the orchestra men had learned in a half
hour,

VIII

Conductors of major American orchestras earn between
$20,000 and $60,000 for a season's work. (Toscanini and
Stokowski used to receive as much as a $100,000 a season, but
these two were isolated examples.) To earn this income, a
conductor puts in a full quota of a year's hard work. His
tasks, of course, include the direction of the concerts and re
hearsals; but this is only a fraction of his duties. He must
find the time to hear young artists either as possible soloists
for his concerts or as candidates for some available orchestral
posts. He must see interviewers. He must serve on numerous
committees for musical and charitable endeavors in his city.
Then there are the social functions without which, unfortu
nately, no conductor's life in America seems complete. The
conductor of a great orchestra must be the affable guest .at

31

DICTATORS OF THE BATQH

numerous teas, luncheons, cocktail parties, and dinners during
the course of a season, functions which tax his energy and
consume his time. There have been conductors in New York
(and no doubt elsewhere as well) whose careers were perma
nently shattered because, jealous of their time, they refused to
yield to social formalities.

There are few conductors who do not find that the sup
posedly free months of vacation are as strenuous as the active
season. It is then that the conductor must study scores con*
tinually, hundreds of them, in order to keep in contact with
all the new music that comes to his desk, and to refresh his
memory with old scores. To plan a full schedule of concerts
requires herculean preparation.

During the season, work at rehearsals and concerts severely
taxes the nervous and physical resources of a conductor. It is
harrowing work, sapping the energy, trying the nerves, The
conductor must find extended rest periods, moments of com
plete relaxation through the cultivation of hobbies, interims of
complete quiet and seclusion, if he is to devote himself success
fully to his task. Conductors usually refuse to see many people
on days of concerts. They spend a great part of the time in
bed. Most of them eat sparingly on such days (if they eat at
all) ; and they do not turn to a substantial meal until after the
performance.

The concert is over; rehearsals for the next performance in
all probability begin the very next morning. A conductor,
dunng the season, finds little breathing space between one
performance and the next, unless he takes brief leaves o ab
sence. The life of a conductor, therefore, is one of continual
drive, continual expenditure of nervous energy, ccnatinual in
tense concentration, continual self-criticism and sdf-anmhila-
tion (as well as criticism and annihilation of others) *

32

INTRODUCTION

No wonder, then, that they are usually a hypersensitive and
hyperthyroid lot, full of temperamental moods and passions,
volatile, nervous, and easily upset from their equilibrium!

IX

Up to a few years ago, America has been quite content to
purchase the conductors for its orchestras from Europe. Audi
ences preferred it that way: a conductor without a foreign name,
a Continental manner, a European background had small
chance of making an impression. But even before the out
break of the Second World War, the trend in conducting has
been away from importations and more and more toward home
grown products. Growing musical maturity of our audiences
has made them more partial to genuine talent, and less con
cerned with European glamour. Eugene Ormandy, an Ameri
can-trained conductor, succeeded Stokowski with the Philadel
phia Orchestra, and was a success. Frank Black, Alfred
Wallenstein, Howard Barlow American born as well as
American trained have become the three leading conductors
over the radio.

We have gone a long way in developing our own conductors
and finding a place for them in our orchestral world. But we
have not gone far enough. Unfortunately, whether or not a
talented, well-trained American musician finds an opportunity
to show his talent as a conductor is still too much a matter of
chance. A young American conductor, even if he has all the
talent in the world, must have social backing, or money, or
important connections, or else must be a favored son of destiny,
before he can find even a minor place for himself. There is,
up to the present time, no opportunity in this country (as there
was in Europe before 1939) for apprenticeship in small opera

33

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

houses and with lesser orchestras whereby aspiring conductors
can begin at the bottom and work their way up, acquiring on
the way valuable experience, maturity, training.

A young conductor developed this very theme in a revealing
letter to the New York Times*: "1 know a great many young
conductors, but I don't know a single one who would not go
anywhere, who would not be willing to work to his utmost
capacity in every possible field, who would not prefer years
of economic difficulties to a secure job (not conducting) in
New York, if he were given the opportunity. ... I have writ
ten to almost every town in the United States which has no
orchestra but which might be able to support one. Those few
which answered at all were entirely in the negative. ... I
know the young American conductor wants to go where he can
start from the bottom, where he will have to work hard and
long before his work will show results; he is neither lazy nor
incompetent. But those who don't happen to have friends
simply cannot know where to turn. There are always some
local musicians ambitious enough to make it impossible for an
outsider without friends to do the work only an outsider would
be capable of doing, We would be happy to be chor-repeti-
teurs, to play the cymbals, to draw the curtains or collect music
if that would get us anywhere. We all would be glad to work
with school or college orchestras, poorly as they play/ 1

With the exceptions of Stokowski, Stock, Damrosch, and
Ormandy, our great orchestras are conducted by musicians who
received their training and experience in Europe. Men like
Monteux, Rodzinski, Mitropoulos, Bruno Walter, Goossens
and numerous others developed their talent with smaller
musical organizations in Europe. Then, proving fcheir talent,
they were given opportunities to establish their reputations,

*May 3> 1942 (Moritz Bomhaid),

34

I NTRODU CTION

Europe, with its opera house and orchestra in practically every
city of any dimensions, used to offer the aspiring conductor
endless opportunities for apprenticeship once he finished his
schooling. Europe, however, can no longer be the training
ground for our conductors. Henceforth I suspect for many
years to come we must depend exclusively on our own capaci
ties to develop conductors. We must no longer leave the
emergence of conductors to chance. We must find an agency
preferably through the organization of smaller orchestras
and opera houses throughout the country whereby every
young American musician with talent can be given the oppor
tunity to cultivate that talent.

We have already made some progress in this direction. It
is estimated that there are today about 2,000 semi-professional
and amateur orchestras in this country. The scope of these
orchestras is, of course, limited, and does not offer conductors
the opportunity for growth and artistic expansion which a pro
fessional symphony orchestra, with a regular series of seasonal
concerts, can. But it is the nucleus for an agency to develop
our conductors. Naturally such an agency must now wait for
happier and more peaceful days. But its realization is essential
if we are to continue as the greatest center of orchestral music
in the world.

Paragon

j rr-i

osirturo loscanini

Toscanini has become a legend in his own lifetime. His career
is built around such monumental outlines, his musical achieve
ments have been so fabulous, and his artistic importance as
sumes such epical stature that it is difficult in speaking or writ
ing of him not to envelop him in legendary glamour. Tales
about Toscanini are without number. They highlight his in
credible memory, his aural sensitivity, his artistic integrity, and
his interpretative genius. The curious thing is that most of
these tales are not the inventions of imaginative admirers, but
are based on fact. But beyond his musical greatness is the
stature of the man himself: his dignity, idealism, and priest-
like consecration to the highest ethics, his humility and self-
effacement, warmth of heart and understanding qualities
which set him apart from most musicians. Once in a long
while is musical genius of a high order married to a personality
of such scope and richness. Such a marriage results in a
Beethoven; and in Toscanini.

If he is the greatest musical interpreter of our time, it is not
only because of his incomparable musical equipment. Impor
tant though that is, and in some respects without equal among
conductors, it does not tell the whole story about Toscanini.
His greatness as an artist arises from the majesty of the man
himself. He has big&ess and nobility, honesty and courage,
sincerity and depth; and these human qualities are expressed
in his art.

39

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

He has been the outspoken foe of Fascism because from the
very first he sawJn it the debasement of human dignity. Most
other musicians in Italy scrambled to join the Fascist band
wagon. Toscanini refused even to pay lip service to the move
ment. At one time he received the blows of young upstarts
because he refused to preface one of his concerts with the
Fascist anthem. At another time, he was ordered by Mussolini
to cooperate in a screen production of a Verdi opera; his stormy
refusal was heard halfway round the world and forced even
the dictator to seek cover and forget his orders. Eventually,
Toscanini's undisguised disgust with Fascism made him a vir
tual prisoner at his home, as an enemy of the state. Only his
world fame saved him from the fate of a Matteoti. He was
permitted to leave the country (which he vowed never again
to revisit as long as Fascism held it in bondage) only after he
had promised never to give public expression to his anti-Fascist
sentiments. (Mussolini knew with whan he was dealing:
Toscanini would be bound to his promise by his implacable
honor, even if it were given to a thief.)

To leave Italy, perhaps forever, was a cruel blow to To$~
canini. The Italian sun, its dimate, its food and wine, its ge
ography, its people, and its language were inesctricable parts
of his being. He was happiest at his home 00 the beautiful
Borromean Island near Stresa. There the Italian sun wanned
his blood. Italian scenery it is one of the most beautiful spots
in the entire country filled his eyes* To deprive himself of
these pleasures and necessities was not an easy sacrifice to make.
Yet from the first Toscanini knew that some day he would
have to make it, and he made it willingly rather than be silent
witness to a despotic regime.

In the same way, he spoke his mind openly agakst Hitler
and the Naxis in 1933, vowing never to step 00 German soil

40

PARAGON

as long as the forces of oppression were dominant. Somewhat
later, in Salzburg (before Germany took over Austria) there
was talk of banning the broadcast of the Bruno Walter per
formances as a concession to Nazi diplomats. Because Tosca-
nini announced that he would have nothing to do with Salzburg
if these broadcasts were prohibited, the ban was lifted.

When Wilhelm Furtwangler came to Salzburg for a few
guest performances, he was welcomed warmly by his fellow
musicians. But Toscanini could not forget that Furtwangler
was also a representative of the Nazi government, and for this
reason refused to have any contact with him. The two musi
cians, however, were thrown together at a banquet held at the
Town Hall by the Landeshauptmann. Furtwangler approached
Toscanini and congratulated the Italian maestro for his mag
nificent performance of Die Meister singer. Toscanini greeted
this praise icily, then added firmly: "I wish I could return
your compliment. But I have always thought that a man who
gives his assent to a system that persecutes every independent-
minded man and woman cannot interpret Beethoven's sym
phonies truly. For you Nazis have banned all manifestations
of spirit, leaving nothing but forced rhythms and an excessive
display of strength- And that is precisely what you did the
other day with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, extinguishing all
that is noble in it and unduly accentuating the loud and what
you would probably call the 'dynamic' passages. But, sir, the
Ninth is the symphony of brotherly love, mind you. Don't
forget that it was a German, too, who wrote those words *Seid
umschlungen, Mittionen' and a German who put them to music.
How can one conduct such an appeal to mankind and remain
a Nazi?"*

* From Splendor and Shtm*, Otto Zarek, 1941. Used by special permission
of the publishers, The Bobbs-Memll Company,

41

DICTATORS OF T H K BATON

Toscanini abandoned Bayreuth in 1933, and Salzburg in
1938, because he would not be part of the Nazi system. What
it meant for him to renounce first Bayreuth, then Salzburg,
where he had been permitted to make his wonderful music
under the happiest of auspices, only those who know Toscanini
well have realized. It was a loss second only to that of his
own native land. But Toscanini did not hesitate in his choke;
He would demonstrate to the world that he was the implacable
foe of tyranny.

Toscanini is a good business man, and can drive a merciless
bargain for his services. Yet his generosity is fabulous. He
is aloof, and difficult to approach, except to the one who has
a worthy favor to ask. He undertook to conduct the Palestine
Symphony Orchestra (composed of refugees from Na&I Ger
many) without a salary; more than that he even stoutly refused
to accept traveling expenses. He was tired and ill at the time,
but he kept his word and made the long and arduous trip to
Palestine to fulfil his promised engagements* He directed the
public performances of the NBC Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
only on the condition that the receipts be distributed to charity.
He gladly conducted this symphonic group in several radio
concerts to promote the sale of Defense Bonds. At Bayreuth,
and later in Salzburg, he donated his services, because he knew
that the payment of his fee was impossible at either place; and
he worked harder there, without compensation, than he ever
did in America with the Philharmonic and the NBC Orchestra
at staggering salaries.

Many years ago, in Italy, there was a festival of Verdi operas,
Toscanini was asked to cooperate. He said he would be glad
to do so; but out of veneration for Verdi he could not possibly
accept compensation. (This incident had an amusing epilogue,
Another Italian conductor, violently envious of Toscaninfs

42

PARAGON

fame, was also asked to cooperate. This conductor said that
he would, but only on one condition: He wanted to be paid
a higher fee than that received by ToscaninL "You may pay
me only one lira more than Toscanini gets/" said the conduc
tor, "but I must get a better price than Toscanini." To his
amazement, the management accepted the offer. When pay
ment was made him, it consisted of a check for one lira and
it was only then that the conductor learned that Toscanini had
offered his services without charge.)

Toscanini has the expansiveness of the Latin heart. Much
has been written about his tyrannical rule over his orchestra
men; but much more could be said of his attachment for them,
his warmth of feeling for them when the day's work is over.
When he took the New York Philharmonic on a tour of Europe
in 1931 he acted to the men as a father to his children. The
hardship of travel only made him the more gentle and soli
citous. He looked after each one of them personally, was con
cerned over their health, appetites, and comfort. One of the
orchestra members fell ill aboard the liner. Toscanini stood
watch at his bedside until recovery took place. When Tos
canini toured South America with the NBC Orchestra he once
again revealed his extraordinary capacity for affection. When
he was told that one of his men had been killed in Rio de
Janeiro by an autobus, he wept like a child, remained in his
suite, refused to see anyone or eat anything. When he re
covered from his grief, he raised a subscription for the musi
cian's widow, to which he himself contributed a thousand dol
lars. A few hours before the steamer docked in New York,
on the return journey home, Toscanini sent his men a touching
personal farewell message: "You have never played so well,
or so inspiredly. We have never been so linked before. We
must be proud of what we have done. While writing I feel

43

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

sad at heart, and It will always be so when beautiful things
come to an end/*

His generosity and tenderness are only two facets of a many-
sided personality: another is humility. There is an anecdote
told about Thomas Mann that when the great writer visited
Hollywood, one of the scenario writers there met him, and
abased himself by calling himself a worthless hackwriter in
comparison to an artist like Mann. Mann later told of this in
cident to a friend and commented sadly: "That man has no
right to make himself so small. He is not that big."

Toscaninfs humility is the smallness of the truly big man*
He is altogether incapable of understanding why he is made
so much of. "Toscanini, he is nothing," he will say again and
again with obvious conviction. He thinks of Beethoven and
of Wagner, and in ail honesty he feels that his own contribu
tion, in comparison with their gargantuan achievements, as
sumes pygmy stature. "To write that score that takes genius/*
He cannot see why he should be adulated for a routine job
of interpreting other people's music. He does not even know
what is so extraordinary about his work.

There is an almost childlike simplicity about him. He does
not try to conceal his feelings; he wears his heart on his sleeve.
He cries and he laughs as the emotion strikes him. He yields
to momentary whims, like a child. To ask for a pianissimo
from his orchestra he once fell on his knees, clasped his hands
iti prayer, and cried: "'Pianissimo, please 1 /* In trying to explain
his conception of a musical work he postures, acts, burlesques,
"Like this the music should sound,** he might say, "like a
mother rocking her baby to sleep/* and he proceeds to rock
his hands in cradle-fashion.

When a beautiful performance emerges from under his
baton, he is supremely happy nothing in the world gives him

44

PARAGON

so much joy. His face beams, his eyes glisten, he cannot control
his lips from breaking into youthful smiles. He even breaks
into a raucous high-pitched song. Many times he does not
even know he is singing. Once, he sharply interrupted a re
hearsal and cried; r( Who is making that noise?"

He never looks upon himself as the cause for this glorious
music-making. He is never tempted into self-congratulations.
He praises his orchestra, calls his men the greatest combination
of instrumentalists in the world. They are responsible for such
a magnificent performance. He lavishes adulation on the com
poser. It is he, after all, who is responsible. But nowhere in
his calculations does he himself enter. That he, too, had a
share in this is to him incomprehensible. It is for this reason,
that he flees from applause, and abhors public demonstrations
to him. In the old days, when he was more a victim to his
tempestuous emotions, he would escape from the opera house
in the middle of a performance, and run through the winter
streets without coat and hat, mumbling to himself as he ran,
because an ovation to him had shattered the artistic atmosphere
he was trying to create. Today he is more quietly tolerant of
applause, and accepts it with less protest; but he is still ob
viously uncomfortable, and would be much more contented if
his work passed unnoticed.

My choke story of Toscanini's self-effacement is the one
which I was the first to describe in print. It is now famous;
but it is so illustrative that I cannot resist the temptation to
repeat it, even at the danger of telling a thrice-told tale. Tos-
camni was rehearsing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the
New York Philharmonic. He gave his musicians such a new
insight into the music that, when the rehearsal ended, they rose
to their feet and cheered him. Desperately, Toscanini tried to
arrest their ovation, waving his arms wildly, crying to them to

45

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

desist. When there was a lull in the ovation, Toscanini's broken
voice could be heard exclaiming and there were tears in his
eyes as he spoke: "It isn't me, men, . . . it's Beethoven! . . ,
Toscanini is nothing/'

But all this is when performances go well. When they go
badly, Toscanini suffers acute mental and physical pain. He
has stormed from the concert platform after a poor perform
ance, rushed like a stabbed bull into the artist's room and there
given vent to his rage. No one can come near him at such
moments. He is inconsolable. Once at a New York concert
a bad note was struck at the end of a piece of music. That
bad note was like a hammer blow on his sensibilities. He fled
from the stage outside into the street and wandered through
the thick of the traffic conscious only of his pain and that sour
note. At last, a few of the orchestra men caught up with him,
pushed him into a taxi, and brought him back into the concert
hall, A few minutes later he calmed down; arid the concert
could proceed.

t I have seen him walk from rehearsals in Bayreuth and Salz
burg, his face contracted, his eyes piercing. He is oblivious of
people in the street, of where he is and whither he is going.
He is conscious only of the fact that a rehearsal did not go well.
At such rehearsals, while he is giving shape and design to a
performance, he undergoes the most penetrating agony, His
temper is cyclonic. He will abuse his men with violent har
angues, forgetting to whom he is talking or how, conscious
only that the music has not been fully realized. He cries his
invectives in Italian, because the language is so rich in profanity.
Once when he did so, he realized that the musician he was ad
dressing did not understand a word of Italian* He desperately
searched for adequate words in English to express his seething
emotions. At last, he burst out with: tf You bad* bad man!* 1

46 \

PARAGON

Once he was particularly vituperative to a trumpet player.
After the rehearsal, the concertmaster went to Toscanini and,
discreetly reminded him that since the trumpeter was himself
a very great artist, would it not be appropriate for Toscanini
to apologize for his harsh, stinging words? Toscanini saw the
point and magnanimously agreed. Meekly he approached the
trumpeter and offered his apologies. "But, you know, you
didn't play the phrase correctly," Toscanini added. Suddenly,
Toscanini remembered how the phrase had been played by the
musician. Blood rushed to his face, his eyes blazed. He forgot
his apology and good intentions. Once again he exploded into
invective. "You see/' said Toscanini when he recovered, "God
tells me how the music should sound but you come in the
way!"

He expresses his rage by kicking his stand, or more often by
breaking his baton into pieces, Once he was conducting with
a baton that was made of particularly pliable wood which
would not break. Toscanini tried again and again to break it
but failed. His rage mounting, Toscanini drew a handkerchief
out of his pocket and tried to tear it. That, too, refused to
yield. Finally, he took his alpaca coat off his back, and pro
ceeded to tear it to shreds. When he was through, he felt re
lieved, and quietly asked the men to begin the phrase all over
again,

"It is easy to understand," once wrote Stefan Zweig in a
particularly revealing essay,* "why none but his intimates are
allowed to attend these rehearsals, at which he knows he will
be overcome by his insatiable passion for perfection. More and
more alarming grows the spectacle of the struggle, as Toscanini
strives to wring from the instrumentalists the visioned master
piece which has to be fashioned in the sphere of universally

* Introduction to TeHMMtxi, by Paul Stefan, Viking Press, 1936.

47

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

audible reality. His body quivers with excitement, his voice
becomes hoarse, his brow is beaded with sweat; he looks ex
hausted and aged by these immeasurable hours of strenuous
toil; but never will he stop an inch short of the perfection of
his dream. With unceasingly renewed energy, he pushes onward
and onward until the orchestra has at length been subjected to
his will and can interpret the composer's music exactly as it has
presented itself to the great conductor's mind* Only he who
has been privileged to witness this struggle for perfection hour
after hour, day after day, can grasp the heroism of Toscanini;
he alone can estimate the cost of the super-excellence which
the public has come to expect as a matter of course/*

This savage pursuit after perfection is part of the struggle
of every great artist. Yet few artists pursue it so relentlessly,
so remorselessly as ToscaninL His integrity and idealism are
such that anything short of the full realization of his concep
tions costs him indescribable pain. He has time and again
bolted from symphony halls in horror at hearing symphonies
he loves performed unimaginatively by conductors. "Swine,
swine," he will cry, as he rushes from the concert hall as if it
had suddenly become a place of desecration. And he is as
severely critical of himself as of others- He has been known
to rehearse a work, then abandon it before concert time, be
cause he finds himself incapable of giving life to the music he
heard deep within him* After conducting some works at re
hearsals, he will sometimes go to a corner of the stage and
beat his fists at his temples, and whine. He does not reprimand
the orchestra, for he knows it is doing the best it can; he is
castigating himself for his shortcomings. He used to avoid
recording his performances because when he heard the records
he was horrified that the actual performance raja so far afoul
of his intentions. Recently, he was listening to a radio per-

43

South Last PARAGON

f ormance of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony, and during the
entire performance he annihilated the conductor for his in
eptitude in certain passages. That the broadcast was of rec
ords, and that the conductor of the recorded version was Tos-

canini himself, only plunged him into greater despondency.

*

There are many wonderful qualities to a Toscanini inter
pretation, which can be uncovered through musical analysis.
There is the distinctness of his performances: his balances are
achieved so sensitively that always, even in complicated brio
passages, there is a lucid transparency in the orchestration. Con
stantly we hear all the different voices which go to make up
the orchestral choir.

Then there is the electric, dynamic exposition of dramatic
pages: the beats are incisive, the chords are like the stinging
lashes of a whip, the playing of the men is tense and precise.
On the other hand, in lyrical pages, he draws a song from the
throat of the orchestra incomparable for purity, serenity, and
simplicity.

Beyond this, there is his methodical exactness: one recognizes
that every note in the score is given its due and assigned its
appropriate place in the complicated pattern of the symphony
or overture. With Toscanini one is aware of an almost scien
tific correctness in the performance.

Finally, there is style: Toscanini's amazing flexibility and
versatility enable him to perform the works of many different
composers in the manner best adapted to their idiom. Tos-
caaini's Schubert in the Unfinished Symphony has simplicity
and movement; his Brahms has spaciousness; his Mozart and
Haydn are refined; his Wagner is dramatic, orgiastic in color
and dynamics; his Beethoven has stateliness; his Debussy,
delicacy*

49

DICTATORS OF THE B A T O N

Nature is his ally in his work, having endowed him with the
most sensitive pair of ears, and the most fabulous memory in
music. To hear him rehearse a complex modern work, and to
see him interrupt a particularly climactic passage because the
flutist, say, did not play a few notes staccato, is to realize that
nothing takes place in the orchestra that escapes his hearing.
His memory is equally formidable. It is well known that, since
the beginning of his career, he has directed every performance
without written music compelled to do so by his myopic eye
sight. It can be said that virtually the entire known symphonic
and operatic repertoire has been photographed on his memory
which is so exact that the slightest markings on the printed
page linger with him for decades, A violinist once approached
him for advice on the playing of a certain passage in a late
Beethoven quartet. Toscanini confessed that he had not seen
the music since 1896, but after a few moments of silent thought,
brought back to mind the passage in question and gave the
violinist the advice he was seeking. At a rehearsal of a Vivaldi
concerto grosso, Toscanini insisted that a certain passage for
violins should be marked staccato. Discreetly* the concert-
master approached him and, with music in hand, showed Tos
canini that there were no such markings on the printed page,
Toscanini still insisted that he was right, even though he con
fessed that he had not looked at the score for many years. The
following day, the maestro brought to rehearsal a more authori
tative edition of the music than the erne used by the orchestra*
and proved that the markings were as he had said, One of
the famous anecdotes about Toscatiini's memory concerns the
time a bassoon player came to him saying that his instrument
was broken and could not sound E-flat Toscartim thought a
moment, then said; "That's all right. You can rehearse with us,
The note of E-flat does not appear in your music today/*

50

PARAGON

When presented with a new score, Toscanini will take it to
bed with him and read it from cover to cover. After* he has
read it several times, the music is indelibly engraved on his
memory. He can be given a new score on a Friday afternoon,
yet the following Monday morning he comes to rehearsal and
begins working on the music from memory. Once he did this
with a work of Ernest Schelling, with Schelling playing the
piano part. During the rehearsal, Toscanini corrected the com
poser in a specific passage, pointing out to him that he was not
playing the piano part as it was written in the manuscript.

His ear and memory offer only a partial explanation for a
Toscanini performance. His sense for style is no less signif
icant and this arises from an extraordinary musical erudition
and scholarship* In casual conversation, Toscanini has made
comments on music history and backgrounds which have
amazed even musicologists* His knowledge of every phase of
music is encyclopedic. He knows what a composer's intentions
are because he is familiar with everything about the composer,
his background, his times, his materials.

He has the infinite capacity of genius for taking pains. A
fleeting passage which would escape the notice of most con
ductors would be subjected by him to the most intensive prep
aration, I recall in Salzburg a rehearsal of the chorus in Die
Niehtersingef, when Toscanini spent several hours on a few
bars in search of transparency and preciseness. When he con
ducts a symphony, every note is scrupulously adjusted by him
into the texture of the whole. When he rehearses an opera he
works with the solo singers, with the chorus, orchestra, and
even the stage-director always fastidious about the minutest
Details until he has been able to create an integrated per
formance*

With his scholarship and thoroughness is combined an in-

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

fallible instinct. He senses the way a work should sound, even
though the markings on the page do not give him the specific
indications. He has an interpretative sixth sense; composers
have said so for decades. Once he conducted a Verdi work in
which, of his own volition, he inserted a slow and subtle retard
in one of the passages. At the end of the performance, Verdi
rushed up to him and said with amazement: "How did you
know I wanted a retard in just that place? I was afraid to
mark it that way in the score because I thought that conductors
would tend to exaggerate it. But you played it exactly the way
I heard it inside of me!* 1 Frequently, in playing a modern
work, he has altered a rhythmic phrase, made slight revisions
in the orchestration, or readjusted the dynamics, only to have
the composer confess that that is the way he had always felt
that his music should be, but was unable to get it down on
paper. Once a young American composer brought his score
to Toscanmi. Toscanini read the music through, stopped at a
certain passage, and said to the composer. "'That isn't what
you want to say. If you changed the instrumentation here as
follows, I am sure it would be closer to your original inten
tions." The composer confessed to me that that very passage
had puzzled him for a long time, and not until Toscanini had
designated the remedy had he been able to arrive at a satis
factory artistic solution. Puccini used to say that "Toscanini
conducts a work not just as the written score directs, but as the
composer had imagined it in his head even though he failed
to write it down on paper."

A Toscanini performance reflects the interpreter's unashamed
adoration for the music he is performing. There is a famous
quip told about the orchestral musician who is making faces
while performing. "You see/' he explained, "I just don't like
music/' Unfortunately* this might apply to innumerable con-

52

PAR AGO N

ductors. They don't like the music they conduct. They've
either grown tired of it, or else they never took to it in the
first place. Toscanini can bring his incomparable freshness of
viewpoint, enthusiasm, and vitality to everything he directs be
cause he loves the music with the intensity of a music student
hearing his Beethoven symphonies and Wagner music dramas
for the first time. He has been known to burst into weeping
while listening to a radio performance of Tristan und Isolde
or a Beethoven symphony. "It is so beautiful, I cannot help
it," he explains. After years of conducting he is as thrilled
by a stroke of genius in a Beethoven symphony or a Richard
Strauss tone-poem as if he were coming into contact with it for
the first time. There is something essentially schoolboyish
about his adoration for the music masters. He owns a valuable
collection of manuscript letters by Mozart and Verdi, some
manuscript scores, and other mementos of great composers.
These items have a holy aura for Toscanini. In their presence
he is as humble and as reverent as a high priest before a shrine.
Such love for music can only result in the warmth and sunshine
of his interpretations, in which the interpreter speaks from a
heart overbrimming with his emotions.

There remains to mention Toscanini's culture, which is ever
betrayed in the majesty of his conception and the purity of his
tastes. Toscanini approaches musical interpretation not only
with a prodigious musical equipment and training, but also
with the mellowness that comes from a highly cultured back
ground. He reads voraciously; he is a passionate admirer of
Goethe, Dante, Shelley, and Shakespeare; he has read every
thing Shakespeare has written, and committed much of it to
memory. He is a lover of great painting. He is interested in
history and politics. When he speaks through his music, he
speaks with the language of a highly cultured individual.

53

DICTA T OR vS OF THE BATON

His is one of the great musical careers of history* He was
born in Parma on March 25, 1867, and was a student of the
cello at Parma Conservatory. Even as a child his memory was
exceptional. He learned his lessons by heart after going through
them once, always playing for his teachers without consulting
the music. Once a teacher questioned him about his memory.
Young Toscanini, to prove his capacity* took pencil and paper
and wrote down the full orchestral score of the Lohengrin
prelude.

He was graduated with highest honors. For the next few
years he played the cello in different Italian orchestras. One
of his assignments was with the orchestra of a wandering opera
company which traveled in South America, It was with this
assignment that he had his rendezvous with destiny.

The opera company was directed by a Brazilian conductor,
Leopaldo di Miguez, who was not popular with the company.
When the troupe reached Rio de Janeiro, Miguez suddenly
withdrew from his post a few hours before the scheduled eve
ning performance of Ai4a; at the same time he made public
his grievances agaiast the opera company in the newspapers,
A substitute Italian conductor, Superti by name, stepped to the
platform that evening, but met such a wave of antagonism on
the part of the audience that he was compelled to take cover.
Obviously still another conductor, more acceptable to the au
dience, would have to be found. But where at this last mo
ment? Suddenly, some of the musicians in the orchestra thought
of the lean, nervous, wiry cellist^ Toscanmi, who had long since
amazed them with his prodigious memory and ear* They sug
gested to the director that Toscaoiai be given the batac* and
because the director was desperate the suggestion was accepted*

But Toscaoini could not be found; and Toscaniai could not
be found because just that evening he was playing truant from

54

P ARAGO N

work to have a rendezvous with an attractive South American
woman. Smoking or drinking have never been Toscanini's
vices; but women that is a different story. "I kissed my first
woman and smoked my first cigarette on the same day/* he
has said. "I have never had time for tobacco since/' He had
met this beautiful woman in the afternoon, and immediately
forgot that he had a performance that evening. Fortunately,
one of the musicians in the orchestra knew of the incident, and
rushed to the home of the beautiful senorita. Toscanini was
there, and Toscanini would not abandon his love idyll. "Love
is more important than music/' Toscanini cried. But the musi
cian finally won Toscanini over with his pleas and arguments,
and regretfully the young Italian abandoned his lady for the
sake of his initiation into conducting.

Toscanini was nineteen years old at the time. As he was
pushed towards the conductor's platform, his obvious nervous
ness (or was it his youth?) made an impression on an audience
grown so much more restive by the prolonged delay; its resent
ment was temporarily pacified. There was an electric quality
to his brisk movements as he raised his baton. The audience
watched him tensely, noticed, for example, that he did not at
tempt to open the score in front of him. The baton descended
with an incisive movement of the wrist; and the performance
began.

That he conducted the entire performance from memory a
mere youngster who had never before held a baton in hand
was in itself a miracle to that audience. But there was a greater
miracle still; the performance itself. Such a vital reading, so
beautifully projected, was not to be heard frequently in Rio
de Janeiro. Some swore that they had never before heard an
Atda such as this. The audience rose to its feet to acclaim the
young conductor. Toscanini Was on his way to greatness.

55

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

It is not difficult to mark off the milestones of his epical
career. The first was the debut In South America, The second :
La Scala.

After this debut, Toscanini took over the conductor's post
with the touring opera company and during the remainder of
the tour conducted eighteen different operas and all from
memory. Back in Italy, he directed operas in different opera
houses over a period of several years, receiving an ever-rising
choir of praise* At last, La Scala called him. He was only
thirty-one years old, and already he was principal conductor
of one of the leading opera houses of the world.

The Toscanini era at La Scala from 1898 to 1909 was
historic. If there was something extraordinary in a young man
taking over the artistic direction of a world-famous opera house,
it did not appear so to Toscanini himself- He took over com
mand without any show of self-consciousness^ and proceeded
to assert his will. The La Scala company knew they were deal
ing with an irresistible force before which they had to yield if
they were not to be crushed.

He knew what he wanted; and he was intransigent. He in
stituted vigorous rehearsals, the like of which La Scala had
never before known working singers, orchestra* chorus and
himself to the point of exhaustion. The thoroughness with
which he prepared each opera inspired awe in some quarters,
blasphemy in others. He worked demoniacally for perfection
of execution, and was not satisfied until it was realized. Be
sides this, he overhauled the repertoire, introducing German
operas by Wagner, Gluck, and Weber, as well as representa
tive works from the Russian and French repertory. A great era
had come to La Scala, and it had come because of the in
defatigable, insatiable, untiring young conductor.

The third milestone was the Metropolitan Opera House,

56

PARAGON

where, in 1908, he was engaged together with Giulio Gatti-
Casazza, general manager of La Scala. Toscanini arrived in
America already a famous conductor. But after his first per
formances (who had ever heard of a performance of Cotter-
dammerung conducted from memory?) he became subject for
adulation usually reserved by audiences for the prima donna.
He ruled at the Metropolitan, as he had ruled at La Scala, with
a firm hand. He castigated temperamental singers with his
acid humor. "Madame," he said to one lady who insisted that
she was the star of the show, "stars are only found in heaven/'
Upon another occasion, a pampered soprano insisted upon
showing her vocal powers by holding a note much longer than
. the score specified. Toscanini rudely interrupted her with the
orchestral close. At one time, the singers came to Gatti-Casazza
with wails and lamentations that Toscanini was abusing them
beyond human endurance. "What can I do?" asked Gatti-
Casazza. "He abuses me, too/'

His reign at the Metropolitan brought about one of its glo
rious epochs. It was the high artistic mark in the history of
that operatic institution. There was no doubt but that when
Toscanini was in the conductor's seat, the operas of Wagner,
Mozart, Gluck, or Verdi were reborn fresh, vital, electric.
The critics were effusive in their praises; and the audiences,
idolatrous.

In a violent fit of temper, Toscanini withdrew from the
Metropolitan in 1915. The true explanation for his resigna
tion has never been offered, though many spurious .excuses were
given at the time. But it is strongly believed today that Tos
canini left because his artistic integrity had been offended. He
had not been given enough rehearsals; he did not get the full
cooperation of the singers, many of whom sulked because of
his dictatorial rule. With him departed a great age of operatic

57

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

performances which, unfortunately, has never again returned
to New York.

From 1920 to 1929, Toscanini was back at La Scala, as ar
tistic director. Those were wonderful years for La Scaia! Tos
canini was in full control, and with Toscanini in full control
there was opera-making unequalled anywhere else in the world.
Music lovers from every part of the globe made pilgrimages
to Milan to hear his performances, and, having heard them,
felt that they had been given an unforgettable artistic expe
rience.

From this time on, the milestones in Toscanini's career grow
even more numerous. He came back to America in 1926 as
a guest of the Philharmonic Symphony Society and was given
a thunderous acclaim. He remained ten years with the Phil
harmonic which, under his direction, became the greatest sym
phonic ensemble in the world. His farewell performance in
1936 was an eloquent tribute to his popularity, From early
morning, on the day of the concert, queues stretched from the
box-office, waiting patiently until the evening for an oppor
tunity to enter the hall. There, later that evening, the tumult
and the shouting were the expression of an enamored public
for their best-loved musician.

Meanwhile, in 1930, he came to Bayreuth, the first foreign
conductor ever to perform there. He gave Incandescent per
formances of Tannhausef and Tristan. In 1931, he was bade
at Bayreuth, this time for Tamha&sef and Parsifal. Renounc
ing Bayreutfe in 1933 because the swastika now hung high over
Germany, Toscanini associated himself with Salzburg, It was
because of Jiis presence at the Mozart shrine and its mag
nificent performances of operas and symphony that the Salz
burg Festival became from 1934 to 1938 the greatest center
of musk-making in the world, and the most glamorous.

58

PARAGON

In 1937, Toscanini returned to America to direct for the
radio public the NBC Orchestra which had been organized
expressly for him by the National Broadcasting Company. For
the next few seasons, Toscanini conducted symphony concerts
over the air before the largest audiences ever known to hear
an orchestral performance several millions for each concert.
With this same orchestra Toscanini went on a good-will tour of
South America in 1940. It was for Toscanini a sentimental
journey, for he was returning for the first time to the country
in which he had made his debut. In South America, Toscanini
received the greatest ovations, and the most moving manifes
tations of reverence and adoration, ever given to a musician.

*

It has been a hero's life; and it has received a hero's ac
claim. Yet there is something tragic about Toscanini. He has
never been a happy man. He had left La Scala in a fit of
temper first in 1908, then again in 1929. In much the same
violent mood he abandoned his posts with the Metropolitan
Opera House in 1915, and with the New York Philharmonic
in 1936. It would be a mistake to look upon this as a mani
festation of prima-donna temperament. He did not foresake
one post after another because he was searching for the ad
venture of grazing in new pastures. He was driven away (often
at the cost of personal suffering) by his savage artistic con
science which dictated that nothing short of perfection must
be tolerated. As long as he was given full control over the
artistic policies of an orchestra or an opera house he was ca
pable of remaining at his post and giving himself unsparingly
to his assignments. But when there were obstacles placed in
his way complaints about long and expensive rehearsals, for
example, or grumbling criticisms of his programs he could
work no longer.

59

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

"Toscanini, the insatiable, the captive of his longing for per
fection, is never granted the grace of self-forgetfulness/* wrote
Zweig. "He is consumed, as with undying fires, by the craving
for ever-new forms of perfection."

That craving for perfection has sent him searching from one
post to another, from one land to the next. In fleeting periods
he clutched it with both hands; at such times he was blissfully
happy. But perfection, in an imperfect world, is elusive. He
who would seek it must know crucifixion. Toscanini has been
crucified not once but many times. He was crucified when he
had to bid permanent farewell to his native land, and again
when he had to exile himself from Bayreuth and Salzburg
where his artistic dreams came closest to achieving realization.
He was crucified each time he had to confess, through his res
ignations, that perfection was not to be achieved by him*

And yet, despite (who knows? perhaps because of) all these
elements of tragedy that have punctuated his life, Toscanini's
career has been one of the most triumphant of our age.

60

The Showman (Conductor

Leopold Stokowski

When orchestral concerts were still in their infancy in this
country, about a century ago, audiences came to the concert hall
more for the circus stunts that accompanied each performance
than for the music itself. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were
only incidental attractions (if they were attractions at all) .
What drew the audiences was the eccentricity of a conductor
like Jullien who, visiting America in 1853, delighted them
with his bizarrerie. The audiences of the time might listen
patiently to masterpieces. But the music they really liked was
a number like The Railroad Gallop (during the performance
of which a toy locomotive would run around the stage puffing
smoke); or The Fireman's Quadrille (firemen in regulation
attire would march upon the stage during the playing of the
music, pouring actual water on a simulated fire); or, toward
the close of the century, the Anvil Chorus, in which the or
chestra was supplemented by a group of stage smithies pound
ing on anvils.

Such theatricalism has gone out of our symphonic -music.
Another brand, more subtle perhaps but no less superfluous to
the performance, has entered with several conductors, of whom
Leopold Stokowski is unquestionably the most celebrated.

He conducted without a score in front of him at a time when
such a feature was comparatively rare in this country. (When
he first did this, about thirty years ago, a kind old lady was
tempted to remark: "Isn't it a shame that the wonderful Mr.

63

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Stokowski can't read a score? Imagine, how great he would
have been if he only knew how! 1 *} When conducting without
music lost its novelty, Stokowski began directing without a
baton. At the very same time he discovered that there was
poetry and drama in the motion of his hands, He has since
been tireless in his efforts to draw the attention of his audi
ences to them. When directing Alban Berg's Wozzeck at the
Metropolitan, he meticulously adjusted the lighting in the opera
house so that his moving hands might throw grotesque and
impressive shadows on the walls and ceilings. In his appear
ances on the screen* his hands have always monopolized the
attention of the camera* Very recently, at a Carnegie Hall con
cert, he had a beam of light playing on his fingers.

He has given more than passing attention to his appearance
on the stage to the way his clothing drapes his attractive figure,
to the effect of his gestures on his audiences, He has yielded
on numerous occasions to the temptation of making little
speeches from the platform. Sometimes he tried to explain a
controversial piece of music. Sometimes he has severely taken
his audiences to task for their apathy to modern musk; and
then, on another occasion he lashed them verbally for rising
out of that apathy to hiss a new work by Sthonberg* Most
often he has lectured them about their bad concert manners,
about talking and chewing gum during the performance, about
coming late and leaving early. Once he even went to the
length of giving his audience an object lesson. He performed
a Pantaste by Lekeu, during the performance of which one
musician after another straggled late upon the stage. During
the rest of the program, which included some songs by Brahms
and a Wagner number, the men wandered about the stage, then
rambled off noisily.

He has brought adventure into the symphony hail. At one

64

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

concert he tried to dispense with lights, at another with ap
plause. He eliminated the office of the concertmaster, feeling
that every first violin should have the same responsibility. He
has shifted the seating arrangement of his orchestra again and
again. He has introduced new and unorthodox instruments
into the orchestra, such as the Thereminvox (ether music) and
the Hammond tone-sustaining piano. He has given a concert
in collaboration with the Clavilux, an instrument that throws
colors on a screen, in an attempt to fuse color and music into
a new artistic expression. He has performed the most radical
music of our time, that of Stravinsky and Schonberg and Edgar
Varese. Once he attempted the introduction of quarter-tone
and eighth-tone music at a regular concert. He was probably
the first great conductor to give serious consideration to jazz.
When conducting the NBC Orchestra in 1941, he inaugurated
intimate concerts for the audience attending the broadcast, in
which he informally rehearsed new and old music when the
broadcast period had ended.

His Youth Concerts in Philadelphia also struck a novel note.
He had the children plan the programs, arrange the publicity,
draw the advertising posters, and write the program notes.
Once he rocked Philadelphia to its very foundation by having
the young people rise and sing the Internationale!

He has always planned unusual effects, and has usually
cloaked them in a charming garb of spontaneity. His pretty
speeches, for example, (supposedly inspired by an actual inci
dent in the hall) were frequently prepared beforehand. There
is an illustrative incident concerning the opening night con
cert of a summer series by the Philadelphia Orchestra which
reveals a characteristic Stokowski maneuver. At the conclusion
of the concert, the manager begged Stokowski (who was in the
audience) to step on the stage and direct his orchestra in one

65

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

number. Stokowski leaped on the platform and led his men
in an electrifying reading of the Blue Danube W<*ltz* That the
orchestra should suddenly sound so beautifully under Sto
kowski, even in an unrehearsed number, brought home to the
audience the magic of this great conductor. Only the men of
the orchestra knew that two weeks earlier, at the last rehearsal
for the regular season, Stokowski suddenly decided to prepare
the waltz, and prepared it with the most meticulous care as to
details. This rehearsal proved bewildering to his men at the
time, for they knew that the waltz was not scheduled for the
closing concerts of the season.

That he is a great conductor, one of the greatest of our time,
is not even disputed by those who condemn his antics most
vehemently. For more than three decades, he has brought
great music to the American symphony halls* and from time to
time this music has been presented in performances of incom
parable majesty. But great music has not been the exclusive
attraction at the Stokowski concerts; dramatics, novelty, ad
venture have been music's partners, The result? Crowded
houses whenever Stokowski steps on the platform; brilliant
audiences; adulation and fame such as no other conductor in
our time has enjoyed, except perhaps Toscamni; front-page
attention. Stokowski has been the source of news, the subject
for anecdotes, and the center for controversy.

Over a period of more than thirty years Stokowski has
been the stuff from which news is made, He has known how
to direct the limelight of attention upon himself and his art.
Through these many years nothing and no one has succeeded
in obscuring him from public attention* When, as conductor
of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he went on a leave of absence,
he remained the focus of attention by going to the Orient for
the purpose of studying Oriental musk, (Was It coincidental

66

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

that this leave of absence took place at the same time that Tosca-
nini had returned to America and was receiving a thunderous
acclaim?) When he retired as the musical director of the
Philadelphia Orchestra he even eluded the obscurity that usually
accompanies retirement. As the founder and director of the
American Youth Orchestra which toured South America as a
gesture of good-will, the front pages belonged to him. Besides,
he now associated himself with the cinema and, therefore, sub
stituted a national fame for a comparatively localized one.

For a musical personality who has enjoyed more publicity
than any other in our time, a great deal of contradictory in
formation has gained general credence. His name is really
Lionel Stokes some say (was he not born in London?) . Others
insist that he was really born in Poland (do not his name and
accent betray him?) . There are those who feel that he is a
modest and self-effacing artist. For years he has featured on
his programs beautiful orchestral transcriptions of music by
Bach without revealing that the transcriber was himself. When
the discovery was made, he explained: "It's Bach who is im
portant, not his transcriber." On the other hand, others insist
that he is publicity-mad, on the alert for space on the news
paper's front pages with varied and sometimes quixotic ex
ploits. Some believe he is a true artist concerned only with
the highest standards of his art: When he first came to the
radio he announced that he would perform only great music,
and that if great music was not wanted he would withdraw
from the microphone. Others will point out that he is Sto-
kowski, concerned only with Stokowski: only an artist with a
touch of Narcissus-complex would permit the camera to hover
so lovingly and admiringly on his hands, his back, the crown
of his hair. Some feel he is a musician of unquestioned integ
rity: he has kept his concerts on a high plane of artistic excel-

67

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

lence from the moment he began conducting. Others criticize
him for his lack of artistic integrity: conducting for a soloist
like Kate Smith; collaborating with Bob Burns and his Bazooka,
and Mickey Mouse; permitting such a desecration of a master
piece as that of the Beethoven Pastorale Symphony, converted
into a Bacchanalian orgy in Fantasia, without his veto.

Actually, a complete picture of Stokowski must include all
of these contradictory qualities. Stokowski is Stokowski, which
is to say he is a genius and a charlatan in one* a great artist
and a circus performer. There are many who lament the fact
that a part of his make-up should be the cheapness and vulgarity
of a vaudeville entertainer; they feel that if he were less the
tricky showman he would be all the greater as an artist. Such
jeremiads are silly. One might just as well lament the fact
that New York is a city of noise, dust, and skyscrapers. That is
New York; that is its individuality. Stokowskfs theatricalism
is not only a source of his weakness but actually even a source
of his strength. What we admire in Stokowski's conducting,
upon analysis, is that which we deplore In his personality: his
wonderful sense for the dramatic. Only an artist conscious of
his audience and of his effect upon that audience can bring
such sweep and passion, such breathtaking climaxes* such a
sense for the theatre as Stokowski does. He is a master in the
handling of orchestral sonority. He is a dramatist, conscious
of timing. He is not a poet in the sense that Bruno Walter is;
or such an exquisite stylist as Toscaninl The more gentle
and elegiac moments are not for him, He does not play Haydn
and Mozart well; his slow movements too often lack quiet and
serenity. Music in his hands lacks repose and contemplation-
But it becomes an exciting experience. Where music profits
from such treatment, Stokowski is a remarkable interpreter.
But that is because the blood o the showman Is In his veins;

68

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

because he feeds on the limelight; because an audience stimu
lates him. Were he less a showman, a great part of his ability

would not be there.

*

He is as much an enigma to the musicians who play under
him as to his audiences. There are those who have worked with
him for many years who feel that he is a stranger to them. He
is not a conductor who radiates warmth and affection. He
never calls his men by their first names, and most of them he
does not even know by their last. If he passes them in the
street he is just as likely as not to pass them by without a sign
of recognition. At rehearsals he is cold, methodical, ruthless.
He comes to the stage without a single word of greeting (he
has been known to begin a rehearsal after an absence of many
weeks without so much as a formal salutation to the orchestra) ,
and begins working on the score in front of him without a
moment's delay. He treats his men with dictatorial firmness in
which compassion has no part. He brooks no nonsense. In
the face of incompetence he is not explosive; he is merely acid,
with a humor that cuts the offender like a knife-blade. Yet
when things go well even very well he does not yield to
praises.

Occasionally, there is a smile on his lips, and sometimes he
ventures a jest. But such moments are not frequent at Sto-
kowski rehearsals. Even when such a lighter moment arrives,
he suddenly changes face and, without the least warning, re
verts to severity.

He is equally volatile in his relationship with the musicians.
If he is kind to a musician at one moment, he can become cruel
a moment later, and without warning. He has been known to
treat some player acidly week in and week out. Yet, unex
pectedly, he speaks well of him, or goes out of his way to do a

69

DICTATORS OF T H i" B A T O N

secret favor for him. He has also been known to reveal attach
ment for certain musicians and then expel them at the slightest
provocation. Generally, he dislikes intensely any musician
who caters to him and who tries to win his favor, and he will
become fond of the one who dares to criticise him openly with
out mincing words.

Though he works his men to tears, he never prepares a com
position so painstakingly as Toscanini or Koussevitzky. He is
more concerned with the general effect for which he is striving,
and lets the minutiae of a performance take care of themselves.
He believes implicitly that one quality every great performance
must have is freshness and, after working out the general out
lines of a composition, he prefers to leave some of the details
to the actual performance* A rehearsal of a well-known sym
phony is frequently sketchy, with only spasmodic pages touched
upon. Even a complex modern work, played for the first time,
is frequently rehearsed by him not note for note but in random
passages. For this reason, perfectionists will criticize many
Stokowski performances severely. The violins may sometimes
slight a difficult passage. There is often a lack of precision
and exactness which so many other conductors demand, But,
it must be confessed, something important takes the place of
technical perfection: Some of the soaring moods achieved by
Stokowski, when he carries his orchestra to dizzy heights of
eloquence, are the result of spontaneity.

There are times when he will preface the rehearsal of a spe
cific work with a long speech; more often than not, the speech
will not be concerned with the musk itself, but with meta
physics, religion, ethics, or literature. His message may appear
irrelevant at the moment it is delivered, but it usually has some
relation to the music he is about to rehearse, He is trying to
set a mood for his men; to prepare their mental stages (so to

70

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

speak) . Then, after he has had his say, and has worked out
the general outlines of a piece of music, he will take a seat in
the back of the empty hall, and listen to its performance at the
hands of an assistant. After making important notes, he re
turns to the stage and puts on the finishing touches.

His capacity to make an orchestra sound the luxuriant or
chestral texture he achieves is one of his greatest gifts. He
proved this once and for all when he organized the American
Youth Orchestra and made it imitate the tone quality of the
Philadelphia Orchestra. During rehearsals, he is continually
experimenting with sonority. He is a master in the blending
of tone qualities. He makes the most subtle adjustments be
tween different sections of the orchestra. He is assiduous in
working out different blends of sounds. Many of his rehearsals
are merely exercises in sonority. But when he has finished his
experiments, the orchestra under him produces a tone, the
beauty and richness of which is the envy of so many other

conductors.

*

He owes his inexhaustible energy to methodical living. When
he was still the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he
budgeted his time carefully. He would rise early in the morn
ing, eat a sparing breakfast, and then walk to the Academy of
Music for the morning rehearsal. When there was no re
hearsal scheduled for the morning, he would spend his time
reading scores. Afternoons (once again when there were no
rehearsals) would be allocated to interviews, business appoint
ments, personal cpntacts. Evenings usually were spent quietly
in the company of a few friends, or in reading. When there
was a concert, Stokowski would take a nap in the later after
noon. Just before the concert, he would relax in the hands of
a masseur.

71

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

He has always had the hypochondriac's fascination for diets,
exercise, and healthful living. He takes walks regularly, and
always indulges in the milder forms of setting-up exercises*
He is almost an ascetic when it comes to food, his meals usually
consisting of raw fruits, raw vegetables, and juices (though
there was a time when he believed strongly in heavy meat
diets) . He never drinks coffee, smokes, or indulges in intoxi
cating drinking* He dislikes parties and elaborate social func
tions, Reading, spending silent hours in quiet contemplation
(almost after the fashion of an Oriental), listening to music
these are his favorite diversions.

His career has been all of one piece and pattern: the traits
(praiseworthy and otherwise) which today make him one of
the most glamorous of living conductors were there even when
he was an unknown musician. He was born in London on
April 18, 1882. His name has always been Leopold Sto-
kowski. His father was Polish, and his mother, Irish neither
one of them professional musicians- As a boy, Leopold studied
*the violin and piano, revealing sufficient talent to attract the
interest of a patron who financed his academic education. The
study of music he later continued at the Royal College of
Music with Stanford and Davies, supporting himself during
this period by assuming any and every assignment which might
earn him a shilling. At one time, he even served as hack
pianist in a cheap London music halt His pleasure 'Came in
playing the music of Bach, his favorite composer from the very
first. He played Bach continually, and acquired a truly com
prehensive knowledge of that master's music

In 1903, Stokowski received his first dignified musical post.
He was appointed organist of the St James's Church in Picca
dilly. From here he was invited to New York to assume the
organ post at the fashionable St. Bartholomew Chuich. He

72

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

was a very good organist; we have evidence of that from many
who heard him. He played Bach magnificently, and with fine
dramatic instinct. His music made churchgoing an exciting
emotional experience. He immediately found a clique which
was fascinated by him and which spoke ravishingly of his mu
sical gifts. The musical Stokowski of later years was slowly
growing out of embryo.

He spent his summers in Europe studying conducting. Fi
nally, in 1908, he was given an opportunity to direct a few
summer concerts in London. A few months after this, a great
opportunity came his way. The orchestra in Cincinnati, after
a moribund period, had been reorganized. It was searching
for a young and energetic leader who might vitalize it. Some
far-sighted patrons thought of the brilliant and appealing or
ganist of St. Bartholomew, and felt that his personality might
go well in Cincinnati. Stokowski was offered the post; and he
accepted eagerly.

Stokowski's career in Cincinnati is of interest not because he
proved himself at once to be a great conductor (which was
not the case!), but because he proved himself at once to be
Stokowski. He took over the command of the orchestra with
a firm hand, always threatening dismissal for his musicians if
his slightest wish did not become law. He inaugurated pro
grams which were incredibly progressive for the time (including
an All- American program!), refusing to consult the tastes of
his public, or the opinions of his critics. He even began to
make little speeches to discipline his audiences for their lack
of manners. As early as 1911, he was upbraiding his audience
for fumbling with its programs. "Please don't do that! We
must have the proper atmosphere. , . . I do not want to scold
you or to appear disagreeable. . . . We work hard all week
to give you this music, but I cannot do my best without your

73

DICTATORS OF THE B A T O !s ?

aid. Ill give you my best or I won't give you anything. It is
for you to choose." (Many years later, when first appearing
before the radio microphone, he used almost the same words:
"Well play the best musk, or we won't play anything, If you
do not like our music, say so, and we won't give any more
radio con certs.")

He made his concerts in Cincinnati such a reflection of his
own dynamic personality that, when he announced his resigna
tion in 1912, he caused a panic in Cincinnati music circles. It
seemed unthinkable to have symphony concerts without Sto
kowski. Every effort was made to keep him. Stokowski had
explained that he was going because he could not get the full
cooperation of his men. At one of his last rehearsals, a
spokesman for the orchestra arose and swore for all the men
that if Stokowski would reconsider his decision he would never
have any further cause for complaint, The directors of the
orchestra came to him with promises of every kind; his every
wish would be catered to; there would be all "necessary adjust
ments/' ("Adjustments!** stormed Stokowski, "what cannot
be adjusted is the loss of my enthusiasm, which enthusiasm is
absolutely necessary in the constructive work of building an
orchestra!") Subscribers wrote appealing letters.

But Stokowski remained adamant, Did he already have the
contract for the Philadelphia Orchestra in his pocket? Prob
ably for his excuses for resigning sound feeble and insincere.
In any case, that spring Stokowski brushed the dust of Cincin
nati from his shoes. During the summer, he fulfilled a few
engagements in London, The following fall, he was in Phila
delphia in his new post.

The Philadelphia Orchestra was not only a step East for Sto-
kowsfci (geographically an important direction for an ambi
tious conductor, because most of the great orchestras of America

74

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

were at the time in the East) , but also a step upward. Cincin
nati had proved valuable practice ground. Stokowski had ac
quired experience. He knew all the tricks. of the trade. To
that repertoire of tricks he was now prepared to add quite a

few of his own.

*

In 1912, the orchestra centers in America were Boston, New
York, and Chicago. Philadelphia was still a musical suburb.
Its orchestra had been founded in 1900 by an admirable artist,
Fritz Scheel friend of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, and
Hans von Billow. Scheel conducted four excellent concerts in
1900. His success inspired the formation of the orchestra on
some permanent basis. In 1901, the Philadelphia Orchestra
Association was organized, and in 1903 it was incorporated.
Its aim was the presentation of the best in symphonic music in
an annual series of subscription concerts.

Fritz Scheel remained the conductor of the Philadelphia Or
chestra until 1907. He was a musician of taste and discrimina
tion who refused to pamper his audiences by offering salon
numbers (as so many other conductors did at the time through
out America). His programs were always musically sound,
sometimes even adventurous. In 1903, he directed a cycle of
Beethoven symphonies. In 1904, he invited Richard Strauss to
conduct three concerts devoted to his own works. He was a
receptive host to the works of living composers, giving Ameri
can premieres of music by Dvorak, D'Indy, Sibelius, Rimsky-
Korsakow, Glazu'nov, and Converse. His stubborn refusal to
descend from the high standards he had set for his orchestra
resulted in small audiences and enormous deficits: he used to
say with more good humor than malice that he was grateful a
conductor performed with his back to the audience so that he
could forget how empty the hall was.

75

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Scheel was succeeded by Carl Pohlig, a competent musician,
but a rather colorless personality, Pohlig had his admirers in
Philadelphia. But out of the cityduring the tours of the
orchestra he was treated coldly. He was not the man to
encourage large audiences to come to his concerts. He was
altogether incapable of directing attention to his orchestra or
to himself. His programs were in good taste, but without un
usual interest His own personality lacked positive qualities,
Under his direction, the Philadelphia Orchestra continued its
rather unexciting existence, accumulating more deficits than
prestige. In Boston and New York, the Philadelphia Orchestra
was looked upon rather condescendingly as a small-town or
chestra with a small-town conductor*

It was at this time that Stokowski (with his ever wonderful
sense of timing) entered on the Philadelphia musical scene.
To audiences long accustomed to undramatic concerts, the ap
pearance of Stokowski promised adventure. His electrifying
career in Cincinnati had been well publicised* Here then was
the man to remove the drabness to which symphony concerts
had succumbed and to bring to them a touch of glamour.

His first concert* on October 11, 1912, saw a crowded audi
torium. Extra chairs had been placed within the orchestral rail
The atmosphere was charged. The audience awaited its new
conductor with nervous anticipation. Them, as the critic of the
Philadelphia Public Ledge? reported, "Stokowski came forward
with bowed head, evidently pondering the content of his musi
cal message. Those who went forth to see a hirsute eccen
tricity were disappointed, They beheld a surprisingly boyish
and thoroughly businesslike figure who was sure of himself,
yet free from conceit, who dispensed with the score by virtue
of an infallible memory, and held his men and his audience
from the first note to the last firmly in his grasp/"

76

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

The critic spoke the enthusiasm of the entire audience when
he discussed Stokowski's conducting. "The new leader has
been surprisingly successful in welding the several choirs into
a single coherent entity. They played yesterday with a unity
of purpose particularly among the first violins not usually
attained until mid-winter. They brought out the full value of
the lights and shadows. The climaxes were duly accentuated,
the pianissimos with the utmost delicacy and refinement were
contrasted with the full-throated polyphony. Mr. Stokowski's
conducting is after the order of Nikisch, whom he frankly ad
mires. . . . His gestures are graphic, the arcs and parabolas he
describes tell of a kind of geometrical translation going on in
his mind, whereby he visualizes the confluent rhythms in out
ward action. , . . There is from the first to the last no languor
or slackened moment; he directs with a fine vigor and intensity
that mounts to ecstasy yet does not lose its balance or forget its
sane and ordered method/*

Stokowski's debut was a triumph; there was no question on
that score. At the end of the concert, a huge laurel wreath was
laid on his platform. Stokowski stood within the wreath and
motioned to his men to rise and receive the tributes of an audi
ence which had risen to its feet.

And from that moment on, the history of the Philadelphia

Orchestra was the history of Leopold Stokowski.

#

Some years ago, Pierre Monteux, disappointed at the apa
thetic reception given him by audiences when he served a
short term as guest with the Philadelphia Orchestra, remarked
poisonously that in Philadelphia only conductors who were
tailor models were appreciated.

It is quite easy to cast a slur on Stokowski because he has
been fastidious about his tailoring, his appearance on the stage,

77

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

the graceful lines of his gesturing, It is also easy to speak
venomously of his numerous attempts at sensationalism, and to
condemn some of his performances for their greater concern
with general effect than with technical accuracy. Many great
composers of our time grumble at the way Stokowski interprets
their music only because of his carelessness about technical de
tails. One of the greatest of living masters (he has asked me
not to mention his name) once complained to me at great
length about Stokowski. "It's very exciting what he plays, but
it just isn't my music/* An American interviewer once ques
tioned Sibelius about Stokowski. "He is a very fine man, I am
sure/' Sibelius was quoted as saying, "a very interesting man,
and interested in many things but not, I think, in music/* In
short, a case can be built against Stokowski. But to do so is to
forget that other arguments can be summoned* of equal if not
greater weight, to prove that he is also a genius*

We must remember that if he is a sensationalist, he is also
one of the most dynamic figures in the music of our times. His
concerts have never been guilty of stagnancy. Over a period
of several decades he has kept them alive* Important* experi
mental* If Stokowski has been egocentric, consciously striving
to direct attention upon himself, he has also succeeded in
making symphonic music attractive to large audiences. The
hall was full when first he stepped on the platfomi in Phila
delphia, and it remained full for the next thirty years whenever
he conducted. If Stokowski is more concerned with the effect
of his performances than with minutiae, he has also proved
hitmelf capable of giving parformances searching!/ poetic, per
formances built on heroic lines with heroic proportions, per
formances of luminous quality, aflame with the sparks of his
personality.

He built the Philadelphia Orchestra into one of the great

78

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

orchestral ensembles of all time, and he built it because he has
been ruthless and uncompromising. He had hardly arrived in
Philadelphia when he came to grips with the authorities. He
insisted on a sufficient number of rehearsals, and in the proper
hall, regardless of expense. He won this battle, just as he was
destined to win every other battle, because he was intransigent.
At his first rehearsals he immediately asserted his will over his
men. He gave his orders imperiously, with the tone of a leader
who is accustomed to being obeyed. He electrified his men;
he crushed them with his acid criticisms. Pohlig and Scheel
had been demanding musicians; but their rehearsals, in com
parison with the Stokowski workouts, had been Sunday school
outings. Stokowski was ruthless in his dismissals of men who
had outlived their usefulness to the orchestra. He worked his
men severely, driving them with the force of his cogent per
sonality, until they produced the kind of music that satisfied
his discerning ear and exacting tastes, the kind of music that
pleased his passionate love for beautiful sounds. During these
workouts, an orchestra was being transformed, an orchestra
which soon matched the great orchestras of the world in lumi-
nousness of tone, virtuosity, and beauty of sonority.

Philadelphia now joined Boston, New York, and Chicago as
a leading center of symphonic music, not only because its or
chestra had been shaped into greatness, but also because its
programs were so experimental. From the first, Stokowski was
a passionate advocate of the modern composer, and during a
period when the modern composer was not tolerantly listened
to. Stokowski closed his ears to the groans of his audiences
and employers, and with the stubborn heroism of a true pioneer
performed the music he felt deserved a hearing. In 1916, for
example, Stokowski proposed to perform, for the first time in
America, the gargantuan Eighth Symphony of Gustav Mahler,

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

which called for a large orchestra and a chorus of a thousand
voices. The directors of the orchestra refused to consider Sto-
kowski's plan at first, because they insisted that there was simply
no audience for Mahler's music, and then because such a con
cert would entail the expenditure of $14,000. Stokowski re
mained firm, and the directors were finally compelled to yield.
They raised the money not only for nine Philadelphia per
formances, but (also at Stokowski's insistence) an additional
$12,000 for a New York presentation. Incidentally, in this
clash between Stokowski and directors, it was Stokowski who
proved that his Judgment was sounder than that of his adver
saries. The performance of the Mahler symphony proved an
unprecedented triumph for the Philadelphia Orchestra; it might
well be said that it marked for the first time the success of this
orchestra in New York, and the prelude to its international
reputation. Beyond this, the performances as a whole brought
in profits.

From 1916 on, the Philadelphia Orchestra energetically gave
voice to new music. To survey the list of American (or world)
premieres by the Philadelphia Orchestra is, in a measure, to
view a cross-section of musical creation in the twentieth cen
tury; but for Stokowski, many of the great works of our time
would have had to wait indefinitely for their first American
hearing, Sibelius (symphonies no. 5, 6, 7), Schonberg (Kam
mersymphonie, Die Glickliche Hanoi, Pierrot Lunaire), Scriabin
(symphonies no, 3 and 5, the Divine Poem), Elgar (Enigma
Variations), Chausson (symphony in B flat), Rachmaninoff
(symphony no. 3 Piano Concerto no, 4), Manyel de Falla (El
Amor Bruja), Prokofieff ( The Age of Steel), Stravinsky (The
Kites of Spring, Les Notes, Oedipus Rex), Szymanowski (sym
phony no. 3 Piano Concerto), Shostakovich (symphonies no,
1 and 3), Alban Berg (Wozzeck), Carlos Chavez (H,P.)

80

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

these are only a few of the many important composers of our
time to have found recognition. in Philadelphia. And American
composers? Certainly few conductors have done such yeoman
service for our native musicians, even at a time when the
American composer was the bete now of our symphony halls.
Ernest Schelling was performed by Stokowski as early as 1912;
Daniel Gregory Mason in 1916. Other American composers
like Samuel Gardner, Henry Hadley, Charles T. Griffes, Josef
Hofmann, John Alden Carpenter, Leo Ornstein, Edgar Varese,
Aaron Copland, Arthur Farwell, Wallingford Riegger, Henry
F. Gilbert, Abram Chasins, Efrem Zimbalist, Roy Harris, Harl
McDonald have found representation on Philadelphia pro
grams.

*

What has helped to make Stokowski such a vital force in the
music of our times, and such a devoted apostle of the new, is
his restless intellect which is ever groping for new spheres for
musical expression. Once again, we would be unjust to the
man if we were to say that it was his vanity which led him
continually to search for new worlds to conquer. It would be
more accurate to point out that he has an insatiable intellectual
curiosity which makes him restlessly search out new avenues.
The same intellectual hunger which has driven him for nourish
ment to different philosophies and cultures (Confucian, Bud
dhist, Christian) , which has brought him to metaphysics, phi
losophy and literature, has also brought him to scientific re
search, in which he is by no means a mere dabbler. He was
one of the first great conductors to turn seriously to phonograph
recording; the year was 1919. Once associating himself with
recorded music, he made a study of the science, and the Victor
Company has attested to the fact that the present high standards
of orchestral recording owe a partial debt to Stokowski's inde-

81

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

fatigable researches. In 1929, he interested himself in radio
broadcasting. At once he began to experiment in the control
room, and to work over mechanical problems of orchestral
transmission. He has helped to evolve (we have the word of
radio engineers for this!) a more successful method of sending
symphonic music through the air. Then, having conquered
the air-waves, he entered the world of the cinema, once again
spending time and effort in the laboratory. Those who have
heard and seen fantasia know how successfully he has solved
the problem of lifelike reproduction of orchestral music on the
screen, a problem which before this had defied the solutions of
trained scientists with many years of study and experiments in

sound films to their credit.

*

Stokowski's name, and that of the Philadelphia Orchestra,
had become so synonymous over a period of many years that
when, in 1934, he announced that he was through as principal
conductor, the music world refused to believe its ears. The
Philadelphia Orchestra without Stokowski? as fantastic as
Romeo without Juliet, relativity without Albert Einstein, evolu
tion without Charles Darwin* What caused Stokowski's deci
sion at that time remained a mystery, Perhaps he felt that his
audiences (and the directors of the orchestra) were beginning
to take him too much for granted. There had been some at
tempt on the part of the authorities to urge him to popularize
his programs by sacrificing the moderns for the classics. A
volcanic eruption was necessary, he may have felt, to shake
them out of their complacency. If he wished to strike terror
he succeeded only too well, for immediately the directors came
to him with the offer of "music director" a post quite apart
from that of conductor which placed full dictatorial powers
over the organization into his hands without the power of out-

82

LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI

SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY

DIMITRI MITROPOULOS

JOSE ITURBI

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

side veto. This offer cemented the breach but only tem
porarily. In 1936, Stokowski again announced his resignation,
promising to return each season for a few guest performances.
In 1941, he severed his last ties with the orchestra he had
brought to world prominence.

What brought about Stokowskf s permanent withdrawal from
Philadelphia where his very word had become law? It is prob
able that not even Stokowski can offer the answer. One can
make guesses and draw assumptions. Stokowski is too restive
to remain permanently in a world he has conquered com
pletely. He had acquired a role of first importance in Ameri
can symphonic music; not even the triumphs of Toscanini
which threw so many other conductors into a shade could
detract from the lustre of Stokowski's fame. He had achieved
with the Philadelphia Orchestra the highest position to which
he could possibly aspire. Having accomplished all this, he
began to search nervously for untried fields of musical activity,
for new triumphs in virgin territory. Hollywood attracted his
roving eye. Hollywood offered him a fabulous new kingdom
through whose agencies he could perform for millions, through
whose resources he could evolve new directions for music. Did
he have a Hollywood contract in his pocket when he resigned
from the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1936? The answer is not
important. What is important is that Stokowski had visited
Hollywood, had spoken to some of its leading personalities,
and had recognized that there was a place for him there.

His first film appearance took place in the Big Broadcast of
1937. He caused many sinking hearts when he insisted upon
playing, not some sentimental Tchaikovsky melodies, but two
compositions of Bach, including the G-minor fugue. The G-
minor fugue for consumption by the nation's factory-workers,
stenographers, newsboys, merchants? Hollywood shook its

83

DICTATORS OF THE EATON

head with skepticism. It yielded only because, as always, Sto-
kowski was intractable. The Bach musk, and Stokowski> took
the country by storm. His second screen appearance, in which
he performed a speaking as well as a conducting part, was with
Deanna Durbin in 100 Men and a GtrL He conducted a
movement from a Tchaikovsky symphony, as well as works by
Mozart and Liszt. Then Walt Disney asked him to cooperate
in the making of a Mickey Mouse short retelling the fable of
the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Stokowski was to conduct the or
chestra in the music by Paul Dukas* But once Stokowski asso
ciated himself with Disney, he was dissatisfied merely with the
role of conductor. He convinced Disney that they could pro
duce something important and revolutionary, not only with
Dukas* music but also with the works of other music masters.
The story goes that when Stokowski first broached the subject
to Disney, suggesting that they make a film of Bach's Toccata
and Fugue, Disney politely told Stokowski to leave the story
angle to the scenario department and to concern himself only
with the music mistaking Toccata and Fugue for a pair of
storybook lovers like Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida,
or Helolse and Abelard. At any rate, Stokowski's voluble en
thusiasm and irresistible personality won over Disney, They
worked out a script together, discussed the animation, analyzed
the accompanying music, For three years, Stokowski was a
familiar figure in the Disney studios. At the same time, he
was working out a new method of recording the music for the
screen. The result was the two-million dollar Pawtasla which
gave pictorial interpretations to such musical masterpieces as
Stravinsky's Rites of Spring, Beethoven*s Pastorale Symphony,
Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, Bach's Toccata and
Fugue in D-minor, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. How in
the world can you expect to appeal to the masses with esoteric

84

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

music by Bach, Stravinsky, Dukas, and Beethoven, and with a
revolutionary film, sans plot or coherence, the various sections
of which are tied together only through the smart remarks of
a master of ceremonies (Deems Taylor) ? Hollywood cynically
asked this question. But Fantasia attracted more than a million
customers at two-a-day performances in New York alone in a
period of less than a year. And after its national distribution
it yielded fabulous profits.

*

And still Stokowski continues to make history. From certain
points of view perhaps his most remarkable achievement has
been the formation of the All-American Youth Orchestra, in
the spring of 1940. Convinced of the richness of musical talent
among the very young, Stokowski boldly decided to gather the
best of this talent into a great symphony orchestra. Fifteen
thousand young musicians received auditions in every State, and
from this number 560 were chosen as outstanding. Stokowski
then traveled from one end of the country to the other, listening
to the 560 young musicians. From their ranks he selected the
eighty-odd who he felt deserved to join his orchestra. The
average age of this unusual symphonic group was eighteen, but
there were two members who were only fourteen years old.
After giving a few preliminary concerts in the United States,
Stokowski (with funds provided largely out of his own pocket) ,
took his orchestra on a good- will tour of South America. Then
he gave numerous concerts throughout the United States, and
made phonograph recordings. Perhaps nowhere else have Sto
kowski' s rare gifts and powers as a conductor been so eloquently
proved as with his Youth Orchestra. In a bewilderingly short
time, and with material of comparatively inexperienced orches
tral players, he fashioned a symphonic ensemble that deserved
ranking with the greatest American orchestras. One survey

85

DICTATORS O F 1' H I< B A 'I* O N

actually placed the Youth Orchestra as the seventh leading
symphonic organization in this country. That this is no ex
aggerated praise each music lover can learn for himself by
listening to the recording of music from Tristan und Isolde
which Stokowski made for Victor with the Philadelphia Or
chestra and comparing it with the same music Sfcokowski per
formed for Columbia records with the Youth Orchestra. It is
sometimes difficult to recognize which is the Philadelphia Or
chestra and which is the orchestra of youngsters. Higher
praise than this can be given to no conductor, Stokowski has
proved Mahler's adage that there are no great orchestras^ only
great conductors.

86

Serge Koussevitzky

Russian children usually enjoyed playtime by simulating soldiers
or noblemen. But when Serge Koussevitzky was a child he
would pretend he was an orchestral conductor. He would line
up two rows of empty chairs in the living room. Then he
would re-enter the room, bow stiffly to an imaginary audience
and, with stick in hand, would proceed to direct a symphony
while singing the principal parts at the top of his voice.

The child is father to the man. To see Koussevitzky step
ping imperiously on the stage and, with sovereign air, pro
ceeding to direct a concert his audience and his orchestra both
in the hollow of his hand; to see him at a rehearsal, arriving in
a cape which is removed from his shoulders before he steps to
his platform to see him at such moments is to realize that, in
conducting, his temperament finds fullest expression. He was
born for the baton. He was meant for giving orders to other
musicians, and being obeyed; he has the inflexible will of a
despot. He was meant for the limelight. He has always been
conscious of his audience, has directed his gestures and bodily
movements as much to the public gaze as to his men's eyes, and
(like Stokowski) has been fond of his tailor, always presenting
a suave and well-draped figure on the stage.

From childhood, Koussevitzky aspired to the conductor's
stand: that was the goal he set for himself from the first. Born
in Tver, a town situated near Moscow on the banks of the
Volga, on July 26, 1874 (his mother died while he was still an

87

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

infant), he showed such unusual musical talent that he was
designated for a musical career* His father, a professional
musician, gave him his first music lessons. Serge was only
seven when he had his first experience as a conductor, called
upon to direct one of his own compositions. Directing an or
chestra proved much more exhilarating to him than hearing his
own music acquire life; he knew at once that he preferred inter
preting other people's music at the head of an orchestra to
creating his own. He was nine when he joined the string sec
tion of an orchestra, and only eleven when he began to serve
as a regular substitute for the permanent conductor (for the
child never lost sight of his ambition)* At fourteen, he was
the regular conductor of an orchestra associated with a theatrical
troupe.

Young though he was, he realized that his native town offered
him few opportunities for that musical growth necessary before
he could become the conductor of an important orchestra. He
ran away from home with only three rubles in his pocket, came
to Moscow, and there applied for a scholarship at the famous
Philharmonic School. The only scholarship open was for the
double bass, which Serge accepted eagerly.

Graduating with high honors, he concertized on his double
bass first throughout Russia, then twice in Germany* He was
acclaimed the foremost virtuoso of the double bass since Drago-
netti (to hear Koussevitzky play that instrument is to forget
that it is the most awkward member of the orchestral family; it
suddenly acquires finesse, and a wide gamut of artistic expres
sion) He also filled several posts, including one as professor
at the Philharmonic School, and another as a double bass player
in the Imperial Orchestra. But the life of a virtuoso and teacher
even that of a world-famous virtuoso was not for him. He
had not forgotten that he wanted above everything else to be

S3

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

a conductor. To help him realize this dream, he went to Ger
many for the necessary preparation. He studied at the Hoch-
schule. He spent his free hours poring over orchestral scores
and committing them to memory. He haunted the symphony
halls of Berlin. Artur Nikisch, conductor of the Berlin Phil
harmonic, became his idol Artur Nikisch with his exquisite
laces trimming his wrists, his beautiful stage manners, his
prima-donna readings! No doubt the baton personality of the
later Koussevitzky evolved slowly at these Nikisch concerts,
where the young musician's adulatory eyes were focused on the
master's platform behaviour, and his ears drank in the master's
brilliant performances. Would we today have had an alto
gether different Koussevitzky if his idol in those days had been
Karl Muck instead of Nikisch? It is likely for, without a
doubt, as young Koussevitzky marked down the details of
Nikisch's interpretations in his scores, and as he studied the
minute details of Nikisch's conduttorial technique, he had
found his model, the imitation of which influenced him pro
foundly in his most impressionable years.

*

In 1905, Koussevitzky married Natalie Oushkoff, the daugh
ter of a wealthy landowner. They had met four years earlier
at a Koussevitzky double bass concert: She was in the audience
and Koussevitzky had noticed her from the stage. They did
not meet until two years after this, at which time they became
attached to each other.

It is said that when Koussevitzky's father-in-law came to him
inquiring what he wished for a wedding gift, Koussevitzky un
hesitatingly asked for a symphony orchestra. And a symphony
orchestra he received! At last, Koussevitzky had the funds
with which to bring his life-long ambition to realization. But
before he did so, he went to Germany on an extended honey-

89

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

moon. In Berlin he made his official debut as conductor (in
1906) . Then he made guest appearances in London* Paris, and
Vienna. He now satisfied himself that he was ready for a full
assignment. He gathered seventy-five of the best musicians
available in Russia, brought them to Moscow, and there
moulded them into his own symphony orchestra.

Koussevitzky had ideas and ideals; courage to fight for un
popular music causes; independence from set formulas. Freed
from constraining pressure by box-office or directors answer
able only to his conscience he was determined to make his
concerts different. They would provide great music to audi
ences, but beyond this they would exert an influence on orches
tral music in Russia, a land which still lagged behind Germany
and Austria in music* The advanced vanguard of Russian com
posers (Stravinsky and Prokofieff, for example) were not in
favor, while other Russian composers (like Scriabin and Mous-
sorgsky) were misunderstood; Koussevitzky would fight for
them. (As a matter of fact, he had already founded a pub
lishing house in Moscow devoted exclusively to the publication
of new Russian music.) The modern composers of Europe
were virtually unknown to Russian audiences; Koussevitzky
would be an indefatigable propagandist for all that was new
and interesting in modern European music. He worked to
bring attention to young conductors and instrumentalists, by
inaugurating popular Sunday evening concerts in which young,
unknown conductors took over his baton, and young soloists
were featured* But Koussevitzky in championing the new
would not slight the old. He would launch monumental fes
tivals devoted to representative works of one composer: a fes
tival to Beethoven, another to Bach, a third to Tchaikovsky,
These festivals were destined to become the principal artistic
events of the Moscow and St. Petersburg seasons.

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THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

He did these things with his orchestra, and in doing them he
was perhaps the greatest single influence in the musical devel
opment of Russia during the first part of the twentieth century.
But this is only one half of Koussevitzky' s contribution to his na
tive country. To electrify cosmopolitan cities like Moscow and
St. Petersburg with dynamic music-making did not altogether
satisfy his missionary ardor. The other half is a saga of its own.
Shortly after founding his orchestra, Koussevitzky was fired
with the ambition of bringing great orchestral music to people
who had never before heard a concert. He chartered a steamer,
and for four months traveled along the Volga with seventy-five
musicians. They stopped off at little villages and hamlets,
gathered in the public square (or any other available open
space) and there gave free public concerts of music by Bee
thoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms for hard-faced peasants who be
grudged the moments they stole from work at the soil to hear
these strange performances. Most of the audiences who came
to his concerts had never before heard a symphony concert; to
most of them many of the instruments in the orchestra ap
peared as fantastic curiosities. They came to the concert driven
by peasant inquisitiveness. They lingered on, enchanted by
the sounds they heard. There was no pretense or pose to their
enthusiasm. They came, they heajtd, and were conquered.

That first summer, Koussevitzky traveled about 2JOO miles,
giving hundreds of concerts at a personal outlay of inore than
a hundred thousand dollars. That tour was so successful that
Koussevitzky made two others. Before he was through, he
had created communities of sincere music lovers all along the
banks of the Volga, where his name now assumed legendary
stature. During long winter nights, mothers would tell their
children about this strange benefactor who would come to their
little village in the spring, bringing with him a veritable army

91 -

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

of musicians and the most wonderful music in the world.
The outbreak of World War I brought these Volga expe
ditions to an end* Koussevitzky confined his musical activities
to Moscow and St. Petersburg. With the outbreak of the Revo-
lution Koussevitzky, in recognition of his leading position in
Russian music, was appointed director of the Russian State
Orchestras, But he was not happy in the new order. Bureau
cratic red tape consistently interfered with his artistic efforts.
He chafed under restrictions and prohibitions. Besides, the
times were not propitious for music-making at least* for the
kind of music-making to which Kousseviteky had been accus
tomed. There was starvation, suffering, the painful process
of social and economic readjustments. In 1920, therefore,

Koussevitzky left Russia and came to Paris.

*

The Paris period of Koussevitzky's career was 00 less bril
liant. He who up to now had been Europe's propagandist to
Russia now became Russia's propagandist to Europe, He or
ganized his own publishing firm (just as he had done in Mos
cow) to provide an outlet in Europe for the music of modern
Russians, which otherwise, would have been ignored. He
founded his own orchestra again, the Concerts Koussevitzky.
Through his lambent performances, he gave Paris a rigorous
introduction to the art of Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakow,
Scriabin and Miaskovsky, Prokofieff and (though here Paris
surely required no education) Stravinsky, Paris had been re
ceptive to Russian art ever since Diaghilev first brought it, in
its many different aspects, to the attention of the French in
telligentsia: Russian painting in 1906; Russian symphonic
music in 1907; Russian opera in 1908; finally* the Russian ballet
in 1909. Paris, therefore, responded to Koussevitzky*s concerts
with &an* His performances of Moussorgsky*s Boris Godu-

92

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

nov and Khovantchina at the Paris Grand Opera in 1921 were
the season's most publicized artistic events. But Koussevitzky
was not only the apostle of Russian music in Paris. He was
here, as he had been in Russia, the passionate sponsor of every
form of modern musical expression. He even paid Paris the
flattery of giving world premieres of new French works ignored
by the French themselves work like Honegger's 'Pacific 231
and Debussy's Sarabande et Danse (orchestrated by Ravel).
He was very much the man-of-the-hour in Parisian music cir
cles when, in 1924, he was invited to become the permanent
conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

*

The year in which Koussevitzky conducted an orchestra for
the first time (it was the seventh year of his life) was the year
in which was born the orchestra with which his name is in
evitably associated.

In Boston, in 1881, America's first great symphony orchestra
was created. There had been symphony orchestras in America
before the Boston organization came into being: the New York
Philharmonic Orchestra, for example, was forty years old in
1881. But orchestras in America knew a precarious existence.
Because they depended on box-office returns, they frequently
catered. to public taste which was not particularly discriminat
ing at the time. Even an orchestra like the New York Philhar
monic never knew whether it would survive from one season
to the next. There were other problems as well. The musi
cians of the orchestra did not draw a living wage from their
work, and had to supplement this activity by performing at
balls, weddings, and beer halls. If a more profitable engage
ment presented itself, a musician did not think twice about
skipping a rehearsal or even a public concert. Such a situation
was not likely to provide concerts of high artistic attainment.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Then there arose a benefactor in Boston who supplied the
answer to America's orchestral problem. He was the banker,
Henry Lee Higginson, a student of music in Vienna before he
became a colonel in the Civil War. In Vienna, he had heard
the famous Philharmonic orchestra, and he was determined to
create a similar organization in his native country. From his
own pocket he provided a guarantee fund of a million dollars
with which to create an orchestra in Boston modeled along the
lines of the Vienna Philharmonic. Such a guarantee provided
annually a $100,000 budget for the orchestra (the annual
budget of the New York Philharmonic at the time was $7,000!) .
This was the first attempt in America to subsidise an orchestra
along such generous lines. It was the first attempt to make
the existence of an orchestra independent of box-office receipts,
the first attempt to pay the musicians a living salary capable of
making them free to devote all their time to the orchestra.

Colonel Higginson was determined to maintain the standards
of his orchestra on the highest possible plane regardless of pub
lic reaction. For the first three seasons, he engaged George Hen-
schel of London as conductor, a discerning musician who im
mediately brought to America European standards of orchestral
music-making. Then from 1884 to 1889* the orchestra was
under the firm, disciplinary hand of Wilhelm Gericke, a task
master who could be depended upon to create an integrated
orchestral organism. It was under Gericke that the Boston
Symphony began to acquire technical fluency and artistic stature.
The orchestra achieved virtuosity; its different choirs were sen
sitively adjusted. When Artur Nikisch came to conduct the
orchestra in 1889 he (who had already directed some of the
greatest symphonic organizations in the world) was so de
lighted by the Bostonians that he exclaimed; "Alt 1 have to do
now is to poetize!**

94

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

Nikisch's poetic temperament and immaculate taste brought
refinement, sensitivity and new artistic vistas to the great or
chestra. His four years created a new peak for or
chestral music in America; performances such as these fas
tidiously prepared, and projected with such romantic ardor
had never before been heard in American symphony halls. The
audiences in Boston at once took to Nikisch, were delighted
by his magnetic personality and his charm, and were moved
by his warm, personal readings. But their enthusiasm soon
cooled strange to say, for it would appear that Nikisch was
precisely the personality to create a permanent impression on
audiences of the late 19th century which searched for dramatics
in their music. Nikisch's stay in Boston was made further dis
agreeable by frequent clashes of temperament with the men
of the orchestra, and particularly with the directors. Finally,
Nikisch bought back his contract for $5,000 and escaped to
Europe.

Emil Paur succeeded Nikisch, holding command for five
years; he was followed by Wilhelm Gericke, on a return en
gagement, who now remained at his post until 1906. In 1906,
the brilliant young Wagnerian conductor, Karl Muck, came
to Boston; and with him arrived one of the great epochs in
the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Muck was the opposite artistic pole to Nikisch. Nikisch was
the romanticist, guided more by emotion and instinct than by
the brain, unafraid to give freedom to his feelings in the music
he conducted. Muck was the disciplined classicist, with an
ama2ing capacity for analysis. Every Muck performance re
vealed the fastidious study and dissection that went into its
preparation. Nikisch was the poet of the baton; Muck was
its scholar. Nikisch sought at his concerts spontaneity; Muck
sought complete and comprehensive rehearsals with nothing

95

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

left for the concert but to designate the essential cues and time
values.

Muck was, undoubtedly, one of the truly great conductors
of all time. He may have had some objectionable personal
qualities: He was arrogant; he had a stinging tongue; he treated
his men with the merciless severity of a junker officer. But
he was the master of every phase of the conductorial art, and
an interpreter of supreme attainments. It was to be expected
that with him the Boston Symphony Orchestra would reach the
heights; it is doubtful if there were many other orchestras at
the time, anywhere, on a level with it.

Karl Muck left in disgrace in 1918, unjustly suspected of
being a German spy. It is not my intention to discuss the
Muck affair; I have written about it frequently, and have helped
(I hope) to clarify the issue somewhat.* In any case, Muck
went. His successors Henri Rabaud and Pierre Monteux
were not capable of maintaining the glory of the orchestra.
Henri Rabaud failed because he did not have the necessary
capacities and gifts; Monteux who is a remarkable conductor,
even if he is not a Muck because the failure of a general
strike in the orchestra to establish a union resulted in wholesale
resignations, and Monteux was compelled to work with an
orchestra that had become a skeleton of itself,

Monteux remained until 1924. Frantically, the directors of
the Boston Symphony searched for a conductor who had the
authority, experience, skill, and temperament with which to
reorganize the orchestra, and to restore to Boston that orchestral
prestige and honor it had once known. They decided on Kous-
sevitzky* the man who had made orchestral history in Russia
and France. And with that choice came another great epoch
for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

* Sec Masfc Comts to Amtrkttt by David Ewea. HK&. Y, Crowcli Co.* 1942.

96

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

It may sound like a characterization conveniently contrived
for our present purpose to say that Koussevitzky's art com
bines qualities of a Nikisch and a Muck. Yet this is its aptest
description. While Koussevitzky was most strongly influenced
by Nikisch, after whom he patterned himself in his early years,
there is more than a touch of Muck in him.

Like Nikisch, Koussevitzky is a romanticist. He loves a
beautiful melodic line, which he draws lovingly from the
strings. He is not ashamed of feeling deeply, and expressing
his feelings in rubatos and dynamics. His Tchaikovsky is un
ashamedly sentimental, just as his Beethoven is poignant. He
is also like Nikisch in his conviction that a conductors duty
is to interpret the music, not just to pay strict conformance to
what is printed on the page. He does not hesitate to change
tempi, to make deletions, to revise scoring or to alter dynamics
if he feels that the music profits by such treatment. Once he
wrote to Sibelius that he was forced to play a movement from
one of the symphonies in a completely different tempo than
that which was designated in the score. "That's the way I feel
the music," he told Sibelius, "and that's the only way I can
play it." ('The right tempo," answered Sibelius generously,
"is as you feel it") The very great interpreter whose taste
and judgment are discerning can afford such indulgences,
which with lesser artists can only spell ruin. Von Billow,
Mahler, and Nikisch more often than not actually brought out
new, brilliant and eloquent qualities in the music they con
ducted as a result of their discriminating revisions. And Kous
sevitzky has done so too.

But Koussevitzky (and this is at least a partial 'explanation
of his unique powers) is not a slave of his emotions. Though
he permits his feelings to express themselves, it is he who is
their master. Such discipline comes from his scholarship, from

97

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

his capacity to analyze. Like Muck, Koussevitzky does not
begin conducting a score until he has studied it with micro
scopic thoroughness, horizontally and vertically. He spends
many hours each day in his comfortable, sun-baked study,
poring over manuscripts and printed scores on a specially con
structed music stand which is on the table in front of him. He
reads the score through from beginning to end, as if it were
a novel, gathering general impressions, and acquiring the basic
conception of the work. Then he rereads it a second time, now
permitting his eye to travel vertically so that he can concentrate
on harmonic details and on the orchestration. If a certain
construction puzzles him, he rushes to his piano (which is near
at hand) so that he might gain an aural impression of it. But
he does not often enlist the piano, blessed as he is with an
extraordinary facility for score reading. (About a decade ago,
a very silly rumor gained circulation that Koussevitzky did not
know how to read a score. The source for this libel was the
fact that Koussevitzky had in his employ a brilliant pianist
who often played through a new work for Koussevitzky a few
times before Koussevitzky began to study it for himself. Not
until Koussevitzky had dismissed his assistant were these ru
mors dispelled*) When he has read a score through several
times, he begins to mark up every bar and phrase for the exact
effect he wishes to achieve* Then, and only then, wilt he feel
himself ready to begin rehearsing. -

This scholarly zeal is apparent in his performances; only
Toscanini is more concerned with details than Koussevitzky.
Besides scholarship, his temperament and will exert the most
powerful influences on his performances. His readings are
vivi4 flaming with personality, throbbing with a sort of nervous
excitement. They have intensity. They have a wonderful
rhythmic continuity. They have a gorgeous palette of or-

98

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

chestral colors. His Ravel Daphnis et Chloe, (second suite),
for example, remains a miracle of orchestral painting, the
subtle tints and hues of which no other conductor seems ca
pable of reproducing. His performances are powerfully dra
matic, each emotional effect built up with extreme skill. In
music calling for such interpretation as in Scriabin, Ravel,
Sibelius, Moussorgsky, Debussy, or Stravinsky Koussevitzky
is truly incomparable. In other music, he is frequently ad
mirable, but for other reasons: for the spaciousness of his de
sign, his breadth and sweep and majesty, his musicianship and
understanding. If there are flaws to his artistry, it is that in
some music say by K. P. E. Bach or Mozart he overbuilds his
effects beyond the requirements of the work. He can con
trol his intensity and passion, but he sometimes fails to sup
press his love of color and his profound feelings for beautiful
sounds.

He is one of the great living masters of orchestral technique.
His capacity to subject the men who play under him to his will
is responsible for their mechanical perfection and unanimity
of spirit. The orchestra is as pliable under his fingers as the
double bass; he plays on it with an infinite variety of touch
and nuance; he seems to have no difficulty in making it express
everything he wishes. Carping tongues have attempted in the
past to minimize his extraordinary powers over an orchestra.
They say that when a man can buy the best instrumentalists
available regardless of price, when he has conducted one and
the same organization for almost twenty years until his small
est idiosyncrasy is known to his players, when, finally, he holds
over the heads of his men the whip of a possible immediate
dismissal, it is to be expected that he should be in masterful
control Such arguments were eloquently answered in the
spring of 1942 when Koussevitzky arrived in New York to

99

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

guest-conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He
completely subjugated that orchestra to his purposes (and after
only three days of rehearsals) as if he had had a lifelong as
sociation with it. The orchestra, which only four days earlier
had sounded stodgy and tired, acquired under Koussevitzky a

new lease on life and seemed electrified.

*

If Koussevitzky could accomplish such a miracle for the New
York Philharmonic in a few days, it is understandable that he
should have rebuilt the Boston Symphony, over a period of
several years, into one of the two or three great orchestras of
the world. The moment he took command, he remained fa
natically true to his mission of creating a perfect symphonic
ensemble. Men had to be dismissed ruthlessly; America and
Europe had to be combed for the finest Instrumentalists pro
curable. The orchestra had to learn that the conductor would
have no compassion for mediocrity. Koussevitzlcy was des
potic at rehearsals. The players learned to be alert and sen
sitively responsive to his slightest wish.

But in bringing back to Boston the orchestral grandeur it
had known with Muck, it was not enough to create a wonder
ful ensemble. Koussevitzky did more than this. He restored
glamour to the conductor's platform, the glamour of his his*
toric career, and that of his magnetizing personality* He also
made Boston one of the great centers of music-making in the
country, if not in the world. His stubborn support of the mod
ern composer has persisted in this country even in the face of
a disinterested public. There were times when, before the
performance of a new work, members in the audience would
haughtily rise from their seats to leave the hall; other times
when they met the completion of a performance of some new
work with frigid silence. But Kousseviteky felt he had a mis-

100

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

sion to perform, and he performed it courageously and with
determination. New music from every part of the world has
kept the Boston Symphony programs vital and energetic; new
music from America as well for from the moment Kousse-
vitzky assumed his Boston position he immediately became

something of a godfather to American composers.

*

Not the least of Koussevitzky's many brilliant achievements
has been the development of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival,
one of the great music festivals in this country. The Berkshire
Festival was created in 1934 on an estate in Stockbridge, Mas
sachusetts. Not until two years later, when Koussevitzky came
on the scene to dominate musical activities, did it achieve na
tional importance. The festival now moved to new grounds,
Tanglewood (Hawthorne's Tanglewood) near Lenox. There,
an open-air shed was built in 1938, and in 1941, additional
small theatres were constructed for the performances of cham
ber music and opera.

Koussevitzky' s personality is, of course, the unifying force in
Tanglewood. It has attracted to the festival grounds each
August music lovers from every part of the country (about
10,000 of them attended each concert). Koussevitzky's inca
pacity to yield to complacency, or to be artistically static, prom
ises much for the future of the festival. Having established
symphonic and choral music on a permanent basis, he now
speaks of adding performances of opera and chamber music
to the regular festival repertoire. If there is to be an American
Salzburg, it could not be in more progressive hands than those
of Koussevitzky.

In the summer of 1940, Koussevitzky brought a lifelong
dream to realization in Tanglewood with the opening of the
Berkshire Music Center. For years, Koussevitzky had aspired

101

DICTATORS OF T H F, NATO N

to create a center where music students, teachers, and profes
sional musicians could gather, teach and study, and exchange
experiences and ideas. It was a music school along new and
revolutionary lines that Koussevitzky was thinking of, where
study would be less formalized, where students rubbed elbows
with teachers even after school hours and profited by contact
with them, where there would be continued and uninterrupted
music-making by teachers and pupils.

Three hundred students from every part of the country gath
ered at Tanglewood in the summer of 1940 for the first ses
sion of the new Center, They received a new experience in
music education. Instrumentalists were taught by the first-desk
men of the Boston Symphony, then gathered into chamber
music ensembles and into two orchestras. Young conductors
received training from Koussevitzky himself, and were given
an opportunity to work with actual student orchestras. Young
composers, besides working in classes conducted by Copland
and Hindemith, could come to these teachers any time during
the day, on the grounds of the school* for advice and criticism.
Vocal instruction comprised choral training and regular ap
pearance in opera performances; also, from time to time, in
impromptu renditions of old choral a tapjwtU music. There
were lectures frequently on aesthetics and music history, and
concerts each evening in which the students participated as
performers and audience. Thus, from morning till night, the
students at the Berkshire Music Center live in an atmosphere
of music.

Hi

Koussevitzky, who appears to be of such dominating stature
on the stage, is actually short* and slight of build. He has
been eloquently described as resembling a * f diplomat of the
Napoleonic era/' His face reveals strength in the eyes, the

102

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

downward swoop of his eagle-like nose, and the assertiveness
of his chin. His complexion is ruddy.

He speaks with great gusto, in a thick Russian accent, and
with extraordinary capacity for enthusiasms. His remarks are
usually studded with superlatives. He is as likely to talk about
the German philosophers (Nietzsche or Schopenhauer) as
about music. He loves to participate in intellectual parlor
talk. As he discusses a subject, he gestures violently to em
phasize a point he is making.

He has apparently unlimited energy and drive. When he
strolls, it is with a brisk step. He is always in a whirlwind of
activity, and he thrives on it. At rehearsals he is particularly
a dynamo. From the moment he begins work, his rehearsals
move in an uninterrupted flow. As the orchestra plays, his
body weaves into contortions, his baton slices the air. He cries
out his instructions. "No! No!" he will shout, and then sing
his conception of the music. "Legato!" his cry will pierce
through the thickness of the orchestral sonority. "Sing!" he
will plead with the violins. "Music must always sing."

At rehearsals, Koussevitzky is the born schoolmaster, his
baton the schoolmaster's rod. The men must keep their noses
to the grindstone every moment. Once one of the players was
apprehended whispering to his neighbor. Koussevitzky shouted:
"Don't spik! I say, don't spik! If you spik, I go right home."

He will dismiss veteran performers for what appear to some
musicians to be excusable and casual mistakes. At one re
hearsal, he was infuriated by a few sour notes from a wind
player. Then and there Koussevitzky dismissed him from his
job. The musician rose from his seat with ail-too apparent
disgust. As he passed by Koussevitzky he exclaimed: "Nuts
to you, Mr. Koussevitzky!" Koussevitzky answered emphat
ically: "I'm sorry! It's too late to apologize!"

103

3

^g3^

^Dimitri

Dimitri Mitropoulos, who succeeded Eugene Ormandy as the
permanent conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra,
is a virtuoso among conductors. He plays on his orchestra as
Horowitz plays his piano, with bravura and dash. He gives the
immediate impression of a technique that recognizes no prol>
lems; the orchestra responds to his touch as if it were a key
board. There is a suggestion of the flamboyant about his ges
tures. Slight of figure, solemn as a monk when he steps on
the stage, he does not at once betray the dynamo that is in him.
But once the music soars under his hands, he becomes trans
figured. Every part of his body moves rhythmically with the
music. His arms sweep through space; his fingers seem to
pluck each souad out of the very air. His face reflects each
mood of the music he conducts: Now it is contracted with
pain, now it is brightened by an expansive smile.

Like every virtuoso, Mitropoulos magnetizes his audiences
not only with a flashing display of pyrotechnics, but also with
his personality. He has the Toscanini magic of discharging
electric sparks the moment he steps on the stage. The orchestra
and the audience come under his control, as if under a spell.
Even through the radio, his dynamic presence is felt. It is pos
sible to dislike Mitropoulos, but to remain indifferent to him
is out of the question. Those who do not react favorably to
his interpretations will not deny that the man carries you away
with his strength and passion and will,

104

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

The virtuoso in him seeks tirelessly for effect, sometimes even
to the disadvantage of the work at hand. Mitropoulos is bril
liant; he is cogent; sometimes he is overpowering. If he often
yields to the temptation of overdramatization, he never fails
at the same time to make an exciting impression. That he is
a conductor of genius is obvious to anyone who has heard him,
even at his worst. At his best, when the music and the con
ductor's personality are as one, he is of Toscanini stature: I
do not remember ever having heard, for example, a Mahler
First Symphony such as he has given us, nor did I ever suspect
it could sound that way.

He has musical scholarship, and a memory of such retentive-
ness that he is even able to rehearse without a score. He has
temperament. He has a complete command of the orchestra.
But before he can become one of the truly great conductors of
our age and he gives every indication that with the proper
discipline and growth he might become one he requires
greater mellowness and sobriety. He is too high-pitched, too
nervous for a great part of the repertoire that calls for a certain
degree of detachment. Virgil Thomson recognized Mitro
poulos' vulnerability as an artist when he reported that the
conductor was "jittery, overweaning, exaggerating . . . care
less about sonorities and indifferent to the musical meaning and
proportion so long as he could make the music seem to stem
(a la Stokowski at his worst) from his own personality."

He has to discipline his temperament, to keep his reservoir
of vitality and strength on tap. Perhaps he will succeed in
doing this with the greater ripeness that comes with age; if so,
he will rise to heights achieved by few conductors of our time.
But even with his faults he is an arresting personality and a

* Quoted by permission of the New York Herald Tribune.

105

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

stimulating artist: a concert directed by him is a vivid and un
forgettable aesthetic experience, to excite and fatigue and

sometimes to inspire, the listener.

#

Dimitri Mitropoulos was first intended for the church. Two
of his uncles were monks; his grandfather (on his father's side)
was, a priest; his granduncle, an archbishop in the Greek Or
thodox Church. Dimitri born in Athens on March 1, 1896
felt the call of the cloth from childhood on. He would visit
his uncles at their monastery atop Mount Athos and his childish
imagination would be aroused by the serenity and beauty of
the setting. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his family
but for one obstacle. He loved music passionately, and was
determined to study it. A church life that is, with the Greek
Orthodox Church forebade the use of musical instruments at
the services. Mitropoulos had to decide, therefore, between
religion and music; and he chose music. "I didn't become a
monk only because they wouldn't permit me even to have a
harmonium."

He began to study the piano when he was seven, and at
tended the common schools and high school, Since the church
had been decided against, his father tried to induce him to
study for a career as marine officer. But Dimitri was deter
mined, now more than ever, to concentrate on music* At the
age of ten he had mastered the piano and vocal scores of Faust
and Rjgoletto, and less than four years later he had memorized
most of the famous operas in the repertoire. He entered the
Athens Conservatory in his fourteenth year* For the next six
years he specialized in piano and composition. Composition
appealed to him particularly. He wrote many works in many
different forms, often sacrificing hours from the piano to write
his music. In 1919, he finished an opera, Beatrice, on a French

106

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

text of Maeterlinck. This work so impressed the Conservatory
directors that they decided to give it a handsome production.
Camille Saint-Saens was in the audience and, recognizing the
talent of the composer, wrote a long and effusive piece about
it for a Paris newspaper. More than this, he arranged a scholar
ship for Mitropoulos whereby he could study with Paul Gilson
in Brussels, and Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin.

Completing his studies, he was appointed assistant conductor
at the Berlin Staatsoper. Once he began conducting he knew
that he had found his musical metier. The piano, even com
position for both of which he had shown such decided talent
were now abandoned, because "I knew that I could do only
one thing, if I were to do it well." He conducted in an im
pressive manner. His rehearsals t>etrayed a searching intellect,
as well as his amazing knowledge of the repertoire, particularly
amazing for a man who never before held a baton in hand.

He was back in Athens in 1924 to become permanent con
ductor of the Athens Symphony Orchestra. He developed rap
idly both in technique and artistic refinements. Before long,
word passed out of Greece that here was a definite musical find.
In 1930, Mitropoulos was invited to Berlin for guest perform
ances with the celebrated Philharmonic where he gave a mag
nificent account of himself. In 1934, he made his Paris debut,
conducting the Orchestre Symphonique (a concert in which he
performed the Prokofieff Third Piano Concerto while directing
the accompaniment) . In the same year, he also conducted in
England, Italy, and the Soviet Union; in 1935, again in Italy
and in France (in France he conducted several new French
works with the Lamoureux Orchestra) ; and from 1934 to 1937
he directed a three-month symphony season at Monte Carlo.
All this while he retained his post with the Athens Symphony
directing a series of concerts each winter. The last time he

107

OF THE BATON

left Athens was on the day Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Those who played under him in Europe spoke rapturously
of his capacities, Inevitably, such high words of praise reached
the ears of important musicians in America. One of them,
Serge Koussevitzky, decided to invite Mitropoulos to America,
In 1936, Mitropoulos served a brief guest engagement with
the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He played (if memory serves)
the Symphonia Domestic^ of Richard Strauss and the First Sym
phony of Mahler, putting his best foot forward. He was a
sensation, Olin Downes, who was on a visit to Boston at that
time, spoke with excited accents about the new conductor, "He
is more than a kindling virtuoso. He showed a microscopic
knowledge of four strongly contrasted scores, and his tempera
ment is that of an impetuous musician. Mitropoulos addressed
himself with complete comprehension and with blazing dra
matic emotion."

The following year, Mitropoulos returned for another set
of guest appearances with the Boston Symphony. It was ru
mored at the time that Koussevitzky was planning to retire,
and that he was grooming Mitropoulos as his successor. In
any case, Koussevitzky must have finally decided to continue
at his post indefinitely, and he encouraged Mitropoulos to find
a permanent post elsewhere. Mitropoulos did not have to
look for a long time. Invited to conduct a few guest concerts
in Minneapolis, he made such an overwhelming impression
that the directors knew at once that they had found a successor
to Eugene Ormandy, who had resigned one year earlier to go
to Philadelphia*

In 1940, Mitropoulos was a guest conductor of the New
York Philharmonic The tempestuous acclaim accorded him
one critic remarked that the "subscribers became so enthu
siastic they did everything but steal the goalposts** encour-

108

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

aged the Philharmonic directors to offer him a permanent post
with the orchestra. Mitropoulos thought it over, and decided
that he did not wish to abandon Minneapolis where he found
his berth comfortable; but he offered to come for guest per
formances whenever invited to do so. During the Philhar
monic centenary season in 1941-42 he was back in New York,
and once again he was given a magnificent hand. He was also
called to participate in the 1942-43 season. There are those
who say that the Philharmonic post can be his whenever he
wants it.

*

Mitropoulos had sacrificed the church for music. To music
he has devoted himself with an almost priest-like consecration.
The same singleness of purpose which made him abandon his
composition when he decided to become a conductor, has now
made him exile other interests and pursuits from his life and
to make everything subservient to his art. His life is as ascetic
as if he had accepted monasticism. "When I accepted the
Minneapolis post, I asked the directors if they wanted as per
fect a musician as possible, or a society man who was a bad
musician. They said they wanted a good niusician. So I took
the job on the promise that I would not be involved in social
formalities. They have never bothered me."

He lives in Minneapolis in almost austere seclusion. He
occupies a dormitory room at the University which is bare ex
cept for a piano and the essential pieces of furniture. Here he
lives alone he has never married because he did not wish
anyone or anything to divert him from his complete absorption
in music! devoting himself endlessly to his music studies, and
to contemplation. His life is bald and unpretentious. He is a
disciplined smoker, and never partakes of hard alcohol. His
meals are the last word in simplicity; he has been compelled to

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DICTATORS O 1 ; T H K B A T O N

select the simplest foods because his work places such a. strain
on him that it tends to bring on indigestion. He is a vegetarian
for fourteen days, adding a touch of variety to his diet by eating
chicken on the fifteenth. His clothing, away from the concert
platform, is also undemonstrative: he prefers baggy trousers,
a polo shirt, and a sweater as his daily costume.

Though he has some diversions mountain climbing, motor
ing, and fishing particularly he finds little time in which to
indulge in such pleasures. When he has spent a particularly
hard week of work and concentrated study, he finds relaxation
on Sundays by visiting one motion-picture house after another,
from noon until midnight. Generally, he is retiring, shy, and
introspective; he does not care for the company of people. He
is in dread of social functions and parties and formal celebra
tions. His dream is to retire alone on some beautiful island
(he found one near Alaska which struck his fancy) with books
and music.

He looks very much the priest* with his deep-set eyes which
have a spiritual quality* and his ascetic sunken cheeks. He is,
as a matter of fact, a deeply religious soul He wears a crucifix
inside his shirt, and a medallion of the Virgin Mary on the lin
ing of his coat, and is never without these holy symbols.

His work severely taxes his strength and nervous energy.
One explanation for his Spartan life is that it has been dictated
by necessity; only by conserving his energy and strength care
fully can he give the best of Mmself to music. His elaborate
gesturing on the platform is particularly fatiguing: when a con
cert is over he will see no one, but rush to his room, and there
collapse in bed. The next morning, however, he is fresh again,
ready to begin his studies anew, a&d to undertake a new week
of rehearsals. He has wonderful recuperative powers, which
are aided by his capacity to sleep soundly.

no

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

At rehearsals there is about him a military air which reminds
one that he was once in the Greek army. He has said that he
does not like being a dictator, that he prefers treating his men
as "colleagues." But he has a firm hand and an authoritative
manner that tolerate no levities. He has no difficulty in com
manding respect, for his prodigious scholarship is always a
matter of awe to the men who play under him: without con
sulting a score at any time, he can tell you how many notes
are in any bar of a Hindemith symphony or a Ravel concerto.

He is an internationalist, and to such a degree that when
Italy invaded Greece in 1940, and momentarily made Mitro-
poulos a political as well as musical hero in this country, he
pointedly performed some modern Italian works on his pro
grams. Not that Mitropoulos did not ally himself heart and
soul to the Greek cause; but he wished to make it clear that he
felt it was the political leadership of Italy that had sinned, not
Italian culture, or even the Italian people.

4

-i^^^^

Jose Iturbi

Jose Iturbi's merits as a performer were proved long before he
took up a baton. As a pianist he received an immediate ac
claim in this country at his debut performance in 1928, follow*
ing his sensational concerts in Europe. The clarity of his style,
his subtle use of color and dynamics, his adaptability to different
idioms from Mozart to Manuel de Falla, brought him to the
front rank of living pianists.

From childhood on he seemed destined for a virtuoso career.
Born in Valencia, Spain, on November 28, 1895, he began piano
lessons in his fifth year. By his seventh birthday, he was al
ready helping to support his family by performing in Valencia's
leading cinema theatres, at neighborhood balls, and then in
public recitals. In between his many assignments, he studied
the piano, first in local schools, then in Barcelona with Joaquin
Malats, A lucrative caf&house position in Valencia interrupted
his studies. While back in Valencia, he attracted the attention
of a journalist who raised a subscription to enable Iturbi to
abandon work and to return to study. This subscription
fourteen hundred pesetas enabled Iturbi to go to Paris to
enter the Conservatory, from which he was graduated in his
seventeenth year.

His studies completed, he went to Zurich where he acquired
a post as pianist in a fashionable caf& There he was discov
ered by 'the director of the Geneva Conservatory who engaged
him as head of the piano department, Iturbi held this post for

112

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

four years, then decided to venture into the concert field. He
was extraordinarily successful in Europe, almost from the very
first; then proceeded to America where he met an even greater
acclaim.

It was to be expected that the same good taste and compre
hension of musical values which went into his piano playing
would likewise feature his conducting once he had' mastered
the technique of the baton as completely as that of the key
board. Yet, up to the present time and it is a decade since
he made his baton debut Iturbi's work with orchestra has not
measured up to his achievements with the piano; nor has it
lived up to expectations.

It is not that he has failed to become a master of the or
chestra. Almost from the first he proved that he takes to di
recting an orchestra with ease and command. His debut as
conductor took place in Mexico in 1933 when he directed an
orchestral concert at the Teatro Hidalgo in Mexico City. This
was so successful that he was engaged for eleven additional
performances. His work attracted the attention of the direc
tors of Lewisohn Stadium concerts in New York who invited
him to direct two special concerts. Further concerts with the
Philadelphia Orchestra both at the Academy of Music and at
the Robin Hood Dell, at the Hollywood Bowl and Lewisohn
Stadium, and, during the 1935-36 season, with orchestras in
Rochester, Detroit, and Philadelphia singled him out as one
of the major dynamic baton discoveries of many years. I recall
that after I heard some of his early rehearsals with the New
York Philharmonic, I wrote that he was a "born conductor,"
with a "clear insight into the music he was rehearsing," and a
"facility to transfer his slightest desires to his men without
fumbling." I prophesied at the time a distinguished future
for him. I thought that his future as a conductor might event-

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

ually throw into the shade his illustrious past as piano virtuoso.

I cannot say that my prophecy has thus far been fulfilled.
In 1936-37 Iturbi was appointed the permanent conductor of
the Rochester Philharmonic an admirable organization which
had been founded by George Eastman in 1923 and which
had been permanently directed by Eugene Goossens from 1924
to 1931- Iturbi still holds this post. He has had every op
portunity to develop naturally, profiting by his valuable ex
perience as the sole conductor of a great orchestra* But that
development has not taken place. On the contrary, Iturbi's
performances have caused me greater and greater discomfort
and anxiety; there are times, in listening to him, when I am
tempted to feel that he shows today less promise, despite his
greater self-assurance and poise, than he did a decade ago.

He has always had he still has extraordinary traits for a
conductor: a fine memory, a sensitive ear, a mastery of a large
repertoire, a capacity to excite his men and to arouse his audi
ences, an instinctive flair for baton technique. With such quali
ties he should have gone and should still be going far. That
he has not done so has mystified me. His performances, par
ticularly the more recent ones, too often leave the impression
of awkward self-consciousness; each nuance and accent seems
overcalculated; each climax, or rubato, labored. At other times,
there appears an almost feverish search after effect. In short,
what is so outstanding in his piano playing the feeling of
ease, spontaneity, and objectivity which he generates is not

to be found in his conducting.

*

The explanation for Iturbi's lapses as a conductor; lies, I
suspect, In the fact that he has been guided by propulsions other
than artistic from the moment he took to the baton. Instead
of focusing both his eyes on the music, he has permitted one

114

THE SHOWMAN CONDUCTOR

eye to stray toward his audiences, and another to Stokowski.
He has made too conscious an effort to impress himself on his
public as a magnetic personality. He has tried too painstak
ingly to 'put himself over," even at the price of his natural
growth as an artist. Perhaps he aspired, overnight, to become
another Stokowski or Koussevitzky.

He conducts without a score, which is to his advantage in
many scores in view of his retentive memory. But this has
hardly been an advisable practice in so many other, and less
familiar works, which he is compelled to feature throughout
the course of a season. His treatment of many new works is
almost cursory. Had he been more concerned with the quality
of his performances, rather than with the effect they would
have on his audiences, he would not have hesitated to use a
score in front of him more frequently.

One can also grumble at his insistence on playing piano con
certos while conducting the orchestral accompaniment. This
is a picturesque stunt, but one which was discarded by Kapell
meisters two centuries ago because it was evident that no artist
could fulfill two such exacting assignments at one and the same
time. With Iturbi it has been noted that technical exactness,
excellent balances, and precise coordination between piano and
orchestra have frequently been sacrificed for this feat.

At the piano, he was he still is concerned almost exclu
sively with the soundest of artistic values. It is only since he has
taken seriously to conducting that he has impetuously said
things and done things which (in the manner of Stokowski)
have brought him to the attention of the front pages.

How else can we interpret his extravagant indictment of
women musicians made in 1937, except as a bid for newspaper
space? Women, he announced in an interview, are physically
limited from attaining the standards of men, and are limited

115 ,

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

temperamentally besides. Could Iturbi possibly have been sin
cere, guided only by honest convictions, when he denounced
the sex that had produced, in music, Myra Hess, Kirsten Flag-
stad, Wanda Landowska, Nadia Boulanger? , . .

In the same year, Iturbi cancelled a broadcast of the Phila
delphia Orchestra because some of the music on the program
was below his standards. That this was not exclusively the
gesture of a highminded and idealistic artist was proved some
what later when he found it to his advantage to play music by
George Gershwin at his piano concerts; and one of the num
bers to which he had objected on the program of the Phila
delphia Orchestra was the exquisite "Summertime'* from
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess! A few years ago, Iturbi refused
to conduct a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra because the
soloist at that concert was Benny Goodman, who had proved
himself to be an admirable clarinetist in the serious repertoire.
Iturbi felt that it was "beneath his dignity to perform on the
same program with a jazz artist Once again this attitude of
superior aloofness from any but the highest standards of art
fails to hold conviction particularly when it is remembered
that it was not beneath Iturbi's dignity to appear several times
as a guest artist with Bing Crosby, nor to announce to his nation
wide audiences that he played "Swing" and that he "liked
American jazz."

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Of American Traditions

Walter ^Damrosck

Walter Damrosch has sold good music to America. That has
been his greatest contribution as a conductor. He has never
been not even at the height of his career a particularly in
spired, or inspiring, performer. His standards too often were
lax; his readings skirted the surface; his command of the or
chestra, and its music, less than consummate. Yet he has been
a force of incomparable significance with the baton; and for
all his inadequate performances he has served music well.

Music has had, in the course of its evolution, many high
priests to serve her reverently. It is doubtful, however, if it
has ever had a salesman to compare with Damrosch. He has
had the driving perseverance, and the instinctive capacity to
understand the psychology of his public (the indispensable
equipment of every super-salesman). More important still,
h.e has had the glib tongue, the personal charm, the warm sense
of humor with which to make friends and influence people.
He has long had the custom of making witty little speeches to
his audiences during his concerts. Through these speeches,
audiences have come close to him, won over by his appealing
manner. Once, when he directed a benefit concert in New York
for the composer Moritz Moszkowski, in which sixteen pianists
participated, he turned to his audience before the concert and
mischievously whispered to it: "What they need here is not a
conductor, but a traffic cop/' Preceding one of his Wagner
performances, he was suddenly tempted to reminisce publicly

119

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

about his first experiences, "When I look at your young,
shining, bright girlish faces, I recognize many who attended my
first Wagner concerts fifty years ago/' He has frequently taken
his audiences into his confidence; sometimes, before conducting
a particularly difficult modern work, he would openly confess
that he was as puzzled by the music as the audience. Thus,
from early in his career, he has sold himself to his public; and
by selling himself, he has also succeeded in selling great music.

He began selling good music about sixty years ago* With the
cogent drive of a bond salesman he began selling Mozart,
Beethoven, and Wagner to audiences who previously thought
that Yankee Doodle and The Carnhal of Venice were the peaks
of musical art. In the closing decades of the nineteenth cen
tury, and in the early years of the twentieth, he traveled with
his orchestra, the New York Symphony Society, to parts for
merly untouched by musical civilization, bringing with him a
sample case of the representative musical masterpieces* How
effective has been his salesmanship was proved again and again
during the next decade when local orchestras sprang up in
cities and towns he had visited,

In the early years of the twentieth century he decided that
American audiences did not know the Wagner musk-dramas as
well as they should. Wagner, after a brief period of prosperity
at the Metropolitan Opera House, was in eclipse in New York.
After conducting a charity concert of G5nrd&mm&fung in
1894, Damrosch was convinced that enthusiasm for Wagner
had not completely vanished; that, given the proper impetus, it
might reawaken. Convinced that it was his duty to continue
the work his father had begun some years earlier namely to
fight for Wagner's recognition in America he broached to the
Metropolitan his plans for restoring the Wagnerian repertory.
He met with deaf ears. Without hesitation he decided to

120

OF AMERICAN TRADITIONS

found his own company with his own resources. He sold his
home on Fifty-fifth Street and financed his own opera com
pany. His first season netted him a profit of $53,000. But, as
Andrew Carnegie had been astute enough to realize, American
audiences were not succumbing to the spell of Wagner's genius
half so much as to the novelty of hearing these operas. Car
negie, therefore, tried to dissuade Damrosch from launching a
second season. "Such success as you have had rarely repeats
itself," Carnegie told Damrosch. "You rightly divined the
desire of the public for the return of the Wagner opera, but
this current has drawn into it many people who have come for
curiosity alone, and to whom Wagner is still a closed book.
Many of these will not come a second time." The accuracy of
his prophecy was emphasized when, during the second season,
Damrosch lost $43,000. Only when Damrosch combined his
Wagner presentations with the Italian and French repertory
(enlisting the services of such stars as Melba and Calve) was he
able to keep his venture in good health. But as long as it re
mained alive, the Damrosch Opera Company promoted Wag
ner's interests. And the promotion of Wagner's interests was
Damrosch's burning and unforgettable ideal as he continued to
tour the country extensively, bringing the Wagner music-
dramas to audiences which had never before heard them.

In much the same way, Damrosch sold modern music to New
York audiences during a period when the modern composer was
not given much of a hearing in this country. It is not gen
erally recognized that composers like Stravinsky, Sibelius,
Delius, Ravel, Elgar, and Honegger were first championed in
this country by Damrosch.

Besides all this, he sold music to children through his morn
ing educational concerts which he enlivened with his gentle and
lovable introductory comments. He sold New York its leading

121

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

concert hall; Carnegie Hall was built directly as a result of his
encouragement and influence; and it was opened with a music
festival conducted by Damrosch.

Today, his eightieth birthday behind him and no less en
thusiastic about his missionary work than he was fifty years
ago he is still a salesman for great music. Up until the fall
of 1942, he sold the classics to some five million schoolchildren
every Friday afternoon over the radio. His voice is known by
youngsters throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Not long ago, while visiting the West for a music educators'
conference, he was invited by a school principal to address the
children at a school assembly. Damrosch promised to come,
but on the express condition that he would receive no official
introduction. Damrosch came to the platform, facing some
two thousand bright-faced youngsters who had been kept in the
dark about the identity of their visitor. His first words, how
ever, created a furor. All he said, in his soft-spoken and
beautifully modulated voice, was: "Good morning, my dear
children" his radio greeting. Instantly, through the tumult
of childish voices, could be heard the excited exclamation:
"It's Papa Damrosch! It's Papa Damrosch!"

When the occasion demanded it, Damrosch has even been a
successful salesman for himself. At one time, a famous guest
conductor to the New York Symphony inspired one New York
critic to remark how wonderful the orchestra could sound with
a good conductor. Damrosch did not miss the implication.
The next week he was back at the head of his orchestra. During
the performance of the final movement of the symphony, the
audience was startled to note that a chair was brought for
Damrosch. Damrosch sat down, put down his baton, and
listened to his orchestra complete the movement. Then Dam
rosch explained his behavior. "You see," he said simply, f *I

122

OF AMERICAN TRADITIONS

wanted to prove to you that my orchestra is so good it can
play well without any conductor whatsoever!"

Recently he conducted the New York Philharmonic in a con
cert performance of his revised opera, Cyrano de Bergerac. The
opera was rather attenuated, and somewhere along the middle
of the second act the audience began to trickle out of the hall.
Out of the corner of his eye Damrosch noticed the exodus. At
the end of the second act, he turned around, and with disen
gaging simplicity, said to his public: "Please don't go home,
yet. The best part of the opera is coming." In the face of
such a plea, not even the most callous could leave his seat. The
audience remained patiently, listened more attentively than it
had done before this, and gave the composer-conductor a gen
erous ovation.

*

For most people, eighty years may be a patriarchal age.
Damrosch (who has never felt younger) feels that the calendar
is lying when it speaks of him as an old man. Actually it is
difficult to consider a man old who, in his seventy-fifth year,
completed a new opera and saw it performed successfully at
the Metropolitan Opera House; who, in his seventy-seventh
year, appeared in a motion picture; who, one year after this,
went into brief retirement to work intensively on his piano
technique in preparation for his official debut in New York
as concert pianist; who, when he was seventy-nine, completed
an elaborate revision of an old opera and conducted it vigor
ously with the New York Philharmonic; and who, at eighty,
wrote still another opera, and appeared as a guest conductor of
the New York Philharmonic.

Damrosch may feel that he is yet too young to turn his eyes
from the future which he is still eyeing with great hope for
the fulfillment of many important musical projects in order

123

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

to contemplate the past. Retrospection, he may say, is a luxury
for the old; and he is not old. Yet he must occasionally look
back to his achievements with a feeling of warm satisfaction.
He has personally seen America develop from a musically im
mature country young, uninformed, sublimely innocent into
the greatest center of musical culture in the world. More than
this: In this phenomenal evolution, he himself played a major
possibly decisive role.

When Damrosch first decided to sell symphonic music to
America, in the closing years of the nineteenth century (in
those days symphony orchestras were few and far between; and
audiences for good music outside of a few large cities were
practically non-existent) he knew that it was a job to try even a
stout heart. Damrosch realized that if he wanted to be a suc
cessful salesman for good music, in places where good music
was unknown, he would at times have to sacrifice his artistic
conscience and temperament, and adapt himself as resiliency as
possible to his audiences. To be a successful salesman, Dam
rosch recognized, you must make your goods palatable; and you
don't make them palatable if you persist in assuming (as so
many visiting European musicians in America did at the time)
a holier-than-thou attitude to your customers. Damrosch never
lost his idealism in his struggles with his audiences. That was
to remain intact through all the trials of his early career. But
his idealism was blended with a sound practical sense that could
make temporary concessions, and yield to momentary expe
dience. Had his artistic conscience been inflexible, the times
would have crucified him. Fortunately, Damrosch was made
of resilient fibre.

He was born in Breslau, Germany* on January 30, 1862, the
son of Leopold Damrosch, one of the most distinguished musi
cians in Germany at the time. Richard Wagner was supposed

124

OF AMERICAN TRADITIONS

to be Walter's godfather. Because he had christened another
of Leopold Damrosch's sons, who had died in infancy, Wagner
superstitiously refused to have his own unlucky star over Walter
as well. Another godfather was chosen. When Walter was
five years old, his father transported the family to New York,
where he had been engaged to conduct the Arion Society. In
America, Walter began his music study, first with his father,
then with Von Inten, Boekelmann, and Pinner. There followed
another period of study in Germany with Draeske and Hans
von Biilow. Then, upon his return to America, almost before
he could catch his breath, he was thrust into a professional
career.

He began conducting in 1885, and in the same year undertook
the first of his famous tours with his orchestra to Louisville,
Kentucky. Also in 1885 Leopold Damrosch died and passed
on his various conductorial posts with the New York Sym
phony, the Oratorio Society, and the Metropolitan Opera
House as an inheritance to his son. Young Walter was then
twenty-three years old. At the time he was little more than a
novice as conductor. Previous to his father's death, he had
conducted a few concerts in New Jersey, and had assisted him
in preparing symphony and opera performances in New York.
Suddenly, the death of his father brought Walter the man-
sized assignments of directing a major orchestra, a major choral
society, and undertaking the entire German repertoire at the
Metropolitan Opera House (which his father had launched a
season earlier). Fortunately, working with his father had
proved to be valuable preparation for these tasks. Without
much experience to guide him, he took over his father's duties
with quiet self-assurance.

As he carried on his father's many duties with the skill and
self-confidence of a long-experienced conductor, he must have

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DICTATORS OP THE BATON

brought back to mind more than once his concert debut in
America which had taken place many years earlier. He was a
child at the time. Leopold Damrosch was rehearsing a per
formance of Schubert's Der hausliche Krieg with the Arion So
ciety. The score called for a cymbal crash, and since to Leopold
it seemed extravagance to engage a special musician for this
task, he decided to recruit his little son. Painstakingly, he
taught Walter how to crash the cymbals and when. At the
concert, Walter was so frozen by excitement and fear that,
when the moment arrived for him to crash the cymbals, he
simply could not move his hands.

It was a long road that stretched from this inauspicious con
cert debut to the assumption of full-time duties as a major con
ductor in New York a road paved with uninterrupted study
and fastidious preparation both in America and Europe. When,
in 1885, destiny placed his father's burdens on Walter's shoul
ders, he knew that he could carry them. But he was inspired
by a mission greater than merely doing his job well. He wanted
to educate America to music. He wanted to transfer his own
great love and enthusiasm for the wonderful art to the un
initiated American masses.

After his visit to Kentucky, he toured the South extensively.
Then the West. Some of his trials would have broken a less
determined spirit than his. In one place he met the open dis
gust of a manager because Damrosch confessed that his or
chestra was unable to play popular ballroom music. In another
town, his performance of a Beethoven symphony was inter
rupted in the middle by loud cries for The Arkansas Traveler.
Gently, Damrosch complied with the request, played The
Arkansas Traveler > then continued with the symphony from the
point where it had been interrupted. When Damrosch visited
Oklahoma with a performance of Wagner's spiritual music-

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drama, Parsifal, he was interrupted, immediately after he had
directed the other-worldly prelude, by the local manager who
rose to the stage with the momentous announcement: "I would
like to announce that Stewart's Oyster Saloon will be open
after the concert." Damrosch waited for the proclamation to
end, then, unruffled, continued with his direction of the Wagner
drama.

There were times when the necessity of conforming to train
schedules compelled him to play a musical work faster than the
tempo indicated in the score. Or else, he might find it expe
dient to omit a slow movement from a symphony in order to
make the composition more digestible to untrained palates.
Damrosch did all this without permitting his conscience to be
pricked by remorse. Let others look upon music as a temple,
which one must approach with reverence and on bended knee!
To Damrosch, music was something to be loved with the in
tensity and adoration of a young man for his first sweetheart.
Like the young lover, Damrosch was eager to introduce his
loved one to everybody, everywhere, to shout her virtues from
the housetops, until everyone heard him and her beauty was
visible to the entire world.

He still loves music this way. Not even a professional career
of more than sixty years has robbed him of his wonderful
enthusiasm for, and excitement about, great music. Even today,
a performance of music is for him the rarest type of pleasure
he can enjoy; and in some seventy-odd years those ears of his
have soaked in no small dose of music. Not that his is a one-
track mind. He has always had an overabundance of enthusi
asms Today he still follows his many hobbies with his one
time zest. As a child he used to like building little pasteboard
theatres for marionettes. As a matter of fact, it can be re-

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corded that the first American performance of Das Rheingold
took place in a theatre of his own construction: the characters
were played by puppets, and the music was performed and
sung by the exuberant young Walter at the piano. Today he
still likes to build those little theatres, some of which are quite
pretentious. He also likes to try his hand at carpentering and
(during the summers) at gardening. He likes to play the
genial host to his small group of intimate friends, and to his
rather large circle of immediate relatives. He enjoys good
food, liquor in moderation. He likes to paint on canvases, to
read good books (history and biography particularly), to go to
the theatre. He has an almost childlike passion for wearing
elaborate costumes at fancy-dress balls.

But his first love is music. He is today studying the piano
with the application and devotion of a young student preparing
for a career. His taxing work at composition, and his duties
as conductor of children's radio concerts, he considers as recrea
tion. And, like a true busman on a holiday, he finds no greater
pleasure than spending his evenings at a good concert or opera,
He won't miss an important musical event in New York if he
can help it; that dignified gray head of his is a familiar sight
in the front row of every major concert performance in New
York. He himself may have conducted a Beethoven symphony
hundreds of times until every marking on the page is thrice
familiar; yet even at this late day, when he hears an energetic
and inspiring performance he is as speechless at the wonder of
the composer's genius as he was in his student days* I re
member meeting Damrosch aboard a ship on our way back
from the Bayreuth Festival where we had both been to hear
Toscanini conduct (I believe that the ship was the old France,
and the trip took place in August, 1930) . I asked him how he
liked Toscaninf $ performance. Damrosch reacted as a school-

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boy might. He closed his eyes, spoke with the rapturous de
scriptive phrases of a novitiate. It was difficult to remember, in
hearing his rhapsodic flow of rhetoric, that here was a musician
who himself had performed these music-dramas time and time
again over a period of several decades.

After having served faithfully as principal conductor of the
New York Symphony Society for more than forty years, Walter
Damrosch decided to withdraw in 1926. It was not spectacular
music that had been heard these many years at Damrosch's con
certs: It would be overstressing a point to call Damrosch an
excellent conductor. He knew how to arrange fascinating
programs, and he had an extraordinarily wide repertoire. But
he did not have the capacity to drive his men toward heights.
He was too easily satisfied with the results he received. He
may have known, when he retired, that there were now in New
York far greater conductors than he; that he no longer had a
place in the New York symphony scene. Or he may have felt
that his life-work had been completed. He had set out to sell
good, music to the country, and, after forty years, had sold it
successfully. As he himself remarked at the time: "Gradually
symphony orchestras were founded in the cities which I had
visited. Philadelphia, Rochester, Detroit, St. Louis, Omaha,
Los Angeles, San Francisco no longer needed a visiting or
chestra to satisfy their newly awakened desires for symphonic
music. Excellent local orchestras under accomplished con
ductors amply supplied their artistic needs, and I began to feel
that my work in that direction was over, and that I could do no
more than repeat myself in continuing to perform to my own
home audiences the works of the masters/'

But that was only half the explanation for his retirement.
The other, and the more convincing reason was that he had
suddenly found a new love: the radio. The salesman in him

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

had never died. He recognized immediately that science had
brought him a medium through which he could reach a public
of fantastic proportions, a medium which suddenly made his
annual tours an obsolete method of carrying good music to the
entire country. Other musicians at the time looked rather dis
dainfully on the radio. They spoke of it as "canned music/' and
made sport of the unholy sounds which emanated from the loud
speaker. But Damrosch realized that he had acquired a pow
erful ally for his missionary work; and he did not hesitate to
associate himself with it, in spite of the condemnations and
sneers of other musicians.

He conducted his first radio concert in 1925 on an invitation
by A. Atwater Kent interspersing his genial remarks about the
music between the numbers. The response he received took
his breath away. Letters poured into the studio in grateful
acknowledgment for the good music Damrosch brought to the
radio. Immediately, the National Broadcasting Company en
gaged him to direct a series of twenty weekly symphonic broad
casts for the following year. In that year it was estimated that
some ten million people heard each of his concerts; two hun
dred million heard the series of twenty broadcasts. "It was
only then that I realized at least some of the possibilities which
this opened before me. Audiences of millions at one con
cert, instead of three thousand at the concert hall; the greater
proportion of these radio listeners absolutely virgin soil/ 1 Dam
rosch conducted another series of symphonic concerts in 1927-
28, and the following two yeaxs he directed a third and fourth
series for General Electric,

By 1931, Damrosch was once again made to realize that his
work was done. Radio was no longer spoken of derisively by
musicians. More and more serious artists were associating
themselves with the new medium. Broadcasts of great sym-

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WALT E R DA M ROSCH

THE LATE FREDERICK STOCK

OF AMERICAN TRADITIONS

phonic music unheard when Damrosch first came to the air
were now an almost everyday event: the Boston Symphony, the
Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic were
now broadcasting regularly. Men like Howard Barlow and
Frank Black were conducting studio orchestras in regular
broadcast periods. Damrosch had succeeded in selling great
music to the radio.

He now decided to devote himself exclusively to an under
taking which he had launched in 1928, when he inaugurated a
music-appreciation hour for schoolchildren over the radio. He
had been selling great music to adults for more than forty
years, building the concert audiences of yesterday and today.
He would now sell great music to the audiences of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Damrosch's Music Appreciation Hour became
a victim of the Second World War. After fourteen years of
uninterrupted broadcasting, it was suspended in the fall of
1942. The war has made heavy demands on the radio net
works for time, and the directors wished to curtail Damrosch's
program from a full hour to a half. Damrosch, feeling that his
work could not be adequately accomplished in that time, re
gretfully parted company with NBC.

Knowing, as we do, Damrosch's irrepressible energy and en
thusiasm, it is safe to say that he is not retiring his baton. He
is too young for that; and he feels that there is still much for
him to do.

131

Frederick Stock

With the exception of Damrosch, no other conductor still active
with the baton has had such a long and uninterrupted career
as Frederick Stock.* Stock, like Damrosch, is an inextricable
part of American orchestral history. For thirty-seven years he
has been the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His
long reign has had regal dignity. He has never resorted to
sensationalism to attract attention, nor courted publicity for
self-aggrandizement. He has scrupulously avoided the fire
works of controversies. His career, therefore, has consisted in
an important job well done by a man who always considered
his work more important than himself.

Stock is a man of rare simplicity of character and modesty.
At rehearsals, for example, he resorts to no unusual antics, nor
succumbs to outbursts of temper: He is soft-spoken and even-
tempered, knows exactly what he wants and gives his men
precise instructions. He has extraordinary conductorial tech
nique at his command which makes it possible for him to work
methodically, and with a minimum of physical effort and mental
strain. Temperament, he has for his performances are always
alive with character. But he has not the temperament of, a
prima donna. The humblest musician in the orchestra, up to
its directors, knows that he may be firm where artistic standards
are concerned, but that on all other matters he is easy to get
along with. He is good-humored, pleasant company whether

* As this book was going to press, Dr. Stock died of a heart attack.

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OF AMERICAN TRADITIONS

one rubs elbows with him in the living room or works under
him at the concert hall. He does not provide material to warm
the heart of a publicity director; as a matter of fact, he shrinks
from publicity, stoutly refusing to have the limelight focused
on him, always deflecting it from himself to his orchestra.

That Stock has remained the principal conductor of his or
chestra over this long period reflects honor both to himself and
to his audiences. To himself because, without sacrificing in
tegrity, without offering any attraction beyond that of great
music performed with discerning musicianship, he has been
able to hold the interest of his public. To his audiences
because through all these years they closed their ears to the
siren calls, and shut their eyes to the dazzling glamour, of other,
perhaps more electrifying, conductors. With symphony audi
ences throughout the country fluctuating in their adoration from
one European conductor to another, and mostly for superficial
considerations, Chicago audiences remained true to Stock and
for purely musical reasons.

Because he has not encouraged the publicization of his
achievements, it is sometimes difficult to remember that his is
one of the great conductorial careers of our time, and quite
unique from certain points of view. He is the only conductor
whose entire history is inextricably bound up with one or
chestra. Even Stokowski, whose name was inevitably asso
ciated with the Philadelphia Orchestra, began his career in
Cincinnati, and, after Philadelphia, continued it with the All-
American Youth Orchestra. Stock first took up his baton in
Chicago, and since then no other orchestra has known him as
a permanent leader. Also, Stock, in his unassuming manner,
has made the Chicago Orchestra one of the progressive musical
organizations of the country. His programs have been models
for taste, novelty, and sound musical interest. "I have spent

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

endless time pondering over the problem of program-making,"
he once confessed. * 'There has always been among all audi
ences a sharp cleavage between those who do not like to hear
the new in music . . . and those whose enthusiasm for the
new, the unfamiliar, knows no bounds. The lovers of the
classics . . . cannot easily be convinced that all this treasure
of beauty and grandeur was, at one time, new and unfamiliar.
. . . All things considered, one would be wise in practicing
conventionality in program-making, but beware of becoming
pedantic; introduce as many new works and repeat as many
unfamiliar ones, as the audiences will willingly absorb and
then leave well enough alone."

He has been faithful to the old; and yet, from the very first,
he has been an advocate of the new. In a survey conducted by
Dr. Howard Hanson on the American orchestral repertory a
few years ago, the Chicago Symphony earned first place among
American orchestras in the wide and elastic range of its pro
grams over a long period of years; it has presented under Stock
more works by a greater variety of composers than any other
orchestra about 240 compositions by 70 different composers.
And Stock has also kept a watchful eye on the American com
poser. Early in his career he repeatedly performed American
music (he was the only regular conductor in America at the
time to do so) despite the groans of dissatisfaction among his
audiences. In thirty-seven seasons, Stock has performed more
than 300 different works by American composers. And he is
still the friend of the American composer: In 1940-41 (based on
figures compiled by the National Musk Council), the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra took first place among American orches
tras in the number of performances of American works.

*

Though the Chicago Symphony is the third oldest orchestra

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OP AMERICAN TRADITIONS

in the country, it has known only two permanent conductors in
its fifty-odd years of existence: The other conductor was its
founder, Theodore Thomas. He had been brought to Chicago
by a group of important business men to organize a major
symphony orchestra. These business men were prepared to
supply a handsome subsidy. Thomas, who had been conduct
ing his own orchestra in New York and on tours throughout
the country, brought with him thirty of his own musicians. He
felt that in the Chicago orchestra his lifelong ambitions would
be realized. He was given an orchestra which would not be
dependent for support on its audiences, and which, therefore,
could reach for the highest in symphonic art.

On October 7, 189 1, the Chicago Orchestra gave its inaugural
concert featuring the Beethoven Fifth Symphony and the
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto (Rafael Joseffy, soloist). That
Thomas was determined to sound an incomparably high tone
for his new orchestra was proved with subsequent concerts
which were held at the now historic Auditorium. At his second
performance, the program included major works by Bach,
Gluck, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky. The third concert fea
tured two symphonies; the fourth was devoted to Wagner, and
to the Schubert C major Symphony. This was an unpleasantly
rigorous diet for audiences which up to now had been accus
tomed only to cream-puffs and desserts. It turned many a
stomach. Thomas played to half-empty houses. The first sea
son showed a deficit of $53,000; the second, $50,000. "If it is
desirable to educate the 'masses' to a liking for any certain style
of music/' lamented one Chicago critic (and he was voicing the
sentiments of most Chicago symphony patrons) "sound policy
dictates that some effective means be adopted for bringing the
'masses' aforesaid within the reach of the educative influences
and that the uniform and exclusive offering of what they will

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

not tolerate is hardly to be reckoned among effective means.
Mr. Thomas and his advisers seem to think otherwise, and if
the Orchestral Association members are willing for their own
gratification to pay the cost of what has been given them,
nobody else has the right to object/'

The backers of the Chicago Orchestra paid the bills without
complaint. They had faith in Thomas, and confidence in his
ultimate victory. They were determined to have their orchestra
one of the greatest in the country. Except, therefore, for minor
concessions to the public (such as the occasional substitution of
shorter numbers for symphonies), Thomas remained true to his
ideals; and his backers remained true to him. In 1901, he
directed a Beethoven cycle; in 1902, a historical series tracing
the evolution of orchestral music from Gabrieli to Tchaikovsky.
The modern composers were consistently featured; even Ameri
can composers, at that time the bete noir of the concert hall.

The antagonism of Chicago audiences to Thomas and his pro
grams was ultimately overcome. Thomas* battle for great or
chestral music had not been fought in vain. As they grew ac
customed to the music, audiences began to take to it. The
Auditorium grew more and more crowded with each season;
the deficits decreased sharply. Then, in 1904, came the most
convincing proof of the esteem of Chicago citizens for their
orchestra. A public subscription was asked for the purpose of
building a new auditorium for the Chicago Orchestra. Eight
thousand music lovers proved their devotion to their orchestra
by contributing $750,000.

"The money began to come in, not only from millionaires and
such men of means as had hitherto paid the orchestra's deficit;
it came from the public at large, including that great part of
the public that is never supposed to know or care a stricken
thing about classical music. The rich were asked to give, but

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OF AMERICAN TRADITIONS

it was the common run of humanity to whom we turned and
that now spoke out. Working men, merchants, clerks, book
keepers, schoolteachers, shop girls, scrub women it is the
most amazing thing I know of, but these were the people that
responded."*

From this time on, the orchestra was self-sustaining, and was
no longer compelled to turn to generous patrons for support.

Theodore Thomas died on January 4, 1905. He lived long
enough to have given his orchestra permanency, and to have
established for it large audiences of enthusiastic music lovers.
It has been recorded that the last words spoken by him before
death were: "I have had a beautiful vision, a beautiful vision/'
He was speaking, no doubt, of his orchestra.

*

Upon Thomas' death, the directors of the orchestra scanned
the European horizon with searching eyes, hoping to find a
worthy successor. Many famous Europeans expressed their
willingness to come to Chicago, among them the world-famous
Richard Strauss. Yet when a successor was finally chosen, he
was found not in Europe, but at hand, in the orchestra itself.

Young Frederick Stock had, as a matter of fact, the approval
of Thomas on his brow. Thomas had brought him to the or
chestra from Europe; then (with his keen scent for real musical
talent) had elevated him to the post of assistant conductor.
This was in 1899; and for the next five years, Thomas had fre
quent evidence of the sound musicianship of his disciple.

Stock was twenty-three years old when he first came to Chi
cago to fill the post of first violinist. But already he was an
experienced orchestra musician. He had been born on Novem
ber 11, 1872 in a fortress in the garrison town of Jiilich (near

* The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas, by Charles E. Russtll.
Doubleday, Page, 1927.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Cologne) where his father, an army bandmaster, was stationed.
Frederick's mother died when he was still an infant. At four,
he began to study the violin and at eleven he had his first op
portunity to conduct. Young Stock was present at a band re
hearsal, and one of the bandsmen good humoredly asked him
to substitute for his absent father. The child climbed the band
stand and, having long learned the music by heart, proceeded
to beat the time with an accurate hand. The performance, to
to amazement of the musicians, went smoothly.

Poverty made it impossible for Stock to get a comprehensive
musical training during childhood. What he learned, he had
to learn by himself by reading books, and by experimenting
on musical instruments. Yet he acquired so much information,
that, in his fourteenth year, he won a scholarship for the
Cologne Conservatory where he studied with such masters as
Jensen, Humperdinck, Wiillner, and Zollner.

Upon graduating from the Conservatory in 1887, he was
given a violin post with the Cologne Municipal Orchestra. For
eight years he played under the batons of world-famous musi
cians among them, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss.

Thomas came upon Stock in Cologne, was impressed by his
sincerity and enthusiasm, and urged him to come to Chicago
to his orchestra. When Thomas selected Stock as his assistant
conductor, there was no little amazement in the orchestra
for Stock had been one of the more unassuming musicians, and
had thus far shown no special conductorial gifts. But Thomas
seemed to have a sixth sense for genius, and it told him that
Stock was his man. Under Thomas, Stock received the final
touches to his musical education particularly during the years
when as Thomas' assistant, he worked with the older man,
learned his methods, and accepted advice and criticism. Stock
helped Thomas rehearse. He accompanied the soloists. He

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OP AMERICAN TRADITIONS

took over some of Thomas' out-of-town engagements. He
made valuable orchestral arrangements of old music for
Thomas' use. He proved himself Thomas' indispensable right
hand. Thomas was satisfied that the intuition which had led
him to Stock had once again not failed him.

When, suddenly, Stock was called upon to take the post
vacated by Thomas's death, he was already self-assured with
the stick. He knew the business of conducting from every
possible angle, and could wield the baton with a minimum of
fumbling. From the very first, he was able without the least
sign of ostentation to conduct most works in the repertoire
from memory. Even in those days he could learn an entirely new
score during a two-hour train ride.

*

, A conductor who rises from the ranks of his orchestra is not
in the most advantageous position. A few weeks earlier he
had been an intimate friend and fellow-worker of the other
orchestra players. Suddenly, he was in a position where he
had to exert his authority over his friends, where his success
demanded that he command and be obeyed. The moment
called for tact and wisdom. If he had put on airs of superiority
and arrogance, the orchestra would have been permanently an
tagonized; and an antagonistic orchestra can spell ruin even
for a great and experienced conductor. But Stock was never
the man for fake attitudes. He maintained his warm and
friendly relationship with his men. He kept his rehearsals on
a human basis. He even accepted, and gratefully, the advice
and opinions of his fellow musicians. But at the same time,
he let it be known that his authority was not to be questioned,
And his tact won the day for him.

At one other time, and under quite different circumstances,
Stock was to profit by his innate tact. It was during our first

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

months of the First World War, shortly after America's of
ficial entry into the conflict. War hysteria was in the air. Be
fore long, some of the greatest musicians in America would
be persecuted as suspected spies. Stock sensed the situation
and rose to it. He asked to be excused from his duties for an
entire season, until his American citizenship became official.

Since 1919, he has conducted the Chicago Symphony Or
chestra uninterruptedly; with quiet and undramatized com
petence he has kept his orchestra in the front rank of Amer
ican symphonic organizations. Always the restrained and well-
poised musician, he has kept his performances tightly in check.
His performances may not soar on wings, as do those of, say,
Koussevitzky or Stokowski. Stock is not the man to excite his
audiences with skillfully contrived climaxes, and overwhelming
emotional impulses. But dignity he has, and taste. His read
ings are beautifully proportioned and balanced. They reveal
the musical understanding, sensitivity, and discernment of their
interpreter. His span is wide; his intelligence, searching.

And always he keeps himself in the background. At his
concerts he has conveyed to his audiences that the music is the
only important consideration. When, in 1940, the Chicago
orchestra celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, the attention was
directed on the orchestra itself. Only incidentally were there
tributes paid to the conductor who led it for so many years.
Like Toscanini, Stock detests applause. He frequently inter
rupts th,e welcoming round of handclaps with the opening bars
of the first composition. Once the audience adopted the cus
tom of rising to its feet whenever he came on the stage. This
tribute so .embarrassed him that he was finally driven to make a
point-blank demand from the platform that such nonsense cease.

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Of European Traditions

*Bruno Walter

The fact that Bruno Walter was one of the two leading con
ductors in Germany, and that he had a reputation which circled
the. globe, did not save him from being the first important
musician to be exiled from Germany when the Nazis rose to
power. In the spring of 1933, he was ordered to leave the
country without further delay, and never to return. The con
cert he was scheduled to conduct with the Leipzig Gewandhaus
Orchestra on March 16, 1933 was hurriedly assumed (without
so much as a blush of shame) by Richard Strauss because,
so ran the official explanation, Walter's appearance "threatened
public order and security/* Another concert, scheduled with
the Berlin Philharmonic a few days later, was cancelled al
together; this time, without mincing words or seeking escape
in subterfuge, the Nazis stated that it was found undesirable
to have a Jew direct a great German symphonic ensemble.

Thus Walter's fifteen years of artistic endeavor for German
music was brushed aside contemptuously because he was a Jew.
That he was one of the great artists of our generation was
forgotten overnight. No stronger indication could have been
given by the Nazis at the time that they meant business in
their policy of Sauberung the cleansing of Germany of non-
Aryan influences. For not even his world fame had saved
Walter. . -

Strange paradox! Walter, who had always felt that art was
in a world removed from politics, and that the artist had no

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

place at the side of statesmen, was henceforth to feel the shat
tering impact of political forces more than any other musician.
Having lost his native country, Walter transferred his home
to Vienna, the city where he had achieved his first triumphs,
and where his name was hallowed. Vienna itself was torn
by anti-Semitic hatreds; but it received him warmly, for Vienna,
though it hated Jews, was too musical to disown a great artist
because of his Jewish blood. His first Viennese concert fol
lowing his exile from Germany saw an overwhelming public
demonstration for him a spontaneous and heart-warming
manifestation of affection and admiration. Walter conducted
symphonies and operas in Vienna, and for a year was artistic
adviser to the Vienna Opera. During the summers, he con
tinued his work at the Salzburg festival which, more than any
other single person, he had helped to make world-famous.
Austria was now his adopted fatherland; in Austria he felt at
home, at peace with his art. The banishment from Germany
had been less of a searing wound only because Austria meant
so much to him.

But the political cataclysm which had devastated Germany
in 1933 was soon to have its profound repercussions in Austria.
It was at a Bruno Walter concert of the Vienna Philharmonic
that, during the intermission, Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg
was formally introduced to the new ambassador from Germany,
Franz von Papen. They exchanged polite salutations. Franz
von Papen told the Chancellor that he had come for the ex
press purpose of cementing the then strained relations between
the two countries. They shook hands; and with that hand
shake the fate of Austria was sealed.

It was also at a Bruno Walter concert that von Schuschnigg
made his last public appearance in Vienna. Soon after this,
he went on an ill-fated journey to Berchtesgaden. Bruno Wal-

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

ter also left Vienna (fortuitously) for some performances in
Paris. A few weeks after this, Austria fell to Germany; and
Bruno Walter had lost his second home.

He now became a French citizen, devoting himself prin
cipally to performances in France and England, and to festival
concerts in Italy and Lucerne. But he lost Italy when that
country, showing greater Axis solidarity, launched its own anti-
Semitic program. And he lost Lucerne when, in 1939, Europe
plunged into a new world war. In the spring of 1940 his
French citizenship was abrogated when France capitulated to

Nazi Germany.

*

He came to the United States not only for concert perform
ances, but also to seek American citizenship and to settle his
roots permanently in this country. He appeared in guest per
formances with most of our leading orchestras. For the first
time, he conducted opera in America, projecting magnificent
performances at the Metropolitan Opera House. The honors
which this country accorded him must at least partially have
compensated him for his sad adventures in Europe. Here
where an artist does not have to apologize for his race or creed
Bruno Walter continued to occupy the position which had
been his throughout the world for more than thirty years.

Whatever may be the fate of Europe, whatever may be its
musical destiny, it is certain that henceforth Bruno Walter will
play a major role in our musical life. He has said that now,
more than anything else, he wishes to be a part of us; that he
realizes what a privilege it is for him to practice his art in this
arsenal of freedom. In view of the part he is destined to play
here, it might be of moment to review his career in this country.

It was not always paved with triumphs. He came here for
the first time in 1923 to be guest conductor of the New York

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Symphony Society. Behind him already lay a formidable career
in Germany and Austria, including major successes in Vienna,
Munich, and Salzburg. Yet, to the New York audiences of
the 1920's more concerned with spectacular personalities than
with spectacular music-making Walter was no sensation at
first. I recall his first concerts vividly. His programs were
soundly constructed (there were, if memory serves, two major
symphonies at his introductory concert) and presented with
dignity, and often with majesty. There were no fireworks
either in Walter's stage personality or in his interpretations.
No breath-taking eccentricities. Only profound musicianship;
only the cultured speech of a scholar. Some discriminating
music-lovers in New York sang his praises from the first; but
the public in general remained apathetic to him.

He returned to conduct the New York Symphony in 1924
and 1925, with hardly greater success. A few discerning music
lovers, of course, appreciated him for his true worth; but the
public in general remained comparatively disinterested. Then,
po-ssibly discouraged by his failure to earn here the fame that
was 'his due, he did not return to America again until 1932,
when he was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic.
During his absence, a subtle transformation had taken place
in American musical taste: it had become refined and sen
sitized. Americans were growing less concerned with person
alities, and more with good music itself. And in this new
scheme of things, Bruno Walter could now take his deserving
place of honor. He remained two seasons with the Philhar
monic, his beautifully fashioned performances, ridi with poetic
fervor and feeling, finding large and appreciative audiences.
He was again with the Philharmonic during its centenary cele
bration season. He conducted most of the leading American
orchestras from New York to Los Angeles as well. Then, in

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

1940, he earned his crowning triumphs in America, when he
joined the Metropolitan Opera House and gave incandescent
performances of operas by Beethoven, Mozart, and Smetana.

Without minimizing Bruno Walter's gifts as symphonic con
ductor, it can be said with full justification that the true Bruno
Walter was not known to America until he came to the Metro
politan Opera House in 1940. He is always a sensitive and
poetic interpreter, whether he conducts symphonies or operas,
and there are always qualities in his readings which delight
the discriminating. But there has been little question to those
of us who have heard him in Paris, Salzburg, Vienna, or
Florence, that he is greatest in the realm of opera.

In the symphonic repertoire he yields too often to the urge
to overinterpretation. He is so carried away by the music he
is playing that he cannot resist the temptation of caressing a
lyric line affectionately, or permitting the full tide of his feel
ings to overflow. He indulges in some of the indiscretions of
the von Billow school of conductors: sometimes inserting un
called for pauses (Luftpausen) to heighten suspense; utilizing
rubatos with too lavish a hand; touching lyric pages with sac
charine. He has the taste of a fine artist, and such indiscretions
are often not objectionable except to the purist. But one often
prefers less interpretation, and a more meticulous accounting
of the composer* s own intentions when listening to Walter.

In the opera house we hear a quite different Bruno Walter,
a more restrained and disciplined artist. It may be that, sub
consciously, he is held in constraint by the artists on the stage;
. or that his personality is better adapted for the theatre than
the symphony hall. In any case, he is one of the great operatic
conductors of our time. In Mozart, in Weber, in Gluck, in
most of the Italian repertory he has Toscanini's intensity, scrupu
lous attention to details, spaciousness of design. His hand in-

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

tegrates all the various elements of operatic performance into
a unity. His adjustments between orchestra and singers are
sensitively achieved; he is one of the few opera conductors
who can pluck out of the texture of an orchestral accompani
ment, a phrase, or a rhythmic pattern (formerly unnoticed by
us) which gives new meaning to the action of the stage. He
has, when the music calls for it, passion and strength; his is an
extraordinary range of dynamics and nuances. He can play
a melody with a soaring line, and can provide accompaniments
pronounced with clarity and unpretentiousness. He bends elas-
tically with every changing mood, carrying orchestra and singers
with him.

He is essentially the aesthete, the worshipper of beauty in
every form. He is passionately fond of painting, lyric poetry,
the theatre, books; with whatever art he comes into contact he
searches hungrily for beauty of design. It is for this reason
that the composer he adores above all others is Mozart, the
composer in whom he also finds his happiest vein as an inter
preter. Mozart is the quintessence of beauty in form and sub
stance, and in the presence of Mozart Bruno Walter melts.

To see him conduct Mozart is to realize how deeply this
music moves him. His eyelids become heavy and droop over
his dreamy eyes; a beatific smile creeps across his lips; his face
has an other-worldly look. As his body moves ecstatically with
the rhythm of the music, he seems to be floating, buoyed by the
wings of the music. He is so completely under the spell of the
music that it is some moments after the end of the performance
before he recovers. He leaves the platform somewhat dazed,
high-strung, his eyes dreamy, his face pale.

*

His training and background have particularly adapted him
for the opera house. He was born in Berlin on September 15,

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

1876 (his original name was Bruno Schlesinger) , and he was
educated at the Stern Conservatory. Long before his gradua
tion from the Conservatory he knew that he wanted, above
everything else, to be a conductor; not even early successes as
a prodigy pianist in Germany could deflect him from his ul
timate goal. As a boy, he frequently visited the State Library,
begging his way in, for it was against the rules to admit one
so young. There he would study the scores of great operas.
At an interesting musical passage a striking melodic phrase,
or an unusual progression, or chord he would make a notation
on a piece of paper. Then, when he was able to hear an actual
performance of these operas, he would take his notes out of
his pocket and wait to hear the passages he had singled out.

After he graduated from the Conservatory, he accepted a few
minor posts as conductor in small German opera houses. Then
he was engaged as coach, chorus master, and general assistant
for the Hamburg Opera.

The Hamburg post was a turning point in Walter's life. It
brought him into contact with the artist who was to exert the
greatest single influence over his life: Gustav Mahler, principal
conductor in Hamburg. To work with Mahler, to assist him
in his fastidiously prepared performances, was a university edu
cation for a young conductor. The two years in Hamburg
taught Walter many things about the art and technique of con
ducting. But more than this, Walter learned from Mahler the
idealism, self-effacement, and consecration to the highest stand
ards of art with which every true artist must concern himself.

Conducting in theatres in Breslau, Pressburg, and Riga, and
filling an engagement at the Royal Opera in Berlin, brought
Walter the necessary experience and self-assurance for his first
major assignment. In 1897, Mahler had been appointed di
rector of the Vienna Royal Opera. He freshened and enriched

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

the opera house with transfusions of new blood. He brought
young singers to Vienna (many of them to rise to world fame
there) . And he called upon young conductors to assist him.
Mahler had not forgotten his energetic and idealistic young co-
worker of HamBurg. In 1901 he called Walter to Vienna.

No greater or more soul-satisfying experience could a young
artist ask for than to assist Mahler during one of the great
epochs in the history of Viennese music-making. Mahler was
at the zenith of his powers as a conductor. Gustav Mahler's her
culean energy, brilliantly analytical intellect, maniacal pursuit
after perfection, unsparing zeal and industry, and high artistic
devotion created a revolution at the Vienna Opera. The re
pertoire was reshaped and freshened as one novelty after an
other was introduced, and as the old operas were subjected to
the most painstaking re-study. Mahler drove those who worked
under him; and he drove himself. And through hard work
and the revitalization of Mahler's interpretative genius the
Vienna Opera was transformed into the leading musical in
stitution of the world. To work at the side of Mahler, and
to be subjected to his will and artistic purpose, was to be given
a dazzling vision of the interpretative art at its noblest. In
Vienna, under Mahler's vigilant, exacting eye Bruno Walter
emerged from a talented conductor into a great one.

Mahler left the Vienna Opera in 1907. "A great epoch had
come to an end," wrote Walter, "the achievement of one man
and his inspired co-workers. Everyone had learned from him,
everyone had been led to the utmost of his capacity."

Walter never forgot his debt to Mahler. He has paid the
debt and paid it handsomely by passionately espousing the
cause of Mahler's music, and directing it with all the skill, de
votion, and reverence of which he was capable in every music
center in the world. It was Walter who directed the premiere

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

of -Das Lied von dev Erde in Munich, and that of the Ninth
Symphony in Vienna. It was Walter who, twenty-five years
after Mahler's death, directed a monumental Mahler festival
in Vienna. It was Walter who persistently furthered the cause
of Mahler's music in America in spite of the general apathy
of the public. And (with eloquent appropriateness!) it was
with a Mahler Symphony that Bruno Walter made one of his
last appearances in Vienna in 1938.

Walter remained in Vienna until 1913, and it was he who
was largely responsible for some of the brilliant moments
which persisted, recollections as it were, of the Mahler epoch.
Then, already considered among the most brilliant conductors
.of .the period, he was engaged as Felix Mottl's successor as
general music director of Munich. In Munich, Walter's fame
became international, enhanced by his remarkable contributions
to the Salzburg festival beginning with 1922.

Anti-Semitism and envy, finally, drove him out of Munich.
But his stature grew. Subsequent to his first appearances in
America, Walter's star kept rising in Europe. In 1924, he gave
his first performances in Covent Garden and was so successful
(particularly in Wagner) that his annual visits henceforth be
came musical events of striking importance in the London sea
son. In 1925, Walter was appointed principal conductor of
the Charlottenburg Opera in Berlin which, largely through his
efforts, became one of the great opera houses in Germany. In
1930, Walter became conductor of the historic Leipzig Ge-
wandhaus Orchestra.

Ejected from Germany in 1933, Walter continued his per
formances in France, in England, at the Florence May Music
Festival, in Salzburg, Vienna, and the United States.

Particularly noteworthy was his work in Vienna. During
this period, the Vienna State Opera had fallen upon sorry days,

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

especially under the regime of Felix Weingartner, once one of
the truly great conductors of the world, but now a tired, old
man, set in his ways, and deaf to all advice and criticism. His
best days as conductor were long past; yet he was determined
to conduct the most important performances. He had many
blind spots, and was responsible for a stodgy repertoire. Hating
Jews, he ruthlessly dismissed some of them from the company.
Besides, he was inefficient, reactionary in his musical tastes
and stubborn. Weingartner's promise to conduct in Japan in
1936 offered the Vienna Opera a welcome excuse to ask for
his resignation. To lift the Opera out of its degeneracy, the
directors called on Bruno Walter to assume direction. Bruno
Walter worked against impossible odds; but, in spite of petty
intrigues, the rising ocean of anti-Semitism, and the lack of
fresh musical material, he succeeded in restoring some measure
of dignity and self-respect to the Vienna Opera.

But his reign, unfortunately, was brief; in 1938 the Nazi

entered Vienna.

*

"Nur Mut, und Kopj oben" only courage, and head high
Mahler had often said to Bruno Walter.

No phrase could more aptly sum up Bruno Walter's career.
He has had courage of that there can be no doubt. One
has merely to recall how valiantly he has fought his musical
battles the battle for Mahler and Bruckner, for example
to realize that he is of heroic stature. One has only to speak
to Walter today a man who has lost his world and his setting
to recognize that he has moral and physical courage to face
disaster and to emerge from it with unvanquished spirit.

And his head has been high: few artists of our time have
remained so true to their art and to their principles as Walter.

Nothing is quite so illustrative of the nobility of the artist

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

as his attitude toward Richard Strauss. Walter was recently
asked why he persisted in directing the music of a man like
Strauss, who had done him such personal injury; and why he
sponsored the music of a composer who was the leading musical
figure of the detestable Nazi regime. "I dislike Strauss as a
person/' Walter answered simply, "and I abhor everything for
which he has stood in recent years. But Strauss is a genius, and
some of his works are masterpieces. I cannot in all honesty
boycott masterpieces because I detest their composer/*

153

Fritz T$u$ch

Fritz Busch was another early victim of the Nazi purge. He
was not, like Bruno Walter, a Jew, but a political suspect. It
was known that he had no great enthusiasm for the Nazi party,
and no intentions to curry favor with it now that it had acquired
power. Besides, he was a liberal whose political philosophy
was sharply opposed to that of a dictatorial regime.

As in the case of Bruno Walter, not his world fame, nor his
monumental contributions to the Dresden Opera, nor the ad
miration and respect with which he was regarded by his fellow
Germans could save Busch once the Nazis designated him as
their enemy. During a rehearsal at the Dresden Opera, on
March 7, 1933, Nazi storm-troopers noisily entered the audi
torium and demanded that Busch resign his post in favor of a
proved Nazi. That same evening, at a performance of Rigo-
Ietto 3 the front rows of the opera house were occupied by brown
shirts. As Busch made his way to the conductor's stand they
chanted in unison: "Out with Busch!" Quietly, Busch with
drew, announced his resignation, and left the country.

Handsome compensation and gratitude for his historic ar
tistic achievements and for his unsparing devotion to German
musk!

Fritz Busch, older brother of the famous violinist, Adolf,
was born on March 13, 1890, in Siegen, Westphalia. His fa
ther, who had abandoned a musical career for carpentry in
order to support his family, was determined to realize his own

154

OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

artistic ambitions through his children. All of them were given
comprehensive musical training from early childhood. They
grew up in a musical setting, and became saturated with a
musical atmosphere. A small orchestra, conducted by their
father, met regularly at their home, filling the days and eve
nings with music; besides this, the children often joined their
father in chamber music performances.

Fritz began to study the piano in his fifth year, and two years
later began concert work with success. Concerts (and, later,
hack work in music halls and ballrooms to earn a sadly needed
mark) did not interfere with the systematic study of music.
By the time he was twelve years old, he had a working knowl
edge of every instrument in the orchestra.

In 1906, he was enrolled at the Cologne Conservatory. One
year after this came his debut with the baton at the State
Theatre at Riga. Other engagements, in Gotha, Aachen, and
Bad Pyrmont, brought experience and self-assurance to the
young conductor.

In June, 1918, he was invited to conduct the Berlin Philhar
monic in a festival devoted to the music of Max Reger held
at Jena. It was his first taste of triumph, and brought him his
first major post: the direction of the Stuttgart Opera in suc
cession to Max von Schillings. Three years at Stuttgart made
Busch famous throughout Germany. His next post, as director
of the Dresden Opera, extended his fame beyond Germany
throughout the rest of Europe and even to America. Under
his guidance, the Dresden Opera became one of the great opera
houses of the world. Besides its admirable performances of
the standard repertory the operas of Mozart and Wagner
particularly, for which Busch proved himself especially adapted
there was the progressive and fearless promotion of new
music to bring it its deserving fame. Modern opera owes a

155

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

debt to Fritz Busch and the Dresden Opera, for it found in
them stout-hearted champions. At Dresden, many of Hin-
demith's operas were first performed, including the contro
versial Cardillac. There, too, took place the world premiere
of Kurt Weill's Der Protagonist. Many of Richard Strauss'
later operas were officially introduced in Dresden, for example,
The Egyptian Helen and Joseph's Legend. And whether the
opera was of the classic repertory or the modern, it received
at the hands of Fritz Busch a studiously prepared performance
which was the delight and admiration of German music lovers.

*

Fritz Busch's first contact with the United States came in
1927 when he was invited to serve as guest of the New York
Symphony Society. He did not make a forceful impression.
His appearance, suggesting a department store manager rather
than an artist, and his unexciting stage manner were not likely
to fire the interest of New York concertgoers to a boiling point.
His performances intelligently prepared but without any sug
gestion of the dramatic were also unspectacular. New York
found his concerts unimpressive. A hero in Dresden, Busch
remained unsung in New York.

It cannot be said that America has given Busch any greater
homage since 1927. After his exile from Germany, Busch con
ducted a season of opera in South America. Then he was en
gaged as musical director of the Danish Broadcasting Company.
At the same time, he filled engagements as guest of opera and
symphony performances throughout Europe. Wherever he
came he was honored as a major figure of the baton particu
larly at the annual summer Glyndebourne Festival in England
where his performances of the Mozart operas were accepted as
models of classic perfection.
In 1956, when Toscanini resigned as principal conductor of

1*5

OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

the New York Philharmonic, he suggested Fritz Busch for the
post. He personally sent Busch a cable urging him to return
to America in order to take over the direction of the Philhar
monic. Busch (no doubt recalling the frigid reception he had
received in this country) politely turned down the offer. He
was happy at his various posts in Europe, and he had no desire
to court the favour of the American music public. But the
outbreak of the Second World War forced him to revise his
plans. With Europe in conflagration reducing its musical
activity to ashes Busch came to the United States. He con
ducted opera with the recently organized New Opera Company
in New York (a not altogether successful attempt to transplant
the Glyndebourne Festival to America) . He also appeared as
a guest of several major symphony orchestras, including the
New York Philharmonic during its centenary season.

If Busch has failed to conquer America as decisively as he
has stormed other music centers, it is not altogether the fault
of our audiences. The standard of conducting is incomparably
high in this country. Well executed performances are not
enough to excite widespread enthusiasm. The truth is that
Busch is an example that sound musicianship, scholarship, taste,
and artistic discrimination are not sufficient to create great per
formances. To speak to Busch personally is to realize that he
is a musician to his very fingertips: few conductors have his
phenomenal command of the symphonic and operatic reper
tory. Intellectually he need feel inferior to none. But intel
lect, too, unfortunately, does not suffice. Busch lacks the per
sonal fire, the voltaic electricity to create sparks and cause con
flagrations. He does not excite his men or inspire them with
the dynamism of personality. He has not the despotic will to
dominate, nor the capacity to be obeyed implicitly.

The result, too often, is a rather stodgy performance in which

157

DICTATORS OP THE BATON

things are usually correctly said, but not with eloquence, pas
sion, nor moving spirit. I have heard some performances (but
they have been very rare) in which he has been superb: the
music of Max Reger, for example, offers an idiom in which
his heavy Germanic accent can express itself happily. I have
heard performances by Busch which have been artistically pre
pared in every detail, in which the workmanship is expert, and
the taste unimpeachable his Mozart performances in Glynde-
bourne for example. I have heard performances of Beethoven
and Brahms which betrayed the intelligence and understanding
of their interpreter. But, personally, I have never been stirred
by Busch in the way that I am affected by Toscanini or Kous-
sevitzky or Bruno Walter. My own reaction seems to be the
reaction of most American music lovers. They will applaud
him politely for his musicianship and integrity; but I have yet
to see them demonstrate enthusiasm.

158

Sir Thomas ^Beecham

Sir Thomas Beecham has more titles than any other English
musician, including those of knighthood and baronetcy. But
those who know him well have always felt that a formal title
is not quite appropriate for a man of such simplicity, lovable
humor, and unpretentiousness. In appearance he may suggest
a member of Parliament: he has the dignity of height and car
riage; his bullet-shaped head converges into an aristocratic
pointed beard; an impressive nose separates a high forehead
and finely shaped lips. In reputation he may rank with the
immortal musicians of England. In background, he may sug
gest the highborn. Yet to his friends (and to the many musi
cians who have worked with him) he is simply * 'Tommy/' a
genial fellow, a gentleman in the finest meaning of the term,
a devoted and lovable friend.

There is more than his genius with the baton to make him
a famous personality. There is, for example, his fabulous
memory. Like Toscanini, he seems to know intimately about
the entire symphonic and operatic repertoire. Whenever a
question arises in London about a debatable point in some ob
scure work, it is ' Tommy* ' who is consulted; and invariably he
has the correct answer at the tip of his tongue. His fellow
musicians have long stood in awe of his encyclopedic knowl
edge of musical scores. An amusing story describes his com
mand of the repertory. He was a guest conductor at an opera
performance in Birmingham. A few moments before the per-

159

DICTATORS OP THE BATON

formance he coolly smoked a cigarette. When curtain time
arrived, he snuffed out his cigarette, and on his way out to the
pit, quietly asked the manager: "By the way, what opera are
we playing tonight?"

His courage is almost as formidable as his memory. Perhaps
the most illustrative example is a performance of Mozart's The
Marriage of Figaro which he directed at Drury Lane during
the First World War. An air-raid took place, during which a
bomb destroyed a wing of the theatre. But "Tommy'* realized
that panic was a greater danger than the descending bombs.
Without seeming to notice the explosion, he continued his con
ducting. The audience, inspired by his courage, remained in
its seats. The air raid passed without any casualties in the the
atre; and the performance went on without interruption.

He has always had the courage to speak his mind without
mincing words. He has violently excoriated English music
schools and their system of music education (even though, at
the same time, he was wounding the sensibilities of some of
his personal friends) . He has attacked English music critics
with devastating verbal attacks, without giving a thought that
he might be wounding his own position at the same time. In
America, in 1941, he bitterly denounced Hollywood music,
pricking many open sores in the movie colony. Not that he is
neither tactful nor diplomatic; he would not be so much the Eng
lishman if he weren't. But where he sees abuses in music he
cannot remain silent. Expediency canndt restrain him from
shouting his criticisms*

Then there is his fleet, pointed sense of humor. When he
was first invited to conduct the London Philharmonic he re
marked (remembering that his father had become world-fa
mous by virtue of a medicinal preparation) : "I suppose now
they will call the orchestra the London Pillharmonic" While

160

OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

conducting a performance of Aida in a small town in England,
he was disconcerted to notice the shabby presentation. During
the course of the performance, the horse on the stage yielded
to physical necessity. "Tommy" put his hands on his hips and
alertly applying the famous mot of David Garrick, whispered
to his men: "Upon my word, gentlemen, he's a critic!" Once,
in commenting on English music, he remarked sadly: "British
composition is in a state of perpetual promise. It might be
said to be one long promissory note."

Most important of all, however, is his idealism. He has
consecrated his life to great music sparing neither his health
nor his fortune thereby carving musical history in England.
Few people of our time have made such fabulous personal
sacrifices for the development of music culture in their coun
tries as Beecham. Over a period of several decades he brought
England the greatest operas in the world (many of them heard
there for the first time) in brilliant performances, frequently
paying the necessary expenses out of his own pocket. The
Diaghilev Ballet, Russian operas with Chaliapin, opera in Eng
lish, people's opera, world famous premieres and revivals, new
operas by living composers, neglected modern English com
posers, all were sponsored by Beecham to the greater good of
English music. It is said that his operatic ventures entailed him
the loss of several million dollars, enough certainly to have
thrown him at one time into bankruptcy. No wonder, then,
that one critic was able to say of him: "I think that unbiased
British musicians would agree with me that Beecham has done
more to stimulate and enrich the musical life of England than

any other musician of his time."

*

His first adventure was the organization of a symphony or
chestra in London in 1905. The New Symphony Orchestra

161

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

paid tribute to old music, neglected by other English composers.
In doing this, it brought a deepening and an enrichment of
musical experiences to London's musical life. The New Sym
phony Orchestra soon passed into other hands (eventually it was
transformed into the famous Royal Albert Hall Orchestra).
In 1908, Beecham created another orchestra, the Beecham Sym
phony this time to do heroic propaganda work for the modern
composer. What a debt contemporary English composers owe
to Beecham for his labors at this time cannot easily be cal
culated. Many of them Delius especially stepped out of
the total darkness of obscurity to the limelight of public atten
tion only because Beecham had worked for them.

Then Beecham turned to opera, first creating his own company
in 1910 (when he gave the world premiere of Delius's A Vil
lage Romeo and Juliet}, then, in 1911, taking over the man
agement of Covent Garden. During his regime, one of the
greatest in Covent Garden's history, every major opera in the
repertory was given performance; with that, more than sixty
novelties were presented. Opera performance in England, ac
quired a healthy stimulus from its contact with Beecham, and
it thrived. There was a season of Russian opera with Chaliapin
("my Russian season/' once remarked Beecham, "was emi
nently successful; no one understood a word"), and another
with the Diaghilev Ballet; there was a season of opera comique
in English, and another of grand opera in the same language;
there were magnificent cycles of the Wagner music-dramas,
and first performances of all the major Richard Strauss operas.
Beyond this, there was a seemingly inexhaustible parade of
new operas and fascinating revivals by Richard Strauss, Dame
Ethel Smyth, Debussy, Eugen d' Albert, Rimsky-Korsakow, Sir
Arthur Sullivan (Ivanboe), Stanford, Holbrooke, and Delius.

For his services to English music, Beecham was knighted in

162

SIR THOMAS BEECHAM

FRITZ BUSCH

BRUNO WALTER

PIERRE MONTEUX

OP EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

1914, and in 1916 succeeded to the title of baronetcy. But titles
and honors, unfortunately, do not pay the expensive bills for
opera-making such as Beecham offered. In 1919, Sir Thomas
announced that his personal funds had been exhausted by his
experiments and musical ventures, and that he was forced to
go into bankruptcy.

His retirement was temporary. In 1923, he conducted a
symphony concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and with this con
cert his return to London musical activity became official.
Henceforth he was to be feverishly active, with no necessity
of financing his own ventures. He directed all the major Eng
lish orchestras, and was one of the principal conductors at
Covent Garden. His guest appearances brought him to the
head of the leading orchestras and opera houses in Europe,
In 1928, he made his debut in the United States with the New
York Philharmonic, marking the beginning of a long and suc
cessful association with this country. In the same year, he
evolved a monumental plan for a people's opera in England,
in which he promised to present the greatest operas for the
masses at popular prices if 150,000 music lovers throughout
England would contribute two-pence weekly for five years;
this scheme, unfortunately, was never realized. In 1929, he
directed a monumental Delius festival in London, the success
ful culmination of his lifelong effort to bring recognition to
this great composer; Delius, now an invalid, was brought to
these concerts in a wheelchair to witness, at last, the tribute so
long due him. In 1932, with the aid of society backing, he
founded the London Symphony Orchestra, and became the
artistic director of Covent Garden. Illness brought about an
other temporary retirement shortly before the outbreak of the
Second World War. But once again the retirement was only
temporary. During the first year of the war, Sir Thomas, played

163

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

a major part in creating music as a force for morale. And, in
1941, he came again to this country England's ambassador of
good will associating himself with our leading orchestras, and
making unforgettable guest appearances at the Metropolitan

Opera House.

*

Sir Thomas was born in St. Helens, Lancashire, on April 29,
1879, His father, the famous manufacturer of Beecham's Pills,
at one time must have questioned himself as did the King in
the Pirates of Penzance "For what, we ask, is life, without a
touch of poetry in it?": He advertised his product throughout
Europe with the following poetic flourish

"Hark, the Herald Angels Sing
Beecham's Pills are just the thing/'

Beecham's Pills, carried to success on wings of poetry, was also
to become a silent partner of music; for it was its earnings
which were later to pay the bills for Sir Thomas' many musical
adventures.

His eajqjy musical education was haphazard: some piano and
theory instruction at the Rossall School in Lancashire, and some
additional theory lessons at Wadham College. But his in
fatuation for music was obvious. From earliest childhood
when he would listen breathlessly to the sounds emerging from
an "orchestrion" which his father purchased him as a toy he
responded to every form of musical expression. At the age
of ten, he founded a children's orchestra, which he directed
with no small delight.

After leaving Oxford (without a degree) he began to par
ticipate in musical performances by organizing an amateur or
chestra in Huyton. At one time, the famous Halle Orchestra

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

of Manchester, directed by Hans Richter, came to Huyton for
a concert. The orchestra preceded its conductor who was so
long delayed that he was unable to direct the concert. At the
last moment, young Beecham substituted for him and gave
an admirable account of himself in symphonies by Beethoven
and Tchaikovsky.

He found it hard to discover a niche for himself, though he
knew it would have to be in music. For a period, he wandered
throughout Europe, enjoying a vagabond's existence. He lis
tened to concerts and opera everywhere, absorbed hungrily all
the musical experiences that could be acquired, and spent his
idle hours in memorizing musical scores.

In 1902, he was engaged as one of the conductors of the
Kelson Truman Opera Company, which toured the European
provinces. Three years after this, he made his baton debut in
London, directing a concert of the Queen's Hall Orchestra.
This last experience, and the success that was his, told him that
he was artistically prepared to undertake an important assign
ment. Digging into the Beecham fortune, he founded the

New Symphony Orchestra.

*

Though a part of the Beecham fortune went into Sir Thomas'
numerous musical undertakings, it would be a sorry mistake to
say that he has bought his career. He has long ago proved
himself to be one of the great conductors of our time, a re
markable interpreter of many different schools and styles. His
solid musical scholarship (despite his inadequate schooling),
discerning intellect, extraordinary musical instinct and feeling,
and his capacity to make an orchestra a pliant instrument in his
hands would have always insured him a glorious career.

His feeling for classic style his capacity to play Mozart and
Handel with purity and detachment is matched only by his

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

ardor in his performance of music by Berlioz or Tchaikovsky.
He has brilliance and grandeur of expression a capacity to
set the orchestra aflame with color when the music calls for it.
Yet his simplicity is one of his most ingratiating qualities when
he treats the music of the distant past.

His conductorial manner is not one which can be imitated to
advantage. At rehearsals he is likely to be fussy, unsystematic,
given to making windy speeches, wasting time with pleasantries.
His baton technique is the most complex among modern con
ductors* His mad gyrations of the body and head, and the
throwing of his arms in all directions, have tempted one English
critic to describe him as a "ballet dancer/' The wonder of it is
that his gesturing is not confusing to his orchestra.

But whatever his method, he gets results and that is the
only important consideration. His performances, when they are
projected, are beautiful in their artistic finish, sense of propor
tion, lucidity. His orchestra is an eloquent instrument in his
hands (and this is true whether he is conducting the New York
Philharmonic or a WPA group like the New York City Sym
phony Orchestra). He is not equally great in all music: some
of the modern scores, not of English origin, lack conviction in
his hands; some of the classics, like those of Brahms and Schu
bert, do not soar to heights. But in numerous other works
he is magnificent: in Rossini and in Wagner; in Mo2art and in
Handel; in Beethoven and in Delius. Speaking this music, he
is with the great interpretative spirits of our time.

166

4

'Pierre

Pierre Monteux has never received in this country that full
measure of appreciation which has been his due. The critics
have always been appreciative; and in recent years he has found
devoted audiences in San Francisco. But an artist of Monteux's
rank should have earned for himself the nationwide recognition
that belongs to Stokowski and Koussevitzky for, over a
period of more than three decades, he has been among the elect
of the baton.

He is not a spectacular figure on the stage. Short, stocky, he
appears more like a French Maitre d'Hotel than an artist. His
performances do not discharge fireworks. In place of dra
matics, or excessive emotionalism, there is beautiful proportion,
restraint, simplicity, profound musicianship. In some of the
French literature for orchestra he is a master: to hear him per
form the Cesar Franck Symphony (for example) is to hear a
masterpiece with the majesty of a Sophocles drama without the
bluster and fake heroics so many other conductors bring to it.
In modern music, his range is flexible, his judgment astute, and
his appreciation sensitive. It should not be forgotten that he
helped to create the musical history of our times by performing
the world premieres of such masterpieces as Stravinsky's Pe-
trushktt and Le Sacre du Printemps, and Ravel's Daphnis et
Chloe. But even when he is not at his very best (and, to repeat,
his very best can stand comparison with the great orchestral
performances of our time) he is a musical interpreter who com-

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

bines intelligence, discrimination, and scholarship. That he
has not won for himself the adulation that attends so many
other (and, in some cases, less gifted) conductors, is not easily
understandable.

His latest achievement, in a lifetime cluttered with achieve
ments, has been his reorganization of the San Francisco Sym
phony Orchestra.

This organization had come upon evil days when Monteux
came to California: artistic and economic disaster had hit it
simultaneously. Founded in 1911 under the sponsorship of the
Musical Foundation of San Francisco, it was conducted re
spectably (but not inspiredly) by Alfred Hertz until 1929. By
1934, the orchestra the permanence of which was not ques
tioned during the Hertz regime was shaken to its very founda
tions. The depression had cancelled some valuable sponsor
ship and contributions, making the existence of the orchestra
precarious from one season to the next And a series of guest
conductors hardly succeeded in revitalizing it from its now
lackadaisical state. During the 1934-35 season, the orchestra
gave only four concerts; and these were made possible only
because the municipality offered to pay all the bills. Evidently,
a revolution was in order, if the orchestra was to survive.

Not one revolution, but several, took place. The first was
the reorganization of the Musical Association of San Francisco
to include several new, far sighted officers. The second was
the acquisition of public support for the orchestra. The new
Association began a vigorous and highly publicized campaign
which resulted in a vote by the citizens of San Francisco for an
amendment to the city charter whereby the orchestra would
henceforth be supported by public funds. Its existence
assured, a third revolution now overhauled its artistic policies.
A conductor had to be chosen, whose experience and technical

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

equipment was such that he could rebuild the orchestra in a
short period. More than this, a world-famous conductor was
needed, a conductor with a historic career behind him, to bring

with him to the orchestra the lustre of his own fame.

*

Hardly a wiser choice could have been made than Pierre
Monteux. Monteux's long activity with the baton had been of
historical significance. He first achieved world fame as the
conductor of the sensational Diaghilev Ballet Russe, which
inaugurated such new directions not only for the dance but
for music as well. He joined the group in 1911, and at once
was assigned to prepare the world premiere of Stravinsky's
Petrushka. He was well prepared for so exacting a task, having
had many years of experience as a professional musician, be
sides possessing unusual conductorial qualities. Born in Paris
on April 4, 1875 and a graduate of the Paris Conservatory where
he had been a pupil of Lavignac and Berthelier (winning first
prize in violin playing in 1894), Monteux acquired his first
musical experiences as a member of a string quartet, then as
violinist in the Colonne and Opera Comique orchestras, then
as chorus master of the Colonne Orchestra. A short season as
assistant conductor of the Colonne Orchestra gave him the
equipment with which to organize and direct his own or
chestra, the Concerts Berlioz in Paris in 1911. It was his work
with this organization which attracted the attention of Serge
Diaghilev who, with his keen capacity for recognizing genius,
saw at once that Monteux had the ideal temperament and
technique with which to direct the forces of his adventurous
ballet corps.

It was no sinecure that conductorial post with the Diaghilev
Ballet. The music of Stravinsky, which then burst on the world
of music like a bolt of lightning, demanded an exacting tech-

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

nique. With its enormous rhythmic and harmonic complexity
it called for all the resources of a conductor's science. That
Monteux handled his task with complete competence and dis
tinction has been attested to by no one less than Stravinsky
himself: "He knew his job thoroughly, and was so familiar
with the surroundings from which he had risen that he knew
how to get on with his musicians a great asset for a con
ductor. Thus he has been able to achieve a very clean and
finished execution of my score/'*

In 1912, Monteux conducted the premiere of Maurice Ravel's
complete Daphnis et Chloe with the Diaghilev forces. One
year later, he was again in the vanguard of modern musical
history when he conducted the premiere of Stravinsky's Le Sacre
du Printemps.

That, surely, was one of the most sensational evenings ever
experienced by a conductor the premiere of The Rites of
Spring. The audience expressed its indignation at the music so
hotly and volubly during the performance that it was fre
quently impossible to hear the orchestra. Saint-Saens and the
critic Andre Capu loudly denounced the work as a fake; Maurice
Ravel, Florent Schmitt, and Debussy just as vehemently pro
claimed it the production of true creative genius. The Austrian
ambassador laughed loudly; a lady stood in her box and slapped
the face of a man near her who was hissing; the Princesse de
Pourtales left her seat in indignation, exclaiming that this was
the first time that anyone dared to make a fool of her. In the
wings, Stravinsky was holding Nijinsky's collar to prevent Ihe
dancer from rushing on the stage and excoriating the audience
for its stupidity. Claude Debussy frequently stood up in his
seat and begged the audience to listen patiently and tolerantly.
"Monteux threw desperate glances towards Diaghilev, who sat

* Stravinsky: An Autobiography, Sittion and Schuster, 1936.

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

in Astruc's box and made signs to him to keep on playing. . . .
As soon as the first tableau was finished the fight was resumed.
. . . The second tableau began, but it was still impossible to
hear the music. . . . Everybody at the end of the performance
was exhausted."*

No doubt the extensive publicity gathered by the scandal of
Stravinsky's Rites of Spring was instrumental in throwing a
great deal of attention on its conductor. For the next year or
so, Monteux's fame grew, and he became busily engaged on
various conductorial fronts: He conducted at the Paris Opera;
he founded and directed the Societe des Concerts Populaires
at the Casino de Paris; and he became a frequent guest con
ductor in London, Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna.

When the first World War broke out, Monteux joined the
35th Territorial Infantry, and saw action at Rheims, Verdun,
Soissons, and the Argonne. After two years of heavy fighting,
he was officially released from his uniform to tour America
with the Russian Diaghilev Ballet and, through his music, to

spread propaganda in America for the French cause in the war.

*

From the very first, Monteux's career in America has not been
particularly happy. No sooner had he arrived than he be
came the center of controversy and the object of criticism
because of his provocative statement that he would under no
circumstance perform the music of Richard Strauss or that of
any other living composer from an enemy country. America
had not yet entered the war; and there were those music lovers
who were offended at Monteux's stand: Art, they said, had no
place in political or international controversies.

After a year at the Metropolitan Opera House, where he con
ducted the French repertory, Monteux went to Boston to be-

* Nijinsky, Romola: Nijm&ky, Simon and Schuster, 1936.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

come the permanent conductor of the Boston Symphony Or
chestra. Ordinarily, this would have been a coveted assignment
to reveal Monteux' s conductorial talent to best advantage. But
Monteux traveling in this country under some unlucky star
had to work against imponderable odds. A general strike
among the orchestra men to establish a union had proved un
successful, and twenty of the leading musicians resigned. The
orchestra Monteux conducted was, therefore, not the great
Boston Symphony of the Karl Muck era but a sad approxima
tion of the same. Despite the difficulties facing him, Monteux
did well: his concerts were admirable both for the vitality of
his programs and the musicianship with which they were pre
sented.

In 1924, Monteux who never achieved the popularity com
mensurate with his gifts was succeeded in Boston by Serge
Koussevitzky. Returning to Europe, he once again dominated
the orchestral scene abroad by founding and conducting the
Paris Symphony Orchestra, and by giving admirable guest
performances with most of the great European orchestras. In
1928, he returned to America for a guest period with the
Philadelphia Orchestra. Once again, the untoward fate which
seemed to dog his footsteps in America, impeded him. The
audiences perhaps too dazzled by their own Stokowski to
have eyes and ears for any other conductor at that time were
apathetic, though the critics spoke most eloquently about his
talents. The indifference to his performances inspired Mon
teux to remark acidly that American symphony orchestras were
interested only in "slim, well-tailored conductors."

At that time, he said he was through with America, which
had no place for true talent minus sensationalism. He returned
to his many engagements in Europe determined never again to
seek his fortune across the ocean. But in 1935, the San Fran-

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OF EUROPEAN TRADITIONS

cisco Symphony Orchestra called him, and he was tempted into
making one more effort in breaking down American indif
ference to his art. To a certain extent he has succeeded: Not
only in San Francisco, but with the NBC Orchestra which he
launched by conducting its first concerts, he received greater
appreciation and understanding. But the acclaim that he de
serves is not yet his, though it is reasonable to believe that a
musician of Monteux's outstanding capacities and gifts cannot
permanently be underestimated.

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New 'Batons for Old

John ^Barbirolli

When John Barbirolli first came to conduct the New York
Philharmonic, in 1936, the skeptics told him that he would not
last in New York longer than one season. He was assuming a
job too big for him, they said. It was impossible to succeed in
Toscanini's post without inviting comparisons. Such com
parisons had proved death blows to the New York careers of
conductors more experienced and of greater international re
pute than Barbirolli. Besides, the New York music public was
said to be the most spoiled audience in the world. It had had
ten years of Toscanini, whom it had apotheosized. It was un
thinkable that it would now accept as substitute a young Eng
lishman of comparatively little experience with orchestras,
whose very name had, for the most part, been unknown in
America one year earlier.

And yet, Barbirolli stepped into Toscaninf s shoes with com
parative grace, and he proved successful enough with his audi
ences to earn a three-year contract as principal conductor. And
when that three-year contract was terminated, at the dose of
the 1939-40 season, still another awaited his signature.

For from the very first, the Philharmonic directors, the or
chestra men, and the subscribers all took to Barbirolli. They
seemed to make no attempt to compare him with an incom
parable predecessor. They estimated him on his own merits
alone, and found him acceptable. They liked his personal
charm, his obvious sincerity, his youthful enthusiasm, his sim-

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

plicity, his musical gifts. If he was no Toscanini well, they
argued (with a tolerance which was never expected in New
York) where could you find another Toscanini, anyway?

You can ascribe Barbirolli's unexpected success in New
York, however, much more to his own tact and astuteness than
to New York tolerance. Other conductors, coming to the
Philharmonic, immediately tried to set themselves as a counter-
attraction to the idolized Arturp. They conducted from
memory; they flaunted their idiosyncrasies; they tried to mag
netize the audiences with their personal fire; they attempted to
impress them with unusually spectacular platform mannerisms.
And in competition with Toscanini, they always emerged second
best in the eyes of Philharmonic audiences. But Barbirolli
made no effort to pit himself as a rival against the greatest
conductor of our generation. If he had been selected to step
into Toscanini's shoes, he would not spend too much discon
certing thought on the immensity of such an assignment He
would, rather, only think of the task he had in hand, namely,
to present symphony concerts which would please and interest
a discriminating audience; and he would perform that task to
the best of his abilities. "I forced myself to forget that I was
supposed to succeed Toscanini/' he confided at the time. "I
said to myself: Took here, Tito. You've been hired to do a
job. Do it as well as you can, and let the devil take the hind
most'."

With such an attitude he won the admiration of the orchestra
men with hi$; very first rehearsal. After he had been intro
duced by the manager, he made a short and modest speech. I
do not recall the exact words, but the theme was as follows:
"I have been appointed to succeed Mr. Toscanini, who is the
greatest conductor of our time. No one knows better than I
do, my own shortcomings and deficiencies in assuming such an

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assignment. I would be a fool if I were to try to be another
Toscanini. I've got a job here to conduct concerts, and I'm
going to try like the very devil to do the best I can with that
job. I hope you will help me, for, God knows, I shall need
your help." After that, the musicians were all for him and
half his battle was over.

Though Barbirolli made no such introductory speech to his
audience, it sensed at once his honesty and self-effacement, and
liked him for it. Here was a conductor who made no attempt
to conduct from memory, or without a baton; who did not try
to flaunt his eccentricities in the face of his public. Music, and
not self-aggrandizement, seemed the first consideration with
the newcomer. He addressed himself to his music with ap
parent sincerity and artistic devotion. And for all this, Barbi
rolli earned the respect and admiration of his audiences.

That the audiences of the Philharmonic have always kept a
warm spot in their hearts for Barbirolli became particularly
evident during the centenary season when, returning to his post
after a brief hiatus, he was given a regal welcome. But not
even his most devoted admirers will say that he is not without
disturbing blemishes as an artist. He has many positive quali
ties which are admirable: warmth of feeling, enthusiasm,
energy, a love for his work, an excellent taste. His baton
technique is efficient. He knows his orchestra well. But there
are, unfortunately, notations to be made on the other side of
the ledger. If he has energy, it is not controlled and disci
plined in the way, say, that Koussevitzky controls his. Barbi
rolli permits sonorities to get out of hand to a point of dis
tortion; his climaxes are his master, and not vice-versa. He is
too impetuous, too hot-blooded, too ardent for much of the

179

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

music he directs; a little more English reserve and ice would
serve him handsomely.

But there is a far greater fault to be found with Barbirolli.
He is too often superficial in his readings. He glides over the
surfaces of a work like an adroit skater. There may be smooth
ness and dispatch, but it is only surface work. A deeper, richer
note of profound understanding rarely manifests itself. What
he gives us, too often, is a fluent enough "reading" of a work,
not a penetrating and dissectingly analyzed interpretation.

Not that Barbirolli is without marked talents. He has a
native flair for conducting; his musical gifts are many and
pronounced. When he first came to the Philharmonic, I felt
confident that here was a conductor who would surely develop
into greatness, given the necessary time in which to grow and
mature. But Barbirolli has not yet developed into a great
conductor, though several years have already passed; and there
have not been perceptible growth and maturity.

The explanation for this lies with his Philharmonic job
which, from the first, was too much for his capacities. Had
Barbirolli been permitted to work with an orchestra less pre
tentious than the Philhariiionic, he would have had ample
opportunity to give his talents full scope, and to evolve and
develop with the experiences he received. But the Philharmonic
is most certainly not an orchestra with which a conductor can
grow. The extensive repertoire demanded by a full season of
concerts four concerts a week demands the services of a
conductor who has already arrived at the zenith of his powers.
The necessity to conduct so much music that was new to him,
including so many world premieres (the truth was that even
some of the classical symphonies Barbirolli had to conduct with
the Philharmonic were new to him!), week in, week out has
encouraged in Barbirolli a greater and greater superficiality.

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He simply did not have the necessary time to subject all this
new music to the intensive study that was required, and he
did not have the required background and lifelong experience
to help him in this task. When he rehearsed many works,
therefore, he merely touched upon spasmodic pages; and when
he performed them he betrayed more than once that he had
only a slight understanding of the music at hand.

Some music he has played beautifully the Elgar Enigma
Variations, for example, has given a fair indication of his gen
uine ability. Barbirolli is one of the best accompanists in
the business. But, regrettably, he is still more promise than
fulfillment. When he is at the head of the Philharmonic, this
great orchestra is no longer one of the great symphonic organ
izations of the world. It goes through the paces of music-
making; but the drive, dynamic urge, electrifying vitality, and
gorgeous tone textures are simply not there.

*

Those qualities which have been found so meritorious in
Barbirolli 's conducting his warmth, exuberance, vitality, sim
plicity of approach, are also the personal qualities which have
endeared him to his friends. Though Barbirolli is English by
birth, he is more Latin than English by temperament. It is
largely for this reason that his most intimate friends have nick
named him "Tito." His fullness of heart, lack of reticence,
abundance of feelings remind one of the Latin countries. When
he greets his intimate friends, it is not with an aloof Nordic
handshake, but more often with an effusive embrace, some
times coupled with kisses on the cheek. He is capable of
extraordinary attachments; he always carries with him snap
shots of his nephews and nieces which he proudly exhibits.
Towards his close friends he has a vein of tenderness which is
touching. I recall that at one of his Sunday afternoon concerts

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

there was a delay of several minutes because, at the last mo
ment, a thought occurred to him. He rushed a messenger to
his box to bring down to him one of his more personal young
friends. When the friend reached him breathless, Barbirolli
took his hand, and said warmly: "I want you to know that I
am playing this symphony for you. I am speaking to you
through this music." Then, with this message delivered, he
waited until his friend had returned to the box before he
stepped out on the stage for his performance.

Even his palate is more Italian than English. His favorite
haunt in New York is a small and intimate Italian restaurant
near 60th Street and Central Park West. He eats sparingly,
because his health compels him to follow a diet. But he likes
good food, particularly well-spiced Italian dishes washed down
with a glass of Chianti wine. He is extraordinarily fond of
spaghetti, though he does not permit himself frequent indul-
dence. He says he finds consolation in his abstinence from this
favorite food by occasionally cooking some for his friends and
watching their delight in tasting his Milanese sauce, one of his
culinary specialties. *

But "Tito" is also very much the Englishman, very^much the
young man from Bloomsbury, where for many years he had his
London apartment. He has the Englishman's characteristic
suave manners and poise, his ready wit, his flair for the neatly
turned phrase. He has the Englishman's passion for cricket
matches. His English tailor sees to it that he is always dressed
with English reserve: The cut of his clothing is conservative, the
colors discreet; his favorite get-up is a dinner jacket and striped
trousers which he wears even for informal affairs, and which
fit him despite his short and stocky build. Above all else, he
has the Englishman's allegiance to his country. In the last war-
he unhesitatingly enlisted in the army to serve his country. He

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NEW BATONS FOR OLD

would have done so again in this war, but for the fact that high
government officials convinced him that he could serve England
better with the baton than with a gun. At any rate, he patrioti
cally returned to England in the spring of 1942 to conduct its
principal orchestras in many concerts, refusing to accept even
traveling expenses.

His home is literally cluttered with musical scores, books, and
objets d'art, of which he is a devoted collector. He is a demon
for work. During the music season, his activities occupy his
time from early morning until late at night. He rises early,
partakes of a meager breakfast (his only meal until evening) ,
then at once leaves for his morning rehearsal. When there
are no rehearsals, there is no relaxation in his activities. Manu
scripts and musical scores must be studied; there are people to
see, letters to write, and a thousand and one other details that
absorb the time and energies of an important conductor.

Some of his best work is done late at night. A poor sleeper,
he long ago abandoned fighting insomnia by having it serve
him. He can study two manuscripts in the middle of the night
in the time it takes him to read one during the day. Some
times he likes to spend his sleepless hours orchestrating a piece
of music of which he may be particularly fond: His excellent
orchestral transcription of Bach's The Sheep May Safely Graze
was written at one sitting late one night.

He is a veritable whirlwind of energy. It is an endless
source of wonder to those who meet him, and momentarily try
to keep pace with him, how he can maintain such a furious
activity from early morning until late at night without much
relaxation. The truth is that, when he does snatch an hour of
relaxation, he has the capacity to divorce himself completely
from his problems. At such moments, he likes to read medical
books (one of his curious hobbies) or light fiction. Sometimes

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DICTATORS OP THE BATON

he will participate with members of the Philharmonic in in
formal performances of chamber music. Most often, he will
take a brisk walk in the park, holding the hand of his wife as
he walks.

His wife is Evelyn Rothwell, a well-known English musician
in her own right, formerly an oboist of the Scottish Orchestra.
This is his second marriage; concerning the first an unhappy
affair almost from the beginning he prefers to remain un
communicative. He met Miss Rothwell while conducting one
of the English orchestras. Impatient with the performance of
the oboist, he demanded a substitute. Somewhat apologetically
he was told that the only available substitute was a woman.
Barbirolli exclaimed that he did not care if it was a giraffe,
just as long as the oboe part would be played satisfactorily.
The woman was called for, and she played for Barbirolli. It
was a case of love at first hearing. She played with such beauty
of tone and grace of phrasing that Barbirolli was enchanted.
"After that, I knew I would fall in love with her." Later on,
Barbirolli became principal conductor of the Scottish Orchestra
and was thrown into daily contact with its oboist. His friends
first suspected that Barbirolli had failed in love with Evelyn
Rothwell, when they learned he was composing a concerto for
oboe and orchestra; when a cellist composes a concerto for
oboe, there is more in it than meets the eye. Because of the
complicated legal technicalities in Great Britain involving di
vorce, Barbirolli could not marry Miss Rothwell until recently.
Since then, they have been as happy together as two school
children, and are practically inseparable.

*

Like Toscanini, Barbirolli came to the conductor's stand by
way of the cello section of an orchestra. He still loves the
cello above any other instrument, though he rarely finds the

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time in which to play it. Whenever an eminent cellist appears
as soloist at a Philharmonic concert, Barbirolli furtively steals
away the virtuoso's instrument and, disappearing into his own
rest room, proceeds to play on it for several precious minutes.
Caspar Cassado, the Spanish cellist, once complained to a
friend: "It's always that way when I have to appear under
him. / have to play a difficult concerto on the stage, but he
spends ten minutes before the concert limbering up his fingers!"

Both his grandfather and father were professional musicians.
His grandfather had been a violinist in an opera orchestra
which had included among its members a young cellist named
Arturo Toscanini. His father was also an orchestra violinist.
They were both employed in the Empire Theatre Orchestra in
London when John was a child. Often he was brought to re
hearsals and, seated on the floor near his father's foot, he
would listen to the music without making a sound. Somewhat
later, he asked for a musical instrument of his own, and was
given a violin. He was changed by his father from a violin to
a cello because he had acquired the habit of pacing the room
nervously while practising, which his father felt would be detri
mental to his health; and a cello would keep him rooted to one
spot, and seated into the bargain.

As a child, he was fascinated by music: His childhood hero
was a bandmaster who performed in a local public park. When
he was ten years old, he won a scholarship for the Royal
Academy of Music in London. He was an excellent pupil.
One year after entering the school, he was able to make his
official concert debut by performing the Saint-Saens Concerto at
Queen's HalL

The World War was instrumental in transforming him from
a cellist to a conductor. Shortly before the war broke out, he
was engaged as cellist in many different orchestras, accepting

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any and every assignment that came his way. 1 "It wasn't long
before I had played everywhere except in the street. Theatres,
music halls, cinemas, in opera, orchestra, and chamber music
I went right through the mill."

Then, for the years of the war, he served in the English army.
When the war ended, he found that the posts he had vacated
were filled. There seemed no room for him in London's musi
cal life (though, for a while, he did serve as cellist in a well-
known string quartet which toured Europe) . Many other musi
cians were in a similar plight. Then an idea occurred to him.
He would gather some of these unemployed musicians about
him into a chamber orchestra and would direct them in concerts
of unusual and rarely heard music. Thus the Barbirolli Cham
ber Orchestra came into being. Its public concerts were so
successful from the first that, within a year's time, its con
ductor was known well enough to be called upon at a last
moment to substitute for Sir Thomas Beecham at a concert of
the London Symphony Orchestra. At this concert, young Barbi
rolli gave such a good account of himself (in a particularly
exacting program that included the Elgar Second Symphony)
that he was given engagements for guest performances with
several leading English orchestras. These, in turn, brought him
an important affiliation with the two leading London orchestras
(the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony) , and also
witn Covent Garden where he conducted an extensive repertory
of French and Italian operas. In 1933, he received his first im
portant permanent post as conductor of two major symphony
orchestras, the Scottish Orchestra and the Leeds Symphony.

Such was his history before he came to New York. It was not
a particularly fabulous history, and hardly one which might be
expected to culminate with the acquisition of the most coveted
conductorial post in the world. Truth to tell, Barbirolli was

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practically unknown in this countiy when the announcement of
his appointment as Toscanini's successor in the spring of 1936
struck New York music circles like a thunderbolt. It was a
well known fact that any one of a half-dozen world famous
conductors would have given their right eye for the job; yet it
fell into the lap of a comparatively obscure and inexperienced
musician.

There were no dark and mysterious forces at play in bringing
Barbirolli to New York, as was so often hinted at first; only
sound common sense. The directors were eager to have a pro
gressive young musician at the head of the Philharmonic, one
whose career still stretched in front of him, so that he might
grow with the orchestra and become an inextricable part of it.
In short, they wanted to develop a conductor expressly for the
Philharmonic, whose allegiance and devotion would belong ex
clusively to it. Toscanini suggested Barbirolli's name, and
several other famous musicians (who had played under him in
England) spoke well of his talents and promise.

This is the entire story. And its epilogue, already told in an
earlier paragraph, is equally succinct: Where other and far
more celebrated musicians had failed, this young Englishman
had succeeded. With all his faults, he won his audiences de
cisively enough to remain principal conductor of the Philhar
monic for six years. And despite the rain of critical de
nunciation which descended upon him in recent seasons he
was invited to remain a Philharmonic conductor for the 1942-
43 season.

A long and regal dynasty of conductors marks the history of
the New York Philharmonic from its founding fathers to John
Barbirolli. In its first years the Philharmonic was born a

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hundred years ago the orchestra was directed by several dif
ferent conductors at each concert. Not until 1865 was the full
authority of leadership to be invested in one man: Carl Berg-
mann, who for ten years previously had shared his baton with
Theodor Eisfeld. As I have written elsewhere,* Bergmann's
"long tenure of the post might suggest that he was popular
which, to be truthful, was not the case. He was too scrupulous
and honest a musician to resort to cheap devices for pleasing an
audience. He was too vigorous and uncompromising a cham
pion of the music of Wagner and Liszt two composers who
were generously disliked. The New York music public never
quite took to him. Even the press annihilated him for his ex
periments. . . . The audiences, and the box-office receipts, re
mained small during the twenty years of Bergmann's office as
conductor. More than once it seemed certain that the orchestra,
which had staggered through one season, would not survive the
next. In 1876 Bergmann was displaced/'

Things did not go too smoothly for the Philharmonic during
the first decades of its existence. If one of the musicians of the
orchestra had a profitable engagement on the evening of a
rehearsal, he would send a substitute, or, more often, would
simply stay away without further rehearsal. When the ab
sentee was a violinist or a cellist, the rehearsals could proceed
without interruption. But if a reed or a wind player stayed
away, the conductor was at loss to proceed with his rehearsal
in the face of a gaping hole in the orchestral texture. When
coming to a rehearsal, the conductor always scanned the faces
of his men eagerly to be sure that all the essential members
were there. If all the reeds and winds were present, he would
go out of his way to thank them for their kindness in coming.

Musicians did not even have qualms about staying away from

* Music Comes to America^ by David Ewen, Thos. Y. Crowell Co., 1942.

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an actual concert if they had assignments elsewhere. More
than once the conductor was compelled to make a last minute
change in the orchestra assigning a solo clarinet part to the
violin, or a solo bassoon to the cello because these performers
were earning more money that evening at a wedding or a dance.

Often, to fill out his ranks, the conductor hired special musi
cians only for the public concerts. These musicians performed
in the orchestra without the benefit of a single rehearsal, since
it was simply impossible to find the necessary funds with which
to pay rehearsal fees. A conductor might rehearse a symphony
with painstaking care only to have his performance disintegrate
at the concert because the flutist or horn player had his own
definite conception of the tempo or phrasing which he did not
take the trouble to impart to the conductor beforehand. As
late as 1900, Walter Damrosch lamented the unhealthy condi
tion of the Philharmonic. "I found to my amazement that of
the hundred players at the concert less than fifty were actual
members of the organization, the rest being engaged from out
side, often changed from one concert to the next. Some of the
members were old men who should no longer have played with
the orchestra. Most of the wind instruments were outsiders
and therefore could not be properly controlled regarding at
tendance or rehearsals/'*

The orchestra struggled for sheer existence; and its musi
cians with it. The income the musicians drew from public con
certs was hardly compensatory for the work they put into it:
the high mark of the first fifteen seasons, for example, saw the
distribution of $143 to each musician for the entire year (the
orchestra was operated cooperatively). Musicians fell from
the ranks because they could not afford to remain; many of
those who remained were too old to procure lucrative posts else-

* My Musical Life, by Walter Damrosch, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

where. And the response of the audience was none too cor
dial, even after the Bergmann regime. One season, directed by
Leopold Damrosch (which saw the American premiere of the
third act of Siegfried) , the total income of the orchestra for its
entire season of concerts was $841!

'Yet the orchestra persisted season by season, held together for
the most part by a few faithful musicians, growing slowly but
perceptibly. After the first season, four public concerts were
decided upon for the next season. After the sixteenth season,
the number of concerts was increased to five; in 1869, to six.

Dr. Leopold Damrosch's season in 1876 marked the lowest
ebb in the history of the Philharmonic. It was doubtful then
whether the Philharmonic would not completely disintegrate
after that year. The income of $841 meant that there were no
profits to distribute to the musicians; they had worked an entire
year without remuneration. Many musicians began to speak of
abandoning the adventure once and for all. Some of them, as
a matter of fact, had offers to join the profitable Theodore
Thomas Orchestra which was touring the country. In 1877,
Theodore Thomas was called upon to become conductor of the
orchestra a last effort to save the orchestra from extinction.
Thomas remained with the orchestra until 1891. His popular
appeal and reputation brought about an increased income for
the orchestra from the $1,641 average of the Bergmann regime,
to the annual average of $15,000.

And yet, the Philharmonic stood on uncertain feet. By 1900,
the six season concerts once again began to show a deficit; once
again there was talk of disbanding. Early in 1903, Walter
Damrosch proposed a plan to acquire financial backing in order
to establish the Philharmonic on a permanent basis; but this
backing was predicated on a thorough reorganization in which
the older men would be replaced by new blood. His offer was

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politely turned down, because the older men refused to vote
themselves out of a job.

In place of reorganization, the Philharmonic offered an ex
pansion of program. It featured a great European conductor
at each of its concerts. For the next three years, eight major
conductors of Europe were invited to direct the eight different
concerts of the Philharmonic season. The greatest personali
ties of musical Europe came to the head of the Philharmonic,
including Felix Weingartner, Richard Strauss, Max Fiedler,
Eduard Colonne, Ernst Kunwald, and Vassily Safonov.

But it was soon recognized that permanency for the Philhar
monic and artistic distinction could not be realized until the
orchestra was thoroughly overhauled. The standards of the
orchestra were as lax as its personnel was uneven. In 1907, the
first attempt at rehabilitating the Philharmonic took place. A
sixteen-concert season was entrusted to the permanent direction
of Safonov. Two years after this, a group of energetic women
procured a large guaranty fund with which to establish the
orchestra once and for all on a firm basis. Gustav Mahler was
invited to take over the direction. He exerted his authority
ruthlessly, replacing older men with younger ones, enriching the
repertoire, and raising the artistic standards of each concert
immeasurably. The orchestra, for so many years insecure and
uncertain of its very existence, had at last acquired stability.
Henceforth, it was to play host to some of the greatest con
ductors of the world, and under their direction was to become
one of the world's great symphonic organizations.

191

Eugene Ormandy

The same period which saw young Barbirolli replace Tosca-
nini witnessed the succession of another young and compara
tively inexperienced conductor to one of the greatest orchestral
posts in America.

Eugene Ormandy's career offers at least one forcible proof
that American orchestra audiences have grown up during the
past decade. A career such as this, beginning with a post in a
motion-picture theatre and culminating with the directorship of
the Philadelphia Orchestra, would have been impossible twenty
years ago. In those days of hero worship in the symphony hall,
a new conductor who did not have a brilliant career behind
him (preferably a brilliant European career) had little hope of
attracting attention. His gifts were of little consequence if he
sprang from humble musical origins.

But gradually the tastes of symphony audiences in this coun
try became cultured. With it came a deflection of interest from
the performer to the music itself. What the audiences now
clamored for was a concert of great music performed with dig
nity; they had acquired a sufficiently fine sense of musical
values to be capable of making their own judgments. Any
conductor capable of providing beautiful music-making was
given honor regardless of his background; while not even a
well-recommended European personality could now hope to
catch the passing fancy of the American public if his reputation
were not accompanied by a talent of high order.

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When Leopold Stokowski announced his resignation from
the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1936, there were those sombre
skeptics who felt that the organi2ation was now doomed, Sto
kowski, idol of Philadelphia, had identified himself so inti
mately with the orchestra that it seemed impossible for Phila
delphia's prime musical and artistic venture to survive without
him. Or, if it were to survive, another conductor would have
to be found with Stokowski glamour and genius say, a Tosca-
nmi, or a Koussevitzky.

It is known that several world-famous conductors (Wilhelm
Furtwangler among them) made a strong bid for the post
which, from the points of view of remuneration and prestige,
was a coveted one. Yet the appointment fell to a young man
of comparatively insignificant background and training: Eugene
Ormandy, a graduate from the movies and the radio. Ormandy
had no European triumphs to dramatize him to his audiences.
His experience, measured by the yardstick of a career like Furt-
wangler's, was of no great moment. Yet, strange to say, Phila
delphia audiences were not alienated from their orchestra by
the appointment. The crowded houses that had heard Sto
kowski remained to listen to Ormandy. And passing favorable
judgment, they remained for his concerts week by week.

Ormandy' s success in Philadelphia is, of course, a great
tribute to his capacity to make his concerts attractive even in
comparison with those of his adulated predecessor. There was
nothing anticlimactic about Ormandy's performances. His
programs were always fresh and inviting; his interpretations
revealed authority and imagination. But Ormandy's success
is even a greater tribute to the audiences of Philadelphia, who
did not permit his comparative obscurity or their former
devotion to Stokowski to prejudice them against the pro
nounced conductorial gifts of the younger man.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

It was a temptation, not easily resisted, for the new con
ductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra to expropriate some of
the tried methods which made his predecessor such a sensa
tional figure; particularly if the new conductor admired his
predecessor as much as Ormandy did Stokowski. Yet much
to Ormandy's credit, he made no attempt at becoming a carbon
copy Stokowski. Certain similarities between Stokowski and
Ormandy have frequently been pointed out. They both have
taken flattering notice of the modern composer; they both have
featured extensively orchestral transcriptions of music by Bach;
they both conducted from memory. But these are slight links
with which to handcuff the two artists. Essentially they are
opposites.

By temperament modest and retiring, by training a student
(he finished university courses in Budapest for a doctorate in
psychology) sensationalism is alien to Ormandy. If he was
to win his audiences, he would have to win them in his own
manner.

At rehearsals, his musicians saw a quiet, soft-spoken drill-
master who worked efficiently and methodically, and who was
never given to antics, pranks or eccentricities. After all those
years of working under the unpredictable Stokowski, the Or
mandy rehearsals appeared to the men placid and restful. What
impressed the men particularly was the sureness with which
Ormandy attacked his work. His knowledge of the orchestral
repertoire seemed all-embracing.

At the concerts, audiences saw a rather reserved and un
ostentatious musician, dedicating himself exclusively to his
music. No speeches prepared or spontaneous; no playing up
to the spotlight; no stirring of a hornet's nest with the branch
of some sensational dictum. The Stokowski concerts might
have offered greater adventure, but with Ormandy music once

194

Iff:

EUGENE ORMANDY

ERICH LEINSDORF

NEW BATONS FOR OLD

again assumed the only starring role. It was obvious that he
had no intention of purchasing his success with counterfeit
coin, but only with the legal tender of great music.

His personal life has been as unsensational as his artistic;
nothing there to feed the front pages. He lives, together with
his wife Steffi Goldner (a professional harpist, formerly a
member of the New York Philharmonic) in a spacious and
comfortable home in a suburb of Philadelphia. They were
married in 1921, a few months after Ormandy's arrival in
America, and many years before his success.

He like$ to play ping-pong and tennis (as a matter of fact,
some years ago he won an amateur championship in tennis in
Europe). He devotes himself to photography, his favorite
hobby; then, when the urge for excitement comes, he will go
motoring in his car at breakneck speed. Beyond these interests,
his world is the world of music. He confesses that of all his
pastimes, his greatest pleasure comes from poring over the
pages of a new, interesting score.

When he works on a new score, he likes to sprawl on the
floor on his stomach, and commit the music to memory. He
memorizes easily it is for this reason (and not for display)
that he has always conducted his concerts from memory. His
is a peculiarly tricky memory which photographs the unimpor
tant with the essentials. He rarely forgets anything, however
insignificant. Once in Minneapolis he reminded an offending
piccolo player that three years earlier in a different city, in
different music, and under a different conductor he made the
same peculiar, but not particularly noteworthy, mistake in
phrasing. Ormandy at the time was in the audience, but he
never forgot the mistake. In the same way, the smallest details
of a score markings that so many others might consider as
insignificant are vividly clear in his mind.; and this familiarity

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

with details enables him to be painstakingly meticulous about
every element of a musical work.

Once when Rachmaninoff was soloist under Ormandy, he
asked for an hour and a half rehearsal with the orchestra.
However, the rehearsal went so smoothly that not once did
Rachmaninoff ask Ormandy to review a passage; instead of an
hour and a half, only thirty minutes had been required. "You
know/' Rachmaninoff told Ormandy, "I have played my con
certo under most of the great conductors of our time. This
is the first time in my life I ever could play a rehearsal without
any stops whatsoever/ 1

No incident could better illustrate Ormandy's diligence in
preparing a musical work for performance: He had rehearsed
the orchestral accompaniment for Rachmaninoff's concerto so
comprehensively that when the time came for Rachmaninoff
to join the orchestra no further corrections or changes were
necessary. This same thoroughness has always characterized
his performances, and has been one of his impressive virtues as
a conductor. One has always been conscious of the careful study
and preparation that went into his performances. Even when
his readings failed to move the listener, it was not because of
careless projection, but because he was yet too young to sound
a deeper and profounder note.

Besides his careful preparation there were other qualities
highlighting his talent, even early in his career. In 1932, Olin
Downes already spoke of Ormandy's "healthy musical sense . . .
temperament, and a conductor's flair for effect/' But even
more important than these qualities has been Ormandy's ca
pacity to grow and develop as an artist. As he acquired ex
perience his talent has grown richer and deeper. His perform
ances today have a greater intensity of feeling, deeper musical
penetration, greater command of style, subtler moods, and a

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NEW BATONS FOR OLD

more elastic span than when he first took over the Philadelphia
Orchestra. And he continues to disclose new facets to his in
terpretative art with each passing season.

It is a different Philadelphia Orchestra we hear today under
Ormandy than the one we knew with Stokowski. The ravish
ing Stokowski tone is Stokowski's secret, and not to be emulated
by any other conductor. With Ormandy, the Philadelphia Or
chestra has greater sobriety, less lustrousness of color, greater
mellowness. But it remains a great ensemble. It has not ex
perienced any essential deterioration with Ormandy. This,
perhaps, has been Ormandy* s greatest achievement. To re
place a conductor like Stokowski, who brought the orchestra
to a position of regal magnificence, and to maintain the stand
ards established by his predecessor, called for a talent of the

highest order.

*

In the face of what Ormandy has accomplished, and in the
face of his extraordinary conductorial gifts, it becomes difficult
to remember that his experience was first acquired in the Capi
tol Theatre, a motion-picture house in New York. He tells
us that the schooling he received there was rigorous and com
prehensive, such as he could have acquired nowhere else
and, in view of his phenomenal technique and self-assurance,
we are inclined to believe him. "We played good music
movements from the great symphonies, and even such modern
classics as Strauss* Till Eulensfiegel. And, mind you, since
each week we performed every work about twenty times, we
had an almost incomparable opportunity to learn the music
with intensive minuteness. After all, a conductor of a sym
phony orchestra does not play, say, Till Eulensfiegel twenty
times in as many years! And so, by conducting each master
piece twenty times or so in succession over a period of seven

197,

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

days and doing this for years I acquired a repertoire, and
acquired it by learning each note in the score by heart/'

Ormandy had first come to the Capitol Theatre as an or
chestra violinist by chance; and it was chance, too, which gave
him his first opportunity to conduct its orchestra. Born in
Budapest on November 18, 1899, he was a child prodigy who
gave great promise of a brilliant future as violinist. At the
age of one and a half he could identify any one of about fifty
musical works by listening to a few bars. A few years later,
he gave unmistakable indications of possessing an ear for per
fect pitch: He attended a violin recital which he suddenly dis
turbed with a childish cry to the performer that "you played
-F-sharp instead of F-natural!" At four, he began to study the
violin an eighth size instrument of fine quality being built
especially for him. He took to it as naturally as if he had
been born with the instrument in his hands. One year after
this, he became the youngest pupil ever to enter the Budapest
Academy. He became a student of Jeno Hubay, after whom,
incidentally, he had been named (Jeno is Hungarian for Eu
gene) . "My lessons with the great Hubay filled my days with
work and with dreams. My fingers were numb from the exer
cises of Kreutzer and Cramer, and (later) the showpieces of
Vieuxtemps and Sarasate." He learned with such rapidity
that, when he was seven, he was encouraged by his teacher to
make his concert debut, which he .did with considerable suc
cess. When Ormandy was fourteen, he graduated from the
Academy with the Master's degree, six years younger than any
other recipient of a similar degree. It had required a special
decree of the Ministry of Education to get him the diploma
because of his age.

Though, for a period, he was professor of the violin at
the Academy, he aspired not for a teacher's career but for

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NEW BATONS FOR OLD

that of a virtuoso. Several tours in Central Europe convinced
him that he had pronounced gifts which could appeal to audi
ences. He dreamed of extending the sphere of his concert suc
cesses. It was at such a moment that an enterprising im
presario came to him with a contract to tour America. Fabulous
America, which paid such idolatrous homage (and such lavish
fees) to the Mischas, Saschas, Toschas, and Jaschas of the vio
lin, seemed to offer a happy hunting ground for a young mu
sician with swollen ambitions. Ormandy eagerly signed the
contract. With high hopes, he sold his last possession to pay
for the ocean voyage, and arrived in America penniless.

In America, Ormandy discovered that his impresario had
overstressed his managerial capacities. The proposed exten
sive American tour had evidently been only the wandering
fancy of a too vivid imagination. Ormandy learned that his
contract had no validity whatsoever, that, as a matter of fact,
the impresario had discreetly disappeared. Ormandy now
found himself in a new, strange country, without funds or
friends.

One day he was standing on the corner of 50th Street and
Broadway with only five cents in his pocket He was hungry.
He did not know whether to invest his last coin in some food
or in carfare back to his room. He chose to satisfy his stom
ach. He was about to prepare himself for a long hike home
when an acquaintance from Budapest stumbled across him.
He gave Ormandy a loan, and with it some valuable advice.
Erno Rapee, also a native of Budapest, was holding an impor
tant music post at the Capitol Theatre in New York then
the leading motion-picture house in New York. Why did not
Ormandy apply to him for a job? Playing in a theatre or
chestra was not precisely the fulfillment of Ormandy's artistic
dreams. Yet it meant a salary and an end to want. Ormandy

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

approached Rapee, and was accepted for the violin section.
In a week's time, Ormandy graduated into the concert-
master's chair. He acquired a certain measure of fame as a
member of the famous Roxy "gang" over the radio (under his
original name of Eugene Ormandy Blau) , playing favorite vir
tuoso numbers on his violin as a regular feature of the popular
weekly program. Eventually, he was assigned to some con-
ductorial duties as fourth assistant to the principal conductor,
David Mendoza (both Rapee and Roxy had, meanwhile, left
the Capitol Theatre for the new cinema palace nearby, the
Roxy Theatre). One day, Mendoza was taken ill, and Or
mandy, on a fifteen-minute notice, took over the baton, con
ducting a movement from the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony
from memory. His performance made such a deep impres
sion that at once he was promoted to first conductor. For the
next seven and a half years, Ormandy was principal conductor
at the Capitol Theatre. During this period, he acquired an
extensive repertoire, not only through actual performance of
a wide range of classics, but also through the indefatigable
study of innumerable scores which had become his favorite

pastime for leisure hours.

*

If you have real talent, it is not always necessary to go out
to conquer the world. The world will seek you out, wher
ever you may conceal yourself. Ormandy' s friends had told
him that he was virtually committing artistic suicide by de
voting himself to motion-picture theatre music. Once a mo
tion-picture theatre conductor, they said, always a motion-pic
ture theatre conductor. Yet good work does not ever pass
permanently unnoticed. Before long the word was shuttled
that excellent musical performances could be heard at the Capi
tol Theatre. W. J. Henderson, the music critic of the New

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NEW BATONS FOR OLD

York Sun, singled out Ormandy for special praise in one of
his columns. Then the famous concert manager, Arthur Jud-
son, went to the Capitol Theatre, heard Ormandy, and decided
to take the young conductor under his wing. He first gave Or
mandy a contract to conduct the accompanying music for the
Duncan Dancers, following the successful consummation of
which he offered him some radio work. By 1929, Ormandy
felt that he was well on his way toward achieving a certain
measure of recognition in music with the baton, if not with
the violin. He resigned from the Capitol Theatre, and put
himself in Judson's hands.

From this moment on, his rise was rapid. A brief engage
ment with the Philharmonic Symphony at the Lewisohn Sta
dium during the summer of 1929 was followed, in the sum
mers of 1930 and 1931, by summer concerts with the Phila
delphia Orchestra at Robin Hood Dell. At the same time,
Ormandy conducted regular orchestra concerts over the air
through the Columbia Broadcasting System network.

Then came the opportunity which established his reputation.
Toscanini had been engaged to conduct a few guest perform
ances with the Philadelphia Orchestra in the fall. of 1931. An
attack of neuritis compelled the maestro to cancel these per
formances at the last moment. Desperately, the directors of
the Philadelphia Orchestra sought a substitute for these con
certs. One conductor after another refused to accept the as
signment, feeling that to substitute for Toscanini would invite
unwelcome and damaging comparisons. The offer was made
to Ormandy, and, in spite of well-intentioned advice, he ac-'
cepted it. His friends expected that his performances would
be subjected to violent criticisms by audiences and critics who
had been led to expect Toscanini but instead were forced to
play host to a radio and motion picture theatre conductor.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

They counted, however, without Ormandy's natural gifts, his
capacity to give a musicianly exposition of the music he con
ducted, his powers to dramatize without reaching for vulgarity,
his ability to electrify his audiences. From that moment on,
Philadelphia was for him.

It was this success in Philadelphia which brought Ormandy
a contract from the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra to be
come its permanent conductor.

The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra originated as an aux
iliary group to a choral society. The orchestra, conducted by
Emil Oberhoffer, was at the time pretty much of a haphazard
affair: Often, one group of musicians would attend the re
hearsal, while another would come for the actual concert. Such
a state of affairs was not long to be tolerated by Oberhoffer.
In 1903 with the aid of Elbert L. Carpenter a subsidy of
$30,000 was raised to support a permanent orchestra of fifty
musicians as an independent musical body in Minneapolis. The
first concert, on November 5, 1903, featured a varied assort
ment of musical bon-bons (the most substantial item of which
was the Schubert Unfinished Symphony}. Oberhoffer, who
conducted the orchestra until 1921, was a good musician who
achieved a considerable following; it was largely through his
effort that the orchestra was established on a permanent basis.
In 1905, a new concert auditorium (modeled after Symphony
Hall in Boston) was built for the orchestra its permanent
home for the next twenty-five years. Finally, in 1930 the or
chestra transferred its habitat to the Northrop Memorial Audi
torium on the University of Minneapolis campus (which could
accommodate 4,000) and, under a special arrangement, the or
chestra became a part of university life.

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Oberhoff er was neither an inspiring nor a profound conductor.
Like his successor, Henri Verbrugghen (conductor in Min
neapolis from 1923 to 1931) he was conscientious, sincere,
hard-working with all the qualities of a fine conductor ex
cept that of genius. The Minneapolis Symphony, therefore,
achieved respectability and a certain degree of artistic prestige
in the West; but it was by no means one of the country's great
orchestras when Ormandy, then only thirty-two years old, took
it over.

But Ormandy possessed at least one gift which had been
foreign to both Oberhoffer and Verbrugghen the gift of
transforming an orchestra. His five years in Minneapolis re
moulded the orchestra into an ensemble commanding respect.
He reshaped it, drilled it with inexhaustible patience, and
created a wonderfully balanced organization. The extensive
repertoire he instituted freshened by the introduction of many
new works called for virtuosity and flexibility on the part
of the orchestra, and a great technique on the part of the con
ductor. Both orchestra and conductor rose to meet all the
demands of the music: and, thus, a great symphonic ensemble
was evolved. It now operated on an annual budget of a quar
ter of a million dollars the expense involved not only by its
many local concerts, but also by its extensive tours throughout
the mid-West. Half of this budget was defrayed from the
income; the other half came from contributions from private
sources.

Ormandy' s achievements in Minneapolis placed him in the
front rank of American conductors. When, therefore, Sto-
kowski decided to call it a day in Philadelphia, the directors
of the orchestra (encouraged by Stokowski's advice) shrewdly
decided to place the fate of the orchestra in the young, ener
getic hands of a conductor whose career still stretched before

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DICTATORS OF THE B A T O IS

him. Ormandy' s contract in Minneapolis still had one year
to run; but the directors of the Minneapolis Orchestra rec
ognizing the fact that a great post was awaiting Ormandy
generously decided to release him. Ormandy had won his first
successes in Philadelphia some years earlier. These successes,
and those which now attended him as permanent conductor,
were no temporary and evanescent flashes. In 1938, Ormandy's
permanency in Philadelphia was assured once and for all when
he was given the Stokowski post of * 'music director" together
with that of conductor. From now on, Ormandy's word
like that of Stokowski before him was law: his decisions,
judgments, and musical plans could no longer be vetoed by
any higher officer.

Having established himself irrefutably as the major young
conductor in America, Ormandy proceeded to make a name
for himself in Europe. He came to Vienna as guest of the
celebrated Philharmonic, and then preferring to have the
odds against him he featured the music of Mahler. Vienna
had heard Mahler's music under Mahler himself, then under
the batons of the greatest Mahler interpreters such as Bruno
Walter and Richard Strauss. It was not likely to listen too
tolerantly to a young American conductor discoursing Mahler's
music. But Ormandy performed with such dignity that Vienna
acclaimed him; he had won his triumph in Vienna the hard
way. Then, in Linz at the Bruckner festival he substituted
for the ailing Bruno Walter at the last moment, and conducted
his concert from memory. Other European performances fur
ther confirmed his talents and powers. To have swept away
the prejudice of European audiences to American-trained mu
sicians and to have swept it away so decisively was by no
means the least striking of Ormandy's achievements.

204

Sricb Leinsdorf

When, early in 1940, the newspapers throughout the country
publicized the hostility which had arisen at the Metropolitan
Opera House between Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad
and the brilliant, young conductor, Erich Leinsdorf, there were
many who apprehensively feared that the brief and sensational
career of Leinsdorf at the Metropolitan was coming to an un
timely end. Flagstad threatened to resign unless Leinsdorf
was replaced; and she underlined her threat by a temporary
boycott of all Metropolitan performances. "Mr. Leinsdorf/'
she exclaimed, "is inexperienced in playing "Wagner. He
watches the music. I see his arms moving. But I can't tell
where the music is." Lauritz Melchior joined with Flagstad
in a raucous duet of condemnation. "Leinsdorf," he shouted,
"is not yet ready to be senior conductor of the finest depart
ment of the greatest opera house in the world/'

Leinsdorf had already proved himself to the audiences of
the Metropolitan at any rate to be a conductor of unusual
talent. Only musical gifts of the highest order could have
brought him to the most important conductor's post at the
Metropolitan at an age when other conductors are neophytes.
But Flagstad was the greatest drawing card the Metropolitan
has had since the days of Enrico Caruso, and Melchior was like
wise a box-office attraction of no mean significance. It was gen
erally felt, therefore, that Edward Johnson, director of the
Metropolitan, had no choice but to yield to the gods.

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

That the 1940-41 season of the Metropolitan found Erich
Leinsdorf still at his post as leading conductor of German
opera, spoke eloquently for the courage of Edward Johnson
in sticking by him. He came to Leinsdorf s defense by deprecat
ing "some old boats in the company who would like to be
dictators of the Metropolitan." 'The operatic art and this in
stitution are greater than they," he announced contemptuously,
"and these will be here, along with Mr. Leinsdorf, long after
the old boats have gone. . . . Mr. Leinsdorf will be so ac
claimed in a few years that they won't want to remember that
they opposed him."

The following week, anger was still at such white heat that
Melchior, appearing under Leinsdorf in Gotterdammerung,
wore his eagle-winged Norse warrior's helmet backwards. In
cidentally, at that performance, it was Leinsdorf, and not Mel
chior, who received an ovation from the audience after the
second act. Eventually the storm blew over; Flagstad and
Melchior must have realized that they were on the losing side
of the war, what with Johnson, the public, and the critics fight
ing for Leinsdorf. The gods of the Metropolitan's Valhalla
resigned themselves to their fate. At the conclusion of a per
formance of Die Walkiire, Melchior and Leinsdorf shook
hands publicly on the stage. A few weeks later, Flagstad re
turned from her self-imposed exile. The entire episode would
have been forgotten by now but for one significant fact: It
proved that Leinsdorf 's position ,at the Metropolitan is secure.
And it is secure because he has proved himself to be one of
the greatest baton discoveries in some three decades of opera-
making in New York.

*

Such a storm was inevitable even if it had not been created
by Flagstad' s desire to bring a conductor of her own choosing

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NEW BATONS FOR OLD

to the Metropolitan. Destiny, in the shape of Artur Bodanz-
ky's sudden death, placed in Erich Leinsdorf s hand the entire
Wagnerian repertory when he was less than twenty-eight years
old; some of these music-dramas he had never before con
ducted. It was not the happiest or most idyllic of assignments.
A conductor must, above everything else, exert his authority
and this was not easy for a very young, and comparatively
untrained conductor, if the singers under him had become
world-famous as Wagnerian interpreters. If a young conduc
tor permits himself to be influenced by the artists under him,
not much can be said for his artistic convictions, nor can he
expect much respect. If, however, he has definite ideas about
the music he directs, from which he can not be shaken by the
weight of the reputations of those working under him, but
only by the truth of their interpretations, it is not a simple task
for him to impose those ideas on seasoned artists not if he
himself is young and raw.

This was the problem facing Leinsdorf. To exert his will,
on singers like Flagstad and Melchior, carried with it almost
a suggestion of impertinence. Yet he had too much honesty,
too strong a feeling of his own concerning the music, too keen
an analytical mind to cater to his artists by subjecting his own
ideas to revision only because these artists wished him to do so.
Temperaments and artistic tastes rubbed against each other
and there were sparks.

How much justification was there to Flagstad' s severe criti
cism of Leinsdorf? True, Leinsdorf was young and inexperi
enced, but these were not particularly important disadvantages
in the face of his obvious talent and his capacity to grow and
develop with every performance. Flagstad said that Leins
dorf *s eyes were m the music in front of him, and not on the
artists. Actually, in some of the Wagner music-dramas, Leins-

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DICTATORS OF THE BATON

dorf rarely consults the music, so well is he acquainted with
the score. In other dramas, which he was called upon to direct
for the first time (he conducted Parsifal for the first time in
his life on twelve-hour notice!) it was to be expected that his
memory should lean heavily for support on the score, at least
for his first few essays. The wonder of it was, rather, that he
did show such familiarity and command of the music as he
did, a familiarity and command which became increasingly
apparent with each presentation.

At times, also, his tempi were erratic, sometimes to a point
of disturbing the singers (was this not, on occasions, equally
true of Bodanzky?) . He was sometimes stubborn in his con
ceptions, overruling the ripened judgment of long-experienced
artists. But these are not formidable faults by any means, not
when there also came to play his insight, his high artistic pur
pose, his enthusiasm, his natural gifts for conducting. If
Flagstad did not have a definite axe to grind on the stone of
this controversy, it is doubtful if Leinsdorf would have caused
her more than mild irritation to which she would have been
tolerant.

For the most part, it can be said that Leinsdorf handled a
vexing situation diplomatically. Those who saw him rehearse
realized that he was not at all above listening to advice and
criticism; when he was at fault, and it was called to his at
tention, he displayed humility. He treated the great singers
under him with respect which was evident even when he in
sisted on exerting his authority over them. What he refused
to do was to revise his own judgments of the way the music
should be played, when he was convinced that his judgments
were the correct ones. Most of the artists who worked with
him were won over by his charm, youthful zest, sincerity, and
remarkable intelligence. In his battle against Flagstad and

208

NEW BATONS POR OLD

Melchior they were all for him just as director Edward John
son, the audiences, and the critics were for him.

*

Leinsdorf s history up to the present time is climactic with
strange victories, of which the one over Flagstad was only a
single example. If, as his most enthusiastic supporters insist,
Leinsdorf gives indication of developing into another Tos-
canini, you are likely to hear recitals of his achievements more
frequently as the years pass. He was only twenty-six years
old when the Metropolitan Opera House engaged him as a
conductor to assist Artur Bodanzky in the performance of the
German repertory. At an age when other conductors are cut
ting their first artistic teeth, he was assigned to conduct the
most exacting music in the operatic repertory the music-
dramas of Wagner at the most celebrated opera house in
the world.

His background was well-known to American music audi
ences when he first came to New York. Born in Vienna on
February 4, 1912, he showed unmistakable musical gifts at an
early age. His father's death, when Erich was still very young,
brought the family face to face with pressing financial prob
lems. But his mother would not hear of his abandoning his
study of music, even though his attendance at the Vienna
Academy meant great deprivation for herself and the rest of
the family. Young Leinsdorf justified his mother's faith in
him by proving himself under a variety of teachers, including
Paul Emmerich, Hedwig Kammer-Rosenthal, and Professor
Kortschak a piano pupil of brilliance.

Determined on a career as conductor rather than pianist,
he decided to contact and interest Bruno Walter. In the sum
mer of 1934, he walked the 155-mile distance from Vienna to

209

DICTATORS OP THE BATON

Salzburg, and while still dusty and tired he entered the Fest-
spielhaus to listen to a rehearsal of Fidelia by Bruno Walter.
At one point, Walter left the piano to consult with an artist.
Leinsdorf suddenly was inspired to strike boldly and vigorously.
He slipped onto the stage, went to the piano, and continued
playing the music of Fidelia (from memory) from the point
where it had been interrupted. This exhibition made such a
deep impression on Walter that young Leinsdorf was at once
engaged by him to assist in preparing his Salzburg perform

ances.

That same winter, Toscanini came to Vienna to conduct a
series of symphony concerts. A pianist was needed for Kodaly's
Psalmus Hungaricus. None seemed available (possibly be
cause so many Viennese pianists were terrified at the thought
of playing for Toscanini) . Leinsdorf came to the rehearsal,
asked for a hearing, and played the music with such com
petence and distinction that Toscanini smiled broadly, and
whispered: "Good very good/* Not only was Leinsdorf en
gaged for the piano part for that concert, but the following
summer he worked with Toscanini, as well as with Bruno Wal
ter, in preparing some of the festival performances at Salzburg.

To rehearse the Toscanini and Walter productions was a
prodigious task. Often young Leinsdorf had to be in four
different places in one afternoon practicing with the orches
tra, directing the chorus, working with soloists, and consulting
with the stage director. But the job did not overwhelm him.
He would travel from one place to the next, sometimes by
bicycle, other times by foot (he did not have the money for
taxi fares) and in each new place he would throw himself
into his work with as much vim and enthusiasm as though he
were just beginning the day. Toscanini told his friends that
summer that Leinsdorf s preparations were so painstaking and

210'

NEW BATONS FOR OLD

exhaustive that, when he himself took over, there was little
more to do than to apply the final artistic touches.

Leinsdorf hoped to become a conductor at the famous Vienna
Opera. Both Toscanini and Walter recommended him for
the post. Unfortunately, because anti-Semitic forces were at
play, he was rejected by the Ministry of Fine Arts. Although
the Opera of his native city turned him down, the rest of the
music world stood ready to accept him. Besides collaborating
with Walter and Toscanini at the Sahburg festivals, he as
sisted at several performances during the May Music Festival in
Florence, in May, 1935. I recall being in Florence at that time,
where one of the most striking performances was that of
Gluck's Alceste in the Boboli Gardens. One afternoon I was
with one of the leading Italian conductors, and told him how
much 1 admired the Alceste performance. It was then that he
told me about a young man named Leinsdorf who had assisted
in its preparation. It was the first time I heard the name, and
it impressed itself on my memory because the Italian maestro
spoke of the young man as a "born conductor." "Remember
the name/' the Italian told me. "He reminds us all here of Tos
canini, when Toscanini was first conducting in Italy/*

The fall and winter of 1936 Leinsdorf spent in Bologna,
Trieste, and San Remo directing symphony concerts as well as
opera. And, early in 1937, he set out for New York.

It was, therefore, a creditable, though not necessarily epic,
background which Leinsdorf brought with him to the Metro
politan. Those who came to his New York debut, therefore,
hardly expected to hear much more than a promising, talented,
but possibly still immature conductor, who had come with Tos-
canini's blessings and praises. Very promising, talented, but
immature conductors were not particular novelties there. . . .

It was something of a shock to operagoers that January eve-

211

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

ning in 1938 to see a mere boy on the conductor's platform
about to direct a magnificent cast in the complicated music of
Wagner's Die Walkure. As he took his place, about to give
his opening beat, he appeared as self-conscious and diffident
as a boy wearing his first long trousers at a party. It was an
even greater shock to discover that this youngster had the
music, so to speak, in the palm of his hand. As the musical
drama unfolded, it became increasingly evident that there was
much more than a good memory at work on the conductor's
platform. There was a forceful personality, which, despite
youth, could command and be obeyed. There were taste and
feeling, and a coherent conception of the work at hand.

The Leinsdorf saga was developed at the Metropolitan.
During the first season he directed thirty-six performances and
acquitted himself nobly. He had been at the Metropolitan a
season and a half when Bodanzky fell ill and left him the task
of rehearsing the entire German repertory for 1939-40. Leins
dorf disclosed such a masterful command of the music, and,
single-handed, fulfilled his duties at the rehearsals with such
quiet self-assurance that, when Bodanzky died six days before
the opening night of the new season, Leinsdorf was chosen to
succeed him as principal Wagnerian conductor one of the
most demanding assignments in the entire field of conducting.

His first year in this important capacity at the Metropolitan
when he officiated at fifty-five performances was as im
pressive an achievement as you are likely to find in the entire
history of conducting. It will be recalled that during that year
there was no perceptible decline of artistic standards in the
Wagnerian performances at the Metropolitan. That alone
could speak volumes for a young director who overnight in
herited such a formidable conductorial position. But one can
say much more than this of Leinsdorf s first year as principal

212

NEW BATONS FOR OLD

conductor. Though there were occasional minor technical
lapses in his conducting (and these were to be expected) there
were also vitality, charm, musicianship; in certain respects, his
performances at times had greater freshness and vitality than
those of Bodanzky.

No wonder, then, that there were some now to speak of
Leinsdorf as "young Toscanini," just as the Italian conductor
had described Leinsdorf to me in Florence. The parallel be
tween the two conductors is striking even after one has pierced
beyond superficial. Leinsdorf and Toscanini both made their
debuts at a tender age: Toscanini at nineteen, Leinsdorf at
twenty-two. Both were still very young when they were given
major assignments. Toscanini became principal conductor of
a world-famous opera house (La Scala in Milan) in his thirty-
first year; Leinsdorf assumed a similar post with another great
institution (the Metropolitan) when he was twenty-seven.
Both Toscanini and Leinsdorf proved their true worth in the
Wagnerian repertory, and both refused to be constricted by
any one style or school by conducting works in the French and
Italian repertoire as well (one of Leinsdorf s outstanding
achievements, for example, has been his performance of Pel-
leas et Melisande} . Toscanini combined his work as conductor
of opera with remarkable performances of symphonic music;
Leinsdorf, too, has coupled his operatic conducting with ex
cellent guest appearances with major symphony orchestras.

In one respect the parallel grows even more striking; for
history has a curious faculty of repeating itself. Toscanini was
principal conductor at the Metropolitan a full year when the
security of his position was momentarily shaken by the threat
ened retirement of soprano Emma Eames, who felt that her
temperament clashed so violently with that of the young Italian
maestro that she could not work with him. Emma Eames was,

213

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

at the time, at the height of her fame. It was felt by some
that it might even be necessary to dismiss Toscanini in order
to keep the glamorous soprano at the Metropolitan. Gatti-
Casazza, however, stuck by Toscanini, and early in 1909 Emma
Eames made her last Metropolitan appearance. It should not
be difficult to find in this historic feud a similarity, even in
details, with the Flagstad-Leinsdorf feud, even though Flag-

stad's resignation was not a direct outcome of the quarrel.

#

It is Leinsdorf 's consuming love for music that most reminds
me of Toscanini. Like Toscanini, Leinsdorf whether at work
or not lives music, breathes it, perspires it. In the presence
of great music he melts. There are passages in Wagner and
Richard Strauss which bring tears to his eyes, even while he
is in the heat and strain of directing them. At other times,
he sings as with stick he draws a lyric line from the strings
of the orchestra because he simply cannot control himself.

You must see him at his piano at home, going through an
opera score, to realize how music absorbs his every fibre. As
he plays the piano part, and sings every major role, you become
aware of his extraordinary enthusiasm, zest, and love for what
he is doing. Perspiration bathes his face and body. His shirt
begins to cling to his armpits and shoulders. His eyeglasses
slip from the ridge of his nose and become clouded with mois
ture. But he is altogether oblivious to his discomfort. He
forgets that there is anyone at his side. He is immersed in his
one-man projection of a mighty music drama. He plays the
piano part musically, which is to say that for the realization
of the composer's intentions he is often willing to sacrifice
digital accuracy. He sings the different parts with a wonderful
instinct both for histrionics and the flow of the lyric line. And
yet, when he is through with a scene or an act, what remains

214

NEW BATONS FOR OLD

most memorable is not the musical quality of the performance,
which is outstanding, but the bubbling, oozing, geyser-eruption
of the performer's enthusiasm.

It is this all-absorbing love for music that gives him his
phenomenal capacity for work. Hard work does not exhaust,
but stimulates him; the greater the assignment placed in his
hands, the more is he energized. His first year as principal
Wagnerian conductor at the Metropolitan placed a colossal
burden on his shoulders, which would have brought collapse
to many more experienced conductors. Not only did he have
on his hands all the rehearsals and performances of the Wag
nerian repertory (which, because of Flagstad's popularity,
dominated the Metropolitan season) but he even had to study
several scores which he had never before directed. During
that first year, he had to add to his repertoire Die Meister singer,
Tristan und Isolde, Gotterdiimmerung, Richard Strauss* Der
Rosenkavalier, Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, and Gluck's
Orfeol He was kept at work from early morning until late
at night, Sundays included. Yet that was one of the happiest
years of his life. His spirits were keyed high, and physically
he was in the pink of condition. At the end of that strenuous
year, he laughed at the suggestion that he might need a vaca
tion and plunged into the study of some new scores. "You
know," he once said, "a two-hour cocktail party exhausts me
more than studying an entire new operatic score."

His integrity, too, has the Toscanini trademark. He has stuck
to his principles, and has never been tempted to make com
promises with his conscience. I need recall only one example
of his integrity; there have been others. He was engaged to
conduct the New York Philharmonic for one week at the Lewi-
sohn Stadium during tjie summer of 1938. There is no young
conductor who would not give his right eye for a Stadium

215

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

assignment which, often, proved to be a convenient springboard
from which to dive into a comfortable post. Eugene Ormandy
practically began his career with these summer concerts, and
so did Iturbi. The young Italian, Massimo Freccia, graduated
from the Lewisohn Stadium to the Havana Symphony Or
chestra. A success at the Stadium might have meant much
for Leinsdorf at the time, since his post at the Metropolitan
had not yet been made secure by the occasion of Bodanzky's
death. And yet, because he could not at the time get the
number of rehearsals necessary for a comprehensive prepara
tion of his programs, Leinsdorf quietly and unostentatiously
declined to conduct. He had no sympathy with half measures.
If he could not give the best of himself at his performances,
he preferred not to conduct at all.

216

The ^Dynamic (Conductor

Fritz Reiner

Our feverish times are more likely to produce the intense, pas
sionate conductor given to nervous and agitated performances
rather than one of calm detachment and serenity. These dy
namic conductors are vivid personalities who brand the music
they interpret with the flame of their individualities. As
Virgil Thomson pointed out so admirably, for these conductors
"every piece is a different piece, every author and epoch another
case for stylistic differentiation and for special understanding.
When they miss, they miss; but when they pull it off, they
evoke for us a series of new worlds, each of these verifiable by
our whole knowledge of the past, as well as by our instinctive
sense of musical meaning. Theirs is the humane cultural tradi
tion. And if their interpretations have sometimes been accom
panied by no small amount of personal idiosyncrasy and a
febrile display of nerves, that, too, is a traditional concomitant
of the sort of the trance-like intensity that is necessary for the
projection of any concept that is a product equally of learning
and inspiration." (Quoted from the New York Herald Tribune.)
Fritz Reiner, conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orches
tra, belongs unmistakably to these "Dionysian ' spirits of the
baton. He has the red blood of vitality; all his performances
glow with healthy and athletic energy. His is a natural bent
for theatrical 'music calling for brilliant orchestrations and
exciting climaxes. Here his wonderful technique, and his ex
haustive knowledge of the orchestra, as well as his tempera-

219

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

meat, are exploited fully. Thus he is excellent in Wagner, in
Richa^l Strauss, in Berlioz, and in the music of most modern
composers. Thus, too, he is one of the most gifted opera
conductors in America today, and it is to be greatly regretted
that he has not been given greater opportunities to reveal his
gifts in this direction. In the theatre, even more than in the
symphony hall, he reveals himself a master over all the forces
under him. In the theatre, his personality finds its fullest scope
for self-expression.

His interpretations, whether in symphony or opera, are gen
erally spacious and robust; Reiner thinks along large lines and
in expansive designs. Certain of his qualities are most ad
mirable. He can be galvanic without sacrificing tonal balances;
he can build dramatic effects with astuteness, and not yield to
unpleasant exaggerations. What he does lack as an artist is
some ice to contrast the fires; some contemplation to mellow
the excitement.

He was born in Budapest on December 10, 1888, and his
education took place in local schools (culminating with the
study of law at the University) and at the National Academy
of Music where he was a pupil of Thoman and Koessler. As
was required of students at the Academy, he played in the
school orchestra, his instrument being the tympani. One day
the conductor was delayed, and Reiner was called upon to sub
stitute for him. That moment Reiner knew that he would be
dissatisfied with any future other than that of conductor.

The celebrated teacher and violinist, Jeno Hubay, took Reiner
under his wing after the latter had graduated from the Academy
and gave him personal instruction in conducting. Equipped
with this preparation, Reiner accepted the post of chorusmaster
at the Budapest Opera in 1909. One year later, he was the
conductor at the Laibach National Opera, and a year after that

220

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

at the People's Opera in Budapest. He developed rapidly; and
as he developed, his reputation grew. In 1914, he was given
one of the most desirable posts in Europe when he became first
conductor at the Dresden Royal Opera. Here he revealed for
the first time the full scope of his interpretative gifts. The
Dresden Opera was one of the most progressive musical institu
tions in Europe, and it paid flattering attention to the modern
reportory; in this repertory, Reiner attracted praise for the
extraordinary energy and freshness of his readings.

The war made the cultivation of music difficult in Germany.
Reiner went to Italy to conduct at the Teatro Reale in Rome
and at the Augusteo. Guest performances during this period
brought him to different parts of Europe. He was conducting
the Wagner music dramas in Barcelona in 1922 when a wire
reached him from his wife, then vacationing in the United
States. The telegraph agents had obviously garbled the mes
sage and it was impossible for Reiner to guess the meaning.
In desperation, he wired his wife that he could not unravel
the meaning of her telegram, but that, if there was a decision
to be made, he stood ready to abide by her judgment.

Thus Reiner came to the United States: for his wife had
cabled him that the Cincinnati Orchestra offered him a post as
permanent conductor; and she had accepted it.

Fritz Reiner remained eight years in Cincinnati * and proved
himself to be a conductor of imperious authority, and (in some
works) an interpreter of power and insight. His talent was
highly thought of in Cincinnati, as well as in other American
cities to which he frequently came for guest concerts.

After the 1930-31 season, Reiner passed his baton on to
Eugene Goossens. Settling temporarily in Philadelphia, he
became head of the orchestral department of the Curtis Insti-

* For the history of the Cincinnati Orchestra see chapter on Eugene Goossens.

221

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

tute of Music, and a frequent visitor to most of the leading
American orchestras. He now proved his exceptional talent for
operatic music by directing Wagner performances with the San
Francisco Opera Company, a variety of opera from Gluck to
Richard Strauss with the Philadelphia Opera, and several
Wagner operas with the Chicago Opera. He also toured Eu
rope frequently and extensively both in symphonic and operatic
music: During the Coronation Festivities in London in 1936,
he scored a particular success in a cycle of the Wagnerian
music-dramas at Covent Garden.

In 1938, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was reorganized
a second time, after a precarious existence of more than forty
years. It had been founded in 1895, and from 1898 to 1904
was conducted by Victor Herbert who, though never a great
conductor, helped to raise the program standards from what
formerly were rather plebeian levels. Distinguished guests, in
cluding Richard Strauss, Sir Edward Elgar, and Emil Paur con
ducted the orchestra during the next few seasons. It was not,
at best, a very good orchestra, as Richard Aldrich of the New
York Times remarked when he heard it in 1907. "Its tone . . .
has neither fulness nor nobility. The violins sounded espe
cially poor and thin; the wind choirs are reasonably good in
most respects. But the ensemble was a little frayed at the
edges, and there was not much of distinction or power in the
playing." * Failing to fill any indispensable role in Pittsburgh,
the orchestra expired in 1910 for lack of support.

In 1926, a few local musicians decided to reestablish the
Pittsburgh Symphony. To test public reaction, a free concert
was given under Richard Hageman's direction; the reaction was
sufficiently favorable to encourage the sponsors of the orchestra
to proceed with their plans. From 1927 to 1930, the new

* Concert Life in New York, by Richard Aldrich, Charles Scribner's, 1941.

222

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

organization was conducted by Elias Breeskin, and from 1930
to 1937 by Antonio Modarelli.

It was decided, in 1937, to reorganize the orchestra radically.
Otto Klemperer was called from Los Angeles to reshape the
orchestra and to direct the first few concerts. This done, one
other move was necessary to give the orchestra high ranking.
That move was made with the appointment of Fritz Reiner.

Reiner enjoys an enthusiastic following in Pittsburgh; the
audiences admire him and are responsive to his electrifying
personality. It cannot be said that the musicians who play
under him are as affectionate as his audiences. High-handed,
dictatorial, given to acidulous criticisms, Reiner (like Sto-
kowski) treats his men severely without permitting a personal
relationship to develop between conductor and orchestra. Yet,
however much they dislike him personally, his men are never
sparing in their praise of his gifts. Under him, they function
like a smoothly oiled machine not only because of his extensive
knowledge of orchestral literature and his comprehensive grasp
of the orchestra, but also because he is one of the most fabulous
baton manipulators of our time. "He leads an orchestra
through the most complex technique with the ease and sureness
of a tightrope walker who performs a backward somersault
blindfolded," remarked Oscar Levant. His baton technique
is so skilful and its demands are so clearly enunciated that (as
one of his musicians is reported to have said) "you have to
be an awful dope if you can't follow him."

In his orchestral classes at the Curtis Institute, Reiner places
emphasis on gesturing. He himself has said that, after his
pupils have worked with him and leave his classes, any oae of
them "can stand up before an orchestra they have never seen
before and conduct correctly a new piece at first sight without
verbal explanation and by means only of manual technique/'

7?*

oArtur Rodzinski

When the NBC Orchestra was organized for Toscanini in 1937,
there was need for a conductor to whip it into shape. A great
orchestra is not born overnight. Its virtuosity, the marriage
of its choirs, its flexibility and resilience come only after a long
period of practice and experience. But a conductor who is also
a technician can often bring about these qualities to a marked
degree even in a young orchestra. A technician was sought
for the NBC Orchestra to do the preparatory work for Tosca
nini.

Toscanini suggested Rodzinski for the task, because Tosca
nini knew that Rodzinski had extraordinary organizational
gifts, and one of the ablest orchestral techniques among Ameri
can conductors. Rodzinski knows the orchestra, its strength
and weakness. He knows how to blend and balance skilfully
the different sections into a rich tone-texture. He knows how
to give it permanent solidity. He knows how to adapt its tech
nique pliantly to every requirement of orchestral performance.
He can recognize weaknesses which might escape a less ob
servant ear, and knows how to remedy them. Beyond this, he
has unquestioned authority: the vibrancy of his personality can
subject the men under him to his every wish.

The numerous rehearsal sessions during which the orchestra
was trained by Rodzinski were a severe test for any conductor.
Here were a hundred men, fine artists all, it was true, but men
nevertheless who were playing together for the first time. To

224

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

make a unified body of these different elements one mind,
one heart, one will, one purpose and to do this in a brief
period, called for the full resources of a conductor's science.
Rodzinski met the test squarely. When Toscanini came to
conduct the orchestra he gave expression to his delight. He
had expected to confront maay of the shortcomings of a new
organisation a sharp-edged tone (not yet mellowed by time),
an imperfectly integrated organism, a technique lacking exact
ness. But Rodzinski's spadework had been done so thoroughly
that, instead, there was a developed orchestra, without any
perceptible gaps, ready to serve the master, to respond to his
most exacting demands. The NBC Orchestra molded into a
great orchestral ensemble within a few weeks was a tribute
to Rodzinski's orchestral mastery; there were few conductors
who could have duplicated this feat.

Once before Rodzinski had proved his mastery: This was in
Cleveland, when he was appointed permanent conductor of
that orchestra. The Cleveland Orchestra was not an old or
chestra, nor was it a great one. It had been organized by a
few public spirited music lovers in 1918 (headed by Adella
Prentiss Hughes) , with Nikolai Sokoloff as its first conductor.
Sokoloff was a good musician. To his credit belongs the fact
that an increasingly fine standard was achieved at his concerts;
also, that they appealed to an ever-growing audience. But
Sokoloff worked, for the most part, with inadequate material,
nor did he possess that very organizational capacity which
could cope with such material successfully. His orchestra was
not a good ensemble; it was definitely of provincial stature,
with marked defections in various departments. And it did not
become a great orchestra until Artur Rodzinski came to Cleve
land.

About a year and a half after the Cleveland Orchestra en-

225

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

tered its new home beautiful Severance Hall, the gift of Mrs.
J. L. Severance in memory of her husband Sokoloff retired
as its principal conductor. Artur Rodzinski was named his

successor.

*

When Rodzinski came to Cleveland it was in 1933 he was
ripe for the major appointment of his career; for he had profited
by many years of intensive apprenticeship with the baton.

His debut had taken place in Lemberg where, shortly after
the end of the First World War, he had been engaged to con
duct first choral music, then opera. "Sad to relate/' Rodzinski
recalls his first adventure with the baton, "during the rehearsal
the musicians laughed at me. Came the intermission and the
very kind concertmaster showed me the rudiments of beating
.three-quarter and four-quarter time. While I was holding on
to this job, I took another playing the piano in a vaudeville
house. I recall with merriment now (though it was no joke
then) that once a dancer gave me a sound berating for spoiling
her act. She called me a rotten pianist, and a worse musician."

Truth to tell, his musical education up to that time had not
been comprehensive. He was born on the Dalmatian coast of
the Adriatic Sea, in Spalato, on January 2, 1894, where his
father, an army officer, was stationed upon a military mission.
Law was chosen as the career for Artur. He was, therefore,
sent to Austria for his schooling, completing it at the University
of Vienna. He supported himself by tutoring backward stu
dents in mathematics and languages. Such hours as he could
steal from his legal studies and tutoring he devoted to music.
Music had attracted him magnetically since his childhood. But
he had been compelled to follow it as an amateur. In Vienna
he studied some theory by himself, took some music courses at
the University, and spent most of his leisure evenings at the

226

FRITZ REINER

VLADMIR GOLSCHMANN

ARTUR RODZINSKI

FABIEN SEVITZKY

ALEXANDER SMALLENS

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

opera house and concert hall: this was the entire extent of his
early musical education up to that time.

During the First World War, he joined the Polish army,
fought on the Russian front, and was wounded in action. De
mobilized, he returned to Vienna. The war had given him an
entirely new perspective on his future. He knew now that it
was music, and not law, which appealed to him most. He
studied the piano with Sauer, and conducting with Franz
Schalk. At the same time, he took courses in music at the
University which brought him a doctorate.

He went to Lemberg for his first musical assignment. Then
the progressive Lemberg Opera engaged him for a few per
formances. Evidently he had the capacity to learn quickly.
The young and inexperienced conductor who had caused such
merriment at his first rehearsal because of his ineptitude, gave
such authoritative performances o Carmen, Ernant, and Eros
and Psyche (a Polish opera) that the directors came to him
with a contract as first conductor of the opera house. They
asked him which operas he was prepared to conduct, and he
answered with quiet assurance that he knew the entire Italian
and German repertory. Actually, he had never even seen
many of these scores. When he signed his contract for the
following season, he devoted his time to a rigorous study of
the classical pperas. The following season he undertook an
extensive repertory, frequently having to step briskly in his
studies to keep one step ahead of his rehearsals. But he had
an alert and receptive mind, a sound musical instinct, and an
irrepressible enthusiasm for his work. He mastered the routine
of the conductorial profession and acquired a sound technique.

He was invited for some guest engagements in various Euro
pean cities, which he despatched with impressive self-assurance.
He was then called to Warsaw to direct the famous Philhar-

227

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

monic, and to give an occasional performance at the opera
house.

He was conducting a performance of Die Meistersinger at
the Warsaw Opera one evening when Leopold Stokowski was
present in the audience. Stokowski recognized Rodzinski's
talent and urged him to come to the United States. Rodzinski
accepted Stokowski 's invitation, arrived in 1926, and for three
years served as Stokowski' s assistant in Philadelphia. During
these years, Rodzinski acquired the finishing touches to his con-
ductorial training. Stokowski was a ruthless master; Rodzinski,
an alert pupil. By helping Stokowski prepare the Philadelphia
concerts, by directing the orchestral and operatic departments
at the Curtis Institute, and by assisting the performances of the
Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, he acquired a mastery of
conducting, and a command of baton technique.

During this period he was invited to serve as guest conductor
of several major American orchestras. At one of these appear
ances in Los Angeles in 1929 he gave such an impressive
account of himself that he was asked to become permanent
conductor of that organization.

At that time the Los Angeles Philharmonic was ten years old.
Founded by William Andrews Clark, Jr., in 1919, it had been
conducted by Walter Henry Rothwell a conductor of rich
experience from its initial season until 1927, Under Roth-
well the Los Angeles Philharmonic was not one of America's
great orchestras; but it gave respectable concerts of good music
which, if they never clutched at greatness, never on the other
hand offended sensitive musical tastes. Georg Schneevoigt
took over the orchestra from 1927 until 1929. After this, the
need for young blood was felt. Rodzinski came for some guest
appearances and made a profound impression. The direction
of the orchestra was offered to him, and he accepted.

228

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

Rodzinski was principal conductor of the Los Angeles Phil
harmonic until 1933. With each passing season, there was
perceptible the growth and development of a fine artist; at the
same time, a truly admirable symphonic organization was being
evolved. In 1933, the Musical Arts Association of Cleveland
engaged him as the permanent conductor of the Cleveland
Orchestra. Rodzinski's contract in Los Angeles still had one
year to run, but the directors generously freed him, and at. the
same time showed him their gratitude for his remarkable serv
ices to the Los Angeles orchestra by tendering him a banquet
and a scroll. The post in Los Angeles was inherited by that
admirable German conductor, Otto Klemperer.

Rodzinski's association with the Cleveland Orchestra had
historic significance for that city. He developed one of the
great orchestras in America out of a comparatively unimpres
sive ensemble. He enriched the repertoire with particularly
flattering attention to the new works of modern composers.
Recently he launched a notable experiment in the selection of
new works for performance by the orchestra: New music is
given an anonymous audition before a carefully selected com
mittee; those compositions that receive the highest rating are
selected for exhibition at the Cleveland Orchestra concerts. In
this way, Rodzinski feels, his own personal prejudices and
idiosyncrasies play no part in the selection of new works for
his repertoire.

He has also introduced opera into Severance Hall, directing
searching performances of Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, Der
Rosenkavalier, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Shostakovitch) ,
Die Meister singer, Elektra, and Tannhauser as part of the sym
phonic season. When he first introduced opera to his pro
grams it was in 1937 with Parsifal the event immediately
assumed such artistic importance that it attracted visitors from

229

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

forty different cities! For these opera performances, Rodzinski
recruited his principal singers from the Metropolitan Opera
House. But it is interesting to note that he depended exclu
sively on local talent for the minor roles, feeling that it offered
an enviable opportunity to encourage undiscovered singers in
Cleveland.

That he had become one of the great conductors of our time
was proved by the flattering assignments that now came his
way. In 1936, he was invited to perform at the Salzburg Fes
tival. .When Toscanini heard his concert he exclaimed: "You
do not need me any longer here. You now have him." The
following summer he was a guest conductor in Salzburg, Lon
don, Vienna, Warsaw, and Prague. In the spring of 1937 he
conducted an eight-week session with the New York Philhar
monic, scoring triumphs with his performances of the last act
of Parsifal and the complete Elektra, in concert versions. In
the fall of the same year, he was called to New York to con
dition the newly organized NBC Orchestra. In 1938, he di
rected a Polish program at the Paris Exposition, and was
awarded the Diplome d'Honneur* In 1939, he directed an
other Polish program, this time in conjunction with the New
York World's Fair. In June, 1941, he conducted the opening
concert at the Lewisohn Stadium before the largest attendance
In the history of these concerts.

One ideal is ever before him: that of democratizing music in
America. "Music," he argues, "belongs to the people who hear
it. Opera houses and orchestras should belong to the people."
He "hopes to see, some day, the elimination of patrons from all
music-making in this country. At one time he suggested that
each radio owner be taxed one dollar a year for the support of

230

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

all musical organizations in the country the fund to be ad
ministered by a special bureau in Washington.

For he is essentially a man of the people; he likes people;
he likes to feel that he is one of them. There is no aristocratit
aloofness about him. On his twenty-seven acre farm in Stock-
bridge, Massachusetts where he leads the simple life of a
farmer, dressed in overalls, and tending to his goats he has a
sign which reads: "Visitors Welcome." He does not mind
the summer tourists wandering all over his place, casting an
inspecting eye as he tends to his farming activities, poking
around and literally stumbling over him.

His daily habits are of an almost ascetic simplicity. There
is his farming in the summer. In the winters he reads a great
deal, studies, and pursues the hobby of photography. He likes
some sports, swimming and skiing particularly. Except for an
infrequent brandy, he never drinks. His only real indulgence
is smoking cigarettes, which he rolls himself from specially
imported Egyptian tobacco.

On days of concerts, he usually spends hours in quiet seclu
sion, as if to fill in the reservoir of his physical and nervous
strength, which is greatly sapped by every performance. He
eats almost nothing some toast and milk is about the extent
of a full day's diet. After a performance he is usually so ex
hausted that he cannot find the energy to eat. Some time in
the middle of the night, he will suddenly awake, and shout
that he is starved. His dining table, covered with cold meats
and pastries, awaits him. He gorges himself, and then returns
to bed.

His wife, Halina, is the niece of the famous Polish violinist,
Wieniawski. They have one son, Witold, who works at the
NBC studios in New York City. Once Rodzinski stopped an
elevator boy and spoke to him in Polish. He was later praised

231

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

for his democratic spirit in stopping to speak with a mere
elevator operator. "Why shouldn't I talk to him/' asked
Rodzinski, "if he is my son?" Rodzinski insisted that his son
accept the humble position of elevator operator, so that he
might learn the radio business from the ground up; whether
he intended a pun in this, it is difficult to say.

The simplicity of the man is evident the moment he steps on
the stage. He gives a passing gesture of recognition to the
applause of the audience. Then, without further ceremony,
he proceeds to direct the music of the day. His baton technique
is the last word in unostentation. His beat is firm and dear;
his movements are sparing; his directions to his men explicit.
There are no extravagant rotations of the body or head. Rod
zinski is an almost austere and unspectacular figure on the
platform.

His command of the orchestra and his knowledge of all its
resources make him particularly effective in music that is com
plex in design. Where a work is brilliantly orchestrated, where
it has intricate rhythmic or harmonic constructions, where it
demands expansive dynamics, in such music he is in his ele
ment. If he has versatility (and he can play many different
styles well) it is not the versatility of, say, a Toscanini or a
Bruno Walter- He is not the ideal interpreter of Haydn or
Mozart, for example; his touch is too heavy for such fragile
items. He is not completely at his ease in lyric pages that call
for contemplation, introspection, or serenity. His Beethoven,
therefore particularly the Beethoven of the slow movements
frequently leaves much to be desired. But where the call is
for vigor, dynamic drive, virtuosity of a high order, brilliant
coloring, there Rodzinski stands with the great musical inter
preters of our time. In Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Shostakovich
in most of the modern composers for that matter he brings

232

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

vitality and power, wonderful blendings of sonorities, irri-
descent tonal colors. One recalls his electrifying and cogent
recreations of such works as the Shostakovich First, Symphony
or Richard Strauss 1 Elektra, in which works one is almost tempted
to say that he is incomparable.

He is equally impressive in Scriabin and Wagner, in Berlioz
and Rimsky-Korsakow, in Debussy and Tchaikovsky. In fact,
his catholic musical tastes he himself has no leaning towards
any one style or school of music give him a wide and plastic
range to his interpretative gifts. "I like all good music," he has
said. 'The year it was written and the number of times it has
been played mean absolutely nothing to me." In listening to his
concerts, one recognizes the sincerity behind such a statement.
He presents all music, whether it is in his happiest interpre
tative vein or not, as if he loved it. Even where he fails artisti
cally, the failure is not the result of careless preparation or a
lack of musical penetration; it is only because the music is not
an expression of his temperament, and does not lend itself to
his many talents as an interpreter.

233

Vladimir Qolsckmann

Others, besides Rodzinski, have created excellent orchestras
out of unimpressive materials. Vladimir Golschmann, for ex
ample. Before he came to St. Louis, its orchestra was just an
other musical organization, undistinguished but serviceable;
there were many such orchestras throughout the country.

It had had a long career. Its origin dates not from 1881
when, strictly speaking, it was founded, but more accurately
from 1894 when it was reorganized along professional lines.
Its principal conductors after 1894 were Max Zach (1907 until
1921), and Rudolph Ganz (1921 to 1927). It would be ex
aggerated enthusiasm to speak of the reign of either conductor
as particularly fruitful, when comparison is made with other
orchestras of the East. From 1921 until 1931, the St. Louis
Symphony continued its existence with guest conductors. One
of these, Vladimir Golschmann, made sufficiently striking an
impression to be retained as a permanent fixture. Golschmann
young, spirited, adventurous, and experienced was the
tonic needed by a tired and dispirited orchestra; and under him
the orchestra became rejuvenated.

Golschmann is the son of a noted writer, mathematician, and
translator. He was born in Paris on December 16, 1893, and
received his academic education at the Buffon College, and his
musical training at the Schola Cantorum. He began music
study by concentrating on the piano, then abandoned the piano
for the violin because " there were too many pianists in the

234

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

world/' Then he preferred to concentrate on composition and
theory. Actually, all the while he knew only one compelling
ambition in music: to become a conductor. Like Koussevitzky
he used to direct imaginary orchestras in play when he was
a boy.

His schooling ended, Golschmann served as violinist in three
major orchestras of Paris. He realized only too well that play
ing in orchestras was essential preparation for the career he
had set for himself. When he was barely twenty-three, he
joined a small orchestra of seventeen musicians, which included
among its members Jose Iturbi, Lucien Capet, and Jacques
Thibaud. The conductor of this ensemble was at one time
unable to attend the performance and Golschmann was asked
to substitute. This was his first experience with the baton; and
it went well.

A wealthy music patron of Paris, Albert Verley, became ac
quainted with Golschmann and, on one occasion, begged him
to try out for him on the piano some pieces which he (Verley)
had lately composed. Golschmann, always a fluent sightreader,
went through the music smoothly. "When you play these
things of mine," Verley remarked, "it seems to me I can hear
a full orchestra playing. Why don't you become a conductor?"

Golschmann confessed that that was the ambition of his life.

"In that case," answered Verley, putting a blank check on
the table, "you can have your orchestra/'

In 1919, therefore, Golschmann founded the Concerts Golsch
mann in Paris which soon proved among the most eventful con
certs of the season. He placed emphasis on modern music
(though the classics were not neglected), featuring particu
larly the work of the "French Six/'* and other modern spirits

*The "Groupe de Stx" were MM. Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger,
Francis Poulenc, Georges Auric, Louis Durey and Mile. Germaine Tailleferre.

235

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

of French music. Frequently his concerts became the scene for
scandals; hissing, verbal and fist fights, cheers, guffaws, re
flected the varied reactions of the audiences. But these con
certs were vital, pulsatingly alive. Because of Golschmann
new music found a hearing; and through its dynamic perform
ances, young Golschmann acquired fame.

He was invited to direct guest performances with many lead
ing French orchestras; and sign of his growing reputation-
was singled out by the French government to become director
of the Cercle musical at the Sorbonne University. Besides this,
he arranged electrifying festivals of Ravel and Stravinsky music
in Paris, took over the direction of the Diaghilev and the
Swedish ballets, and toured all of Europe in guest appearances
with the foremost orchestras. In 1928, he was appointed per
manent conductor of the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow and

Edinburgh.

Meanwhile he made his reputation in America, first coming
here in 1924 as the conductor of the visiting Swedish Ballet.
He was invited by Walter Damrosch to conduct several con
certs with the New York Symphony Society. He made an ap
pealing figure on the stage; his music had (as Lawrence Gilman
remarked) "vitality . . . power and intensity." Golschmann
returned to the head of the New York Symphony in 1925. In
1931, after successful visits to St. Louis, Golschmann was given
the post which kept him permanently in this country. Through
this post, he has provided young composers everywhere a haven
for their new works.

236

Fabien Sevitzky

Of the major American symphonic orchestras, the Indianapolis
is one of the youngest. That it is by no means a provincial
orchestra is proved by the facts that during the last five seasons
it has broadcast about seventy-five times over the three major
networks, it has made recordings for Victor, it has toured sea
sonally in about thirty cities in nine states, and it ranks with
the Boston and Chicago orchestras in the percentage of first
performances of American works.

It was founded in 1930 on a cooperative basis by Ferdinand
Schaeffer, its conductor until 1936. But it did not become an
orchestra of importance until 1937 when Fabien Sevitzky be
came its permanent conductor, and its support was transferred
to a special organization founded for that purpose, the Indiana
State Symphony Society. It is an orchestra of comparative
youngsters: almost all the players are under thirty-five, and a
good many of them are still in their early twenties. Seventy-
' two of the eighty-five musicians are American born; all others,
except one, are citizens. This, then, is a young, enthusiastic,
energetic American orchestra. And it is led by an enthusiastic
and energetic conductor. It was inevitable for the orchestra to
rise to national prominence.

Fabien Sevitzky has always felt that the first duty of every
conductor in America is towards American music. Not even
Koussevitzky, Stokowski, or Stock have sponsored the music of
our composers more passionately than he. When he first took

237

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

up a baton (in 1925) he inaugurated a policy for himself to
which he has since adhered faithfully: that of including as least
one American work on every program he conducted. He con
tinued this policy when, in 1937, he came to Indianapolis. Of
course, there are times when an all-Beethoven or an all-Tchai
kovsky program made the inclusion of an American work
artistically undesirable. But, in restitution, Sevitzky always
directs at least one ail-American program during the season.
He plays American music so indef atigably because he believes
in it. 'There is unlimited vitality, unlimited power and beauty
in American music. ... In modern American music there is
much that is worthwhile, and some that is great. American
composers have a right to a fair hearing by their compatriots,
and I am doing my best to see that they get it."

About two hundred American manuscripts reach Sevitzky
each season. He is scrupulously diligent about looking through
every piece of music that is sent in to him. He is compelled to
discard about half of the works as unsuitable for public per
formance. The other half he gives a reading at rehearsals.
Those which stand the test of performance successfully are
eventually selected for his programs. During the 1940-41 sea
son he played thirty-two different works by twenty-five Ameri
can composers; the season after that the average was equally
high. In May, 1940, he inaugurated and conducted Indiana's
first festival of American music which promises to be an annual
affair.

In recognition of his efforts for American music, Sevitzky was
honored in 1938 by the National Association of Composers
and Conductors which designated him as having done a greater
service for the American composer than any other single con
ductor. Also because of his contributions to American musk,
he has been given an honorary doctorate by DePauw University,

238

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

the third such degree given by the University since its founding

in 1837.

*

Fabien Sevitzky, a nephew of Serge Koussevitzky, was born
in Vishni-Volotch, near Tver, Russia, on September 29, 1893.
While he was still a boy he moved with his family to St. Peters
burg. There he applied for the Cesar Cui scholarship for the
double bass at the Conservatory (because, as in the case of his
uncle, no scholarship was open for any other instrument) . He
won the scholarship, studied under such masters as Glazunov,
Liadov, and Rimsky-Korsakow, and was graduated in 1911
magna cum laude with the gold medal for double bass (the first
time this coveted medal had ever been awarded for that in
strument) .

After his graduation he played in the orchestra of the Mos
cow Imperial Theatre. Then he toured Russia as a virtuoso,
giving more than 150 concerts in six months. He acquired a
reputation on his instrument second only to that formerly
known by his uncle. In 1915, Sevitzky abandoned music tem
porarily to enlist in the army. He joined the infantry and
during the war served at the front as a despatches a particu
larly perilous assignment. After the Revolution he went to
Moscow, which now remained his home until 1922, playing in
the orchestra of the state theatres and studying acting. For a
while he actually fulfilled a few important roles as an actor in
the movies and acquired a considerable reputation as an inter
preter of character parts.

He escaped from the Soviet Union in 1922. After a harrow
ing experience (which he does not like to describe) he came
to Poland. There, for eight months a year, he worked as
double-bass performer in the orchestra of the State Opera and

239

DICTATORS OP THE BATON

in the Warsaw Philharmonic. During the other four months
he knew the privations of cold and hunger.

In 1923, shortly after his marriage, he sailed for America.
That summer he toured Mexico and South America in joint
concerts with his wife, a well-known singer (Maria Kousse-
vitzky). In the autumn of 1923, Sevitzky joined the Philadel
phia Orchestra as a double bass player.

His first venture at conducting was with a string orchestra
the first permanent string orchestra in the world, incidentally
which he founded in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Chamber
String Simfonietta toured the country giving excellent concerts
of rarely heard old and new music. Besides his work with this
group, Sevitzky gave guest performances with the Philadelphia
Grand Opera Company, and the Pennsylvania Opera. The
demand for his baton services grew so great that, in 1929, he
retired from the Philadelphia Orchestra to devote himself ex
clusively to conducting. He settled in Boston where, from
1930 to 1935, he directed numerous organizations, some of
which he himself had organized among young people. After
1930, he undertook several tours of Europe conducting the
great orchestras of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Warsaw. He
also directed many American orchestras in guest appearances,
including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philhar
monic, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington,
D. C. In 1936, he was invited to Indianapolis, where he gave
such an electrifying concert that he was given a thunderous
ovation. One year later, he returned to Indianapolis this
time as the permanent conductor.

His forceful personality recreated the orchestra; it is acknowl
edged that the history of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
as a major musical organization actually dated from the moment
Sevitzky took command. He built an orchestra of virtuoso

240

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

caliber, youthful in spirit and age. He fired it with the flame
of his own personality. His performances had verve and pas
sion. His dramatized readings made concertgoing an exciting
experience for Indianapolis music lovers.

Equable of temperament, Sevitzky is the answer to the or
chestra's, prayer: a conductor who is a friend to each of the
men (he knows them all intimately) without sacrificing his
authority. He is likeable, gentle in manner, capable of great
affections. He has a ready sense of humor, and a quick, nervous
laugh.

He speaks volubly, and usually with the heat of enthusiasm.
(He prefers to classify his broad Russian accent as "Hoosier.")
His conversations reveal his expansive range of interests which
embrace literature, art, politics, and gastronomy.

He is capable of extraordinary passions. His one hobby is
shooting: He is an expert skeet and trapshot, and has won
many medals for marksmanship. The members of his orches
tra recognized his interest in guns when they gave him a gift
of a fine holster. In foods, he has an insatiable appetite for
carrots. For eighteen years he has eaten carrots in one form
or another for every lunch and dinner. In dress, he has an
amazing partiality for ties. He has what is believed to be the
second largest collection in America (the first largest belongs
to Adolphe Menjou) . His 980 ties come from every part of
the world; and some of them have been woven according to his
own designs.

He is interested in clothes, and is always well tailored. When
he selects his day's wardrobe, he usually chooses his tie first,
and then arranges his other clothing to harmonize with it. For
his conductorial assignments, he has evolved a special evening

241

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

dress which brings him comfort without making any sacrifices
on his appearance. The secret for a conductor's attire, accord
ing to Sevitzky, is room for movement. His stage clothes are
between one and two sizes larger than his street dress, and so
cut as to provide him particular freedom in the movement of
his hands and body without throwing his clothing out of shape.
His stage shoes are high, with special support for arches and
ankles. His stiff-bosomed shirt, fastened down in a manner
originated by himself, withstands the most violent movements
of Sevitzky's conducting.

242

^Alexander Smallens

If Alexander Smallens is more the craftsman than the artist of
the baton, it can at least be said of him that he is a craftsman
of unusual skill. With his adept technique and his flair for
selecting the possible sore spots of an operatic performance and
concentrating on them until they are remedied he can, in
short order, create a highly creditable performance. In a great
variety of operas, ranging from Gluck to George Gershwin
(his repertoire includes more than 150 operas, representing
every school and idiom) he is able to produce a smoothly
functioning performance in which everything proceeds in well-
ordered fashion. It is for this reason that, though officially
attached to no single opera house or symphony orchestra, he
is probably one of the most active conductors in the country.
If there is an unusual first performance which might elude
the experience and capabilities of other conductors, Smallens
can always be counted upon to serve well. He has given the
world, or American, premieres of such diversified modern
fare as Prokofieff' s Love of Three Oranges, tlichard Strauss'
Feuersnot, Stravinsky's Maura, Schonberg's Pierrot Lunaire,
Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts, and George
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess; in at least three of these per
formancesthe works by Prokofieff, Thomson, and Gershwin
the composers themselves designated Smallens for the con
ductor's post. If an opera performance has to be presented
swiftly and efficiently, Smallens is the man most often called

243

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

upon; he is probably the most active summer-season conductor
in the world. Resourceful, intelligent, versatile, a master of
all the technical resources of the baton, he may not have the
interpretative insight, the personal dynamism, or the capacity
to project intensity, passion, or soaring beauty which other
conductors possess. But for all these limitations, he is a val
uable conductor, with an extraordinary span; and our country
is all the richer for his participation.

His extensive experience as conductor began in 1911, when
he was appointed an assistant of the newly-organized Boston
Opera Company, that admirable institution created by Henry
Russell which, during its short career, gave some of the most
impressive opera performances in the country. At that time
Smallens was only twenty-four years old. Born in St. Peters
burg on January 1, 1889, he came to this country as a child and
was educated at the New York public schools, and then at the
College of the City of New York. His music studies took
place at the Institute of Musical Art, and were completed in
Paris at the Conservatory.

Once he assumed his chosen career, he was to hurl himself
into an Almost feverish activity with the baton. He became
conductpr of the Anna Pavlpva troupe, following his appren
ticeship with the Boston Opera Cpmpany, tpuring South and
Central America and the West Indies over a period of two and
a tfalf years. During this time the distinction of being the
first Noth American conductor to direct at the Teatro Colon
in Buenos Aires became his. Other major engagements in
cluded thpse with the Century Opera Company, and the Na
tional Theatre in Havana. In 1919, he was Appointed first
conductor of the Chicago Opera Company, a post he held for
four years. There he directed an extensive repertoire which
comprised some important first performances, including those

244

THE DYNAMIC CONDUCTOR

of Prokofieff's The Love of Three Oranges and Reginald de
Koven's last opera, Rip Van Winkle. At this time he also
toured Europe, appearing successfully at the Staatsoper and
Volksoper in Berlin and the Royal Opera in Madrid, featuring
for the most part the Italian repertory (though in Madrid he
also introduced Max von Schilling's Mona Lisa, at the express
request of the composer) . He was the first American ever to
conduct opera in Berlin and Madrid.

In 1924, he was appointed music director of the Philadelphia
Civic Opera Company, where he gave admirable performances
of operas by Mozart, Gluck, and Richard Strauss. Shortly after
this he became director of the Philadelphia Society for Con
temporary Music, introducing to Philadelphia music audiences
such outstanding new works as Stravinsky's Apollon Musagetes
and UHistoire du Soldat, Hindemith's Hin und Zurilck, and
Malipiero's Sette Canzone. In 1934-35, together with Fritz
Reiner, he conducted an opera season launched by the Phila
delphia Orchestra. After 1934, he conducted every opera
performance at the Lewisohn Stadium, as well as opera and
symphony concerts in summer stadiums throughout the coun
try. He introduced Gershwin's P orgy and Bess during its in
itial run in 1935, and was again its director during its successful
revival in 1942. He has also directed premieres of o.ther inter
esting American operas by Marc Blitzstein (Triple Sec), Leo
Ornstein (incidental music to Lysistrata) , and Virgil Thomson
(Four Saints in Three Acts). And, in 1940, he became the
musical director of the newly organized Ballet Theatre in New
York, with which organization he has introduced such novel
scores as Henry Brant's The Great American Goof and Mil-
haud's La Creation du Monde.

245

Other Orchestras Other zMen

Hans Kindler

Under the astute guidance of Hans Kindler, the National Sym
phony Orchestra of Washington, D. C, has become a "peo
ple's orchestra" an integral element of the cultural life of the
city. It is today supported by the contributions of seven thou
sand music lovers who see to it that the orchestra suffers no
deficits. As a people's orchestra, the National Symphony has
a far more elastic program than merely providing series of
subscription concerts. It has organized students' concerts, visit
ing schools and small public auditoriums and (in 1940-41)
playing for some 20,000 children at an admission fee of twenty-
five cents. In 1935, it launched free summer concerts on the
Potomac River (the orchestra plays on a barge moored off the
shore) ; an average of 20,000 listeners attend each of these con
certs. More recently, it has instituted early Fall 'Top" concerts
when good music combines with refreshments to create an
atmosphere of charming informality.

The orchestra was founded in 1931, year of the economic
famine which was laying waste to many fortunes and, simulta
neously, to so many different phases of our cultural life. Kind-
ler's friends tried to dissuade him at the time from an under
taking so quixotic as the formation of a symphony orchestra
during a period when hardly an American family existed which
had not been affected by the financial disaster. They pointed
out, besides, that seven different orchestras ha,d previously (and
in happier years) been organized in Washington, and all of

249

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

them had failed: Washington, it appeared, was simply not a
city of music lovers. But Kindler insisted that the nations
capital deserved a great orchestra of its own, and should not
be dependent for its musical diet on the crumbs which visiting
orchestras left behind them. Kindler felt that if a fine orchestra
were to function in Washington, there would surely arise audi
ences to listen to it.

With driving perseverance, Kindler found ninety-seven do
nors ready to provide the necessary funds. Carefully selecting
the personnel of his orchestra, Kindler inaugurated a first sea
son of twenty-four concerts which, much to the amazement
of his friends, and to his own quiet satisfaction, were so well
received that at the end of the season the backers were re
turned 31% of their original investment. The second and
third seasons were even more successful. Since then, in line
with Kindler's ambitions to make it a people's orchestra, and
to expand its artistic program, the original ninety-seven donors
grew into seven thousand regular contributors. In 1938, the
orchestra increased its schedule of season's concerts to eighty-
five. It had also launched numerous series of ambitious tours
which brought it as far north as Canada, and as far south as
Florida: between 1932 and 1941, the orchestra gave 263 con
certs in 94 cities outside of Washington.

The work of the National Symphony Orchestra has become
familiar to music lovers throughout the country not only as a
result of these extensive tours, but also through its perform
ances on Victor records, and over the air. It is an excellent
ensemble, one which must be included among the great orches
tras of America. It has spirit and vitality in its performance;
a rich tone and a facile technique. Beyond everything else it is
Kindler' s orchestra: It responds to his every demand with
amazing resilience.

250

OTHER ORCHESTRAS OTHER MEN

The same musicianship and discernment which made him one
of the great cellists of our time, has also made him a discrimi
nating interpreter with the baton. Kindler has instituted in
Washington one of the most extensive repertoires known by
any of our younger orchestras more than 700 numbers, of
which a fair proportion is novelties rarely to be heard else
where. And this extensive and varied repertoire extending
from transcriptions of music by the venerable Frescobaldi to
a new work by the young American, William Schuman is
played with dignity and an appreciation for style. Kindler
may not rise to those empyrean heights to which some other
conductors may soar, but at the same time it can also be said
that he never descends to the depths of cheapness, superfi
ciality, or sensationalism. He is a self-respecting and respected
musician who does justice to the great music he performs, and
serves his art with humility.

He was born in Rotterdam, Holland, on January 8, 1893. As
a student of the Rotterdam Conservatory he won first prizes for
piano and cello. When he was seventeen, he was cello soloist
with the Berlin Philharmonic, and at eighteen he became pro
fessor of the cello at the Scharwenka Conservatory, as well as
first cellist of the .Berlin Opera Orchestra. During this period
he began his concert career and achieved such fame that within
a few months he was invited to give a command performance
before the Queen of Holland.

Coming to the United States in 1914, he was so impressed by
the country that he extended his stay indefinitely. He became
first cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, retaining this post
under Stokowski until 1920. Then his fame as cello virtuoso
had grown to such proportions (and his concert engagements
became so numerous) that he was compelled to resign his
orchestral post and to devote himself exclusively to the concert

251

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

stage. He appeared as soloist with the major orchestras, and
as recitalist in the leading concert halls. In Europe he was
spoken of as the "Kreisler o the violoncello* '; in America no
one less than James Gibbons Huneker wrote that "I do not
expect in my life to hear duplicates of an Elman or a Kreisler,
a Casals or a Hans Kindler."

In 1927-28, he was asked to conduct a special series of orches
tral concerts in Philadelphia and to appear as a guest in other
cities. One of these invitations brought him to Washington,
D. C. It was probably at this time that he first conceived the
idea of organizing an orchestra for the nation's capital.

His baton successes in America and Europe persuaded Kind-
ler to exchange his cello for a conductor's wand. After com
pleting the record tour of his career as cellist in 1929 he
played 110 concerts that season, performing as far west as
California, and as far east as Java he began plans for be
coming a conductor permanently. He had numerous offers to
appear in guest performances with many great orchestras of
America and Europe, which would have kept him busily en
gaged throughout the season. But such a nomadic existence,
journeying from one orchestra to another, did not altogether
satisfy him; He wanted an orchestra of his own, one which
he could shape according to his own tastes. He decided that the
place for such an orchestra was Washington, D. C.

His work in Washington, and his guest appearances with
world-famous orchestras, has placed him among the most gifted
of our younger conductors: It was in recognition of his place
in modern American music that, in 1939, Kindler's name was
inscribed on a panel at the World's Fair as one of the Americans
of foreign birth who has made vital contributions to our cul
ture. What he lacks in sensational appeal, he more than
makes up with sound musicianship and ideals.

252

Victor Kolar

Although the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has, for the most
part, been in the hands of guest conductors since the death of
Ossip Gabrilowitsch, a sizable portion of each season's concerts
has been allocated to Victor Kolar.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1914; but
not until 1919 did it become an organization of national im
portance. In 1918, Gabrilowitsch at that time a novice with
the baton, but one of the world's great pianists was invited
to direct a guest performance with the Detroit orchestra. His
concert made such a profound impression on the audience that,
spontaneously, it rose to its feet to honor him. Gabrilowitsch' s
success brought him a permanent assignment as principal con
ductor of the orchestra. He reorganized it completely. "Intro
spective, extremely sensitive, poetic by nature, soft spoken and
gentle, in horror of display of any kind, disinterested in self-
exploitation, he appealed to his audiences ... for qualities
far different from those of Stokowski; but his appeal was no
less potent," I have written elsewhere about Gabrilowitsch's
conductorial career in Detroit.* "The public came to his con
certs, and they worshipped him. When "he firmly announced
that he would resign his post if a new and suitable auditorium
were not built for the orchestra in time for the opening of the
1919 season, the funds were easily procured. Detroit would
not think of losing its appealing conductor."

* Musk Comes to America, by*David Ewen, Thos. Y. Crowell Co., 1942.

253

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Besides rebuilding his orchestra along new and modern lines,
inaugurating a repertoire such as Detroit had never before
known, and using his influence to acquire a new concert audi
torium, Gabrilowitsch was responsible for another far-sighted
move which was to benefit the orchestra immeasurably. He
imported Victor Kolar from New York to be his assistant in
the preparation of the Detroit concerts. From 1919, there
fore, Kolar's history as a conductor has been inextricably as
sociated with that of the Detroit Symphony.

He is Hungarian by birth, having been born in Budapest on
February 12, 1888. His musical precociousness was early rec
ognized by his father, a professional musician; his talent was,
therefore, nursed and permitted to develop naturally. Before
he could read or write, Victor Kolar could play melodies on
the violin and the piano. As a child, he became a pupil of
Jan Kubelik. Then, after six years with Kubelik, he entered
the Prague Conservatory, where one of his masters was An-
tonin Dvofak.

He graduated with honors. In 1904, he came to the United
States and entered the professional ranks by playing the violin
as soloist with the Chicago Orchestra, then on tour. For a
period, he was a violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Or
chestra, rising to the position of assistant conductor. In 1907,
he was discovered by Walter Damrosch who brought him to
New York to become a violinist and assistant conductor o the
New York Symphony Society. Kolar remained with Dam-
rosch's orchestra until 1919, when he received a call from
Gabrilowitsch to joija him in Detroit.

Besides being Gabrilowitsch' s valuable right hand man,
Kolar was, from time to time, called upon to conduct concerts
of his own; and whenever he did so, he revealed his com
petence. During 1934 he was engaged to direct the Detroit

254

OTHER ORCHESTRAS OTHER MEN

Symphony Orchestra at the Century of Progress Exposition in
Chicago. At this time, he established what must surely be
an orchestral record by directing 162 two-hour concerts, in
cluding forty-eight national broadcasts, over a period of eighty-
six days. More than 800 different compositions were per
formed. Such an assignment calls for an enormous repertoire,
and a facile baton technique; and it can be said that Kolar
met his commitments gracefully.

When Gabrilowitsch died in 1936, Kolar became a principal
conductor of the Detroit Symphony. He has remained at this
post continually since then, sometimes sharing the season with
Franco Ghione, at other times dividing the season's schedule
between himself and a series of visiting leaders.

255

Sugene Qoossens

Eugene Goossens of Cincinnati is not of the dynamic school of
conductors. His performances have classic objectivity high
polish, grace, refinement. Perhaps what keeps these perform
ances from achieving greatness, for all the talent and studied
care which go into their preparation, is the absence of that
very energy and galvanic drive that we find, say, in Kous-
sevitzky or Rodzinski. Goossens is an artist in the finest mean
ing of the term: Fastidiously he carves each line and phrase
with the discernment of a sculptor moulding clay. It is easily
understandable why he enjoys conducting the music of Mozart
more than that of any other composer; for Mozart's classicism
suits Goossens' temperament most happily. Goossens has a
talent of, high order: His is an infallible instinct for correct
accent, for proper nuance, for exact phrasing, If we are not
always deeply impressed by his performances, it is not because
they have not been musically conceived, and brought to life
with artistry it is because an element is lacking; and that
element is the burning fire which is in every immortal con
ductor, which sets the music aflame, as well as the musicians
and audiences.

Eugene Goossens, now occupying the post in which Sto-
kowski served his apprentice years, is not without honor; and
it is honor he well deserves. Eugene Ysaye and Fritz Reiner
held permanent conductorial posts with the Cincinnati Sym
phony before Goossens received the appointment in 1931. One

256

OTHER ORCHESTRAS OTHER MEN

sound reason for Goossens* instantaneous success in Cincin
nati may well have been that the music lovers of the city had
known the dynamic type of conductor for so many years, be
ginning with Stokowski, through Fritz Reiner, that they were
now receptive to more placid music-making.

Goossens accepted the post eagerly, for the Cincinnati Sym
phony Orchestra offered desirable opportunities for a high-
minded conductor. There were no financial problems for the
orchestra to struggle with one certainly enviable condition
under which a conductor can function to best advantage: In
1929, the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, with a treasury of
three and a half million dollars, took over the direction and
financial responsibilities of the orchestra. There were no ar
tistic problems either. The Board of Trustees, governing the
orchestra, (elected by the Institute of Fine Arts) was quite
ready to place the full control of the orchestra in the hands
of the conductor.

Under Goossens, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has
enjoyed a dignified regime during which its right to be num
bered among the great orchestras of America cannot be sub
ject to question. Goossens has established himself solidly in
Cincinnati: There are those who say that he has won his audi
ences so completely that he can have his job as long as he
wants it.

Dapper, elegant, well-poised with the air and manner of
a born aristocrat Eugene Goossens is as neatly trimmed as
his performances. Everything about him is in perfect taste,
everything is under control. He is a suave figure, dressed in
best possible taste by an English tailor and a French shirtmaker
(up to 1939 at any rate) . A cane is an inevitable part of his
everyday attire. His interests traverse a wide range, and reveal
the English gentleman: In sports, he indulges in golf and

257

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

fencing. A solitary evening at home finds him browsing among
his books, of which he is a voracious reader. He likes to dabble
in architecture, making sketches of every house that interests
him. He is particularly fascinated by the sea (a throwback,
no doubt, to his boyhood in Liverpool) . He finds excitement
merely in idling around a busy harbor, absorbing the sights
and sounds. He occasionally indulges in sword-fishing because
it brings him so much closer to the sea. For the same reason,
he once made a hobby of studying the construction of ships,
and could actually recognize any transatlantic liner from a
distance.

The one plebeian note in his diversions is his passion for
locomotives. "Locomotives/* he will tell you, "have a definite
relation with music; they are all rhythm." Pictures of locomo
tives line the walls of his office and study (side by side with
his valuable illuminated manuscripts of early music) . He gets
a schoolboyish delight in putting on regulation railroad attire,
and sitting on an engineer's stool in the cab of a train. He has
frequently done this, in runs between Rochester and New York,
and Cincinnati and Dayton; not so long ago, he even made a
cross-country run on a Southern Pacific train in the engineer's
booth. His one great disappointment is that federal laws pro
hibit him from handling the throttle, an experience for which
he long ago trained himself with professional competence.

Goossens, who was born in London on May 26, 1893, comes
from a family of musicians. His grandfather was a well-
known opera conductor whose name deserves a place in Eng
lish music-history books by virtue of the fact that he con
ducted the first performance of Tannhauser in England. He
was the first conductor employed by the Carl Rosa Opera Com
pany, a position which he passed on to his son (Eugene Goes-
sens' father). "Between them," remarks Goossens, "they pro-

258

HANS KINDLER

VICTOR KOLAR

EUGENE GOOSSENS

KARL KRUEGER

OTHER ORCHESTRAS OTHER MEN

duced probably every well-known opera in the repertoire. ' ' Goos-
sens' mother was a well-known contralto. His brother, Leon,
is one o the greatest living virtuosos of the oboe. Two sisters
are professional harpists; and still another brother distinguished
himself musically before he was killed in the First World War.

Music, therefore, was destined as his career almost from his
very birth. He was taught it in early childhood. When he
was ten he entered the Conservatory in Bruges. Three years
after this, he became a pupil at the Liverpool College of Music
where he won medals for piano, violin, and composition, as
well as a scholarship for the Royal College of Music in London.
He moved perpetually in an atmosphere of music. Besides his
studies at school and at home, he would spend many of his
free hours attending the rehearsals conducted by his father,
absorbing, in the dark and empty auditorium, the musical
sounds. "When I was ten or eleven years old, I was already
familiar with most of the standard operas, having heard them
rehearsed again and again by my father.

"One of my first professional engagements as a boy in Lon
don was when I was called in an emergency to Covent Garden
to substitute for a second violin in the orchestra. Old Hans
Richter was conducting Die Meistersinger, and that gave me
a wonderful experience with one of the greatest of Wagner
interpreters. I played in the orchestra also under Nikisch and
several other noted conductors/' This took place when Goes-
sens was sixteen years old. A year later, he was graduated
from the Royal College, entering music professionally by join
ing the Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry J. Wood.
"I played in the orchestra for several years. My love of the
classics was ingrained from that time on. If there is anything
to the word 'tradition,' I acquired then my feeling for it that
I hope I have not lost. Even taking one season at the Promenade

259

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Concerts at Queen's Hall and playing a different symphony
every night you can imagine that the field of music was well
covered proved a wonderfully comprehensive training in or
chestra literature I could get nowhere else. Not having con
centrated on any particular school or ism, I was better able to
realize the great features of each school of writing/'

Sir Thomas Beecham discovered Goossens and urged him to
become a conductor. In 1916, through Beecham's influence,
Goossens was given his first opportunity to conduct a perform
ance, when he was assigned, at a last moment, to direct an
opera by Stanford, The Critic. The ease with which he went
through this assignment convinced him of the wisdom of
Beecham's advice. "I put my fiddle in its case and never took
it out again/' He became one of the conductors of the Beecham
Opera Company, assisting Beecham in all his performances
over a period of eight years: Beecham, always generous with
advice and criticism, played no small role in Goossens' rapid
development as conductor. Then Goossens received an ap
pointment with the British National Opera Company. During
these few years he was called upon to direct no less than fifty
different operas. Besides these operatic engagements, he was
also assigned performances with the Diaghilev Ballet, the
Handel and Haydn Society, and with orchestras in England
and Scotland.

In 1921, he founded his own symphony orchestra in London
which specialized in the performance of modern music. With
this orchestra he once and for all established his reputation,
and was henceforth frequently invited to give guest perform
ances with the leading European symphonic organizations.

He came to the United States in 1923 already a distin
guished conductor to become the head of the Rochester Phil
harmonic, an office he held with no little distinction for eight

260

OTHER ORCHESTRAS OTHER MEN

years. During this period, he paralleled his European fame
in this country by leading most of the great American orches
tras in specially invited performances, beginning with 1925
when he directed three splendid concerts with the Boston Sym
phony Orchestra. Then, in 1931, following his success in a
pair of guest appearances, he was appointed the permanent
conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

261

4

&&&&^^

Karl Krueger

The Kansas City Symphony Orchestra is the product of its
founder-conductor, Karl Krueger. Born in New York on Janu
ary 19, 1894, the son of a Leipzig University professor, Karl
Krueger was brought up in Atchison, Kansas, where he at
tended the University, graduating in 1916. He studied the
cello and organ, then pursued an advanced musical training
in Boston and New York. His studies ended, he became an
organist in a New York church.

His father urged him to become a lawyer. Acquiescing,
Krueger went to Europe where he studied law and philosophy
at the universities of Vienna and Heidelberg. At the same
time, he continued with his pursuit of music, particularly in
Vienna with Robert Fuchs. When he completed his law
courses, he knew that he still wished to become a professional
musician; and, in music, what interested him most keenly was
conducting. He approached Artur Nikisch and asked to be
his pupil. Nikisch was impressed by Krueger's talent and ac
cepted him. Krueger not only took lessons from the master,
but he also toured with him as his protege and assistant.

, Nikisch sent Krueger to Vienna with an effusive letter of
recommendation to Franz Schalk, the conductor of the Vienna
Opera. Schalk appointed Krueger an assistant conductor of
the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienr^a Opera; it was here
that Krueger acquired his extensive experience in a great and
varied repertoire.

262

OTHER ORCHESTRAS OTHER MEN

In 1926, Krueger received from the United States an offer
to assume the principal conductor's post of the Seattle Sym
phony. "I have no doubt/* Franz Schalk wrote at the time,
"that he will play an important role among the leading or
chestral conductors of his time/' In Seattle, at any rate, Krueger
played a role of importance, for it is generally credited that
his vital performances succeeded in raising the orchestra to a
position of note; there were many who felt that, with Krueger,
the Seattle Symphony had joined the twelve or fifteen leading
orchestras in America.

In 1933, a symphony orchestra was founded in Kansas City,
sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. It called on Karl
Krueger to assume artistic direction and he accepted. He has
since remained the principal conductor of the orchestra, and
through his sincerity and gifts has brought prestige both to
himself and to his orchestra. In May, 1937, Krueger returned
to Vienna for the first time since his apprentice years under
Schalk, and was asked to give several guest performances with
the Vienna Philharmonic. The fact that he had been preceded
by Toscanini who had scored a sensation fn Vienna did not
dissuade Krueger from accepting the invitation. "To conduct
the Philharmonic immediately after Toscanini," commented
the Viennese critic, Ernst Decsey, "and right after his concert
to make an impression, yes, even to win laurels that is some
thing!"

263

Over the Radio

Howard ^Barlow

When Howard Barlow became a conductor at the Columbia
Broadcasting System, he shocked its directors by performing
an entire symphony (Haydn's Military} at one of his radio
concerts. 'The public doesn't want symphonies," they told
him. "Give them short, light numbers/' But Barlow insisted
that radio audiences had a higher intelligence quotient than
a six-year-old, and he played his symphony. He was deluged
by letters of gratitude from every part of the country. Shortly
after this, inspired by the success of his first bold thrust, he
inaugurated a symphony series in which a famous symphony
was played in installments, one movement at a time.

With radio music today on an artistic plane with our con
cert halls, it becomes difficult to remember that only a few
years ago it required the adventurous spirit of a pioneer to play
a complete symphony on the air. Today, not only the sym
phony but even the esoteric music of modern composers, is an
everyday radio event. In this phenomenal growth of- radio
music from childhood to full maturity, only Walter Damrosch
played a role of greater significance than Howard Barlow.
Barlow first came to the radio on the afternoon of September
18, 1927, when he officially helped to inaugurate the Columbia
network by conducting twenty-two musicians in Luigini's Bal
let Egyptienne. Since then, his work with the Columbia net
work, where he has risen to the post of music director, has
been decisive in revolutionizing the standards of musical pro-

267

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

grams over the air. His orchestra has grown from twenty-two
to sixty-five men; from Luigini, his programs have developed
until they included the greatest works of the symphonic reper
tory. This evolution must inevitably form an epochal chapter
in the history of music-making in this country.

Howard Barlow was born in Plain City, Ohio, on May 1,
1892. As a child he was unusually responsive to music. He
sang in church choirs, in one of which he made his official
debut as soloist at the age of six. He also studied the cello,
and was so devoted to his instrument that he wore out one pair
of trousers after another at the knees until his mother sewed
a pair of kneepads to his garment. He was eight when he
heard excerpts from // Trovatore on a player piano; from that
moment on, he was convinced that his life's ambition was to
become a professional musician.

"Music was my greatest source of enjoyment/* he recalls,
"and as our town boasted neither music teachers nor music
stores (except the place where dance records were sold) I was
hard put to it to find the enjoyment I wanted. My only pieces
were a book of Czerny exercises, Schumann's Album for the
Young, and a volume of baritone solos. I learned all of these
on the piano, and then began all over again studying them on
the violin and cello. After that I came to a stop."

His father, who was in the furniture business, had hoped to
see his son succeed him. But once he recognized Howard's
extraordinary aptitude for music, he would not stand in his
way. Perhaps he realized the futility of interference. In those
days he used to say, "Howard is as stubborn as a mule. If he
wants something, he'll get it, even if it takes him ten years."
At any rate, when the Barlow family moved to Denver, Howard
became a music pupil of Wilberforce J. Whiteman (the father
of the famous jazz-ordiestra leader) . He had a taste of con-

268

MEN OVER THE RADIO

ducting, as well, by directing glee clubs and his school orches
tra. At the same time, he continued with his academic studies,
attending the University of Colorado and Reed College.

A scholarship for Columbia University brought Barlow to
New York. New York, musical Mecca, excited the young
music lover. He began to study music more seriously than
ever before. He haunted the concert halls. With the hope
of finding for himself some opening in the professional music
world (for, as he has said, the only letter of introduction he
brought with him to New York was to a cheese merchant!)
he registered at the Columbus Circle Employment Agency as
an "American singer."

He did not get any engagements as singer, but he found
plenty of other work for his talents. He earned his living by
directing choral groups in Bronx, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and
Long Island; by assisting small instrumental groups; by coach
ing singers. When the First World War broke out, he served
first in the Fosdick Commission, then as a private.

It was immediately after the war that Barlow received his
first major assignment as conductor. In 1919, he was invited
to direct the festival of the National Federation of Music Clubs
at Peterboro, New Hampshire. Four years later, he organized
an orchestra of his own, the American National Orchestra, in
which every member was American born and American trained.
The orchestra was not destined for a long life (it continued
functioning for two seasons) ; but it was important in bringing
Barlow some experience in the performance of symphonic
music. At about this time, too, he was called upon to conduct
the world premiere of Charles Wakefield Cadman's opera,
The Garden of Mystery, at a special Carnegie Hall performance.

For a period, he worked at the Neighborhood Playhouse, in
downtown New York, where he arranged the music, wrote

269

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

ballet numbers, conducted the orchestra and on one occasion
even appeared as singer under an assumed name. One of
his notable achievements was his performance of the accom
panying score to the Neighborhood Playhouse successful pro
duction of The Dybbuk.

In 1927, he was offered the job of conductor at the newly
organized Columbia Broadcasting System. At that time, the
post did not promise a great deal of artistic satisfaction for
a young musician with ideals. Good music over the air meant
Victor Herbert, and more Victor Herbert. It meant Godfrey
Ludlow in his fifteen minute violin recitals. It meant Slumber
Music. The great classics (so the radio executives insisted)
were not for mass consumption; and by the same token, the
radio was not appealing to exotic tastes.

But Barlow did not see radio in the same light. He saw it
as a heaven-sent educational force which could educate the
masses into the beauties of great music. He had faith in the
innate intelligence of the people. If they did not like good
music it was only because they had never before come into
direct contact with it. Bring music to them, in full diets
not with spoon feedings and they would learn to appreciate
it. Of this Barlow was convinced; and to that end Barlow was
determined to devote his efforts over the air. Barlow also
knew that a musical post is as important as the man who holds
it. He accepted the radio job, determined to make it a weapon
in his battle for good music.

For such an assignment he was particularly adapted. He
was a man of rather unpretentious musical background. He
had always loved music, and learned about it more as a devoted
amateur than as a professional. His own background had
taught him what the public would take to, and through what
steps. Besides, he had patience and persistence. Howard Bar-

270

MEN OVER THE RADIO

low did not expect to change the musical tastes of the country
overnight: He would feel his ground, move cautiously, then,
when he felt that the moment was ripe, would plunge ahead
to his goal.

"I was certainly nervous before my debut radio performance.
I pictured the 'mike' as a central spot from which countless
wires, endless in length, stretched all over the country. I felt
like a tiny fly caught in the center of a spider's web. But when
the music started, and I felt the baton in my hand, I forgot
everything but the music/*

He took naturally to the radio. And he set about raising
the standards of radio music, deaf to advice and discourage
ment. After introducing a full symphony, and a series of sym
phonies a movement at a time, he started a cycle of great piano
concertos with Ernest Hutcheson as soloist. He conducted
special educational programs called * 'Understanding Music* '
and "Understanding Opera/' He inaugurated afternoon sym
phony concerts, the programs of which gradually approached
symphony hall standards. The fact that his increasingly am
bitious gestures did not alienate his radio audiences but rather
brought into his office an avalanche of congratulatory letters
and telegrams gave him the encouragement he needed; that,
and the weapon with which to break down the resistance of
the radio executives.

Having elevated the standards of radio music (assisted in
this effort by other far-sighted musicians) Barlow launched in
1937 a missionary program for radio on behalf of American
composers. He commissioned the foremost American com
posers to write music expressly for radio use. He featured
these works extensively on his programs. Such famous Amer
ican composers as Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, Howard Han
son, Robert Russell Bennett, and Quincy Porter wrote new

271

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

symphonic works for use by Barlow's orchestra. Other com
posers, like Louis Gruenberg and Randall Thompson, wrote
radio operas. In this way, Barlow has been a force of incal
culable importance in the development and encouragement of
modern American musical expression.

Short, slight of build (he weighs only one hundred and
twenty-three pounds), soft-spoken, unassuming, Barlow does
not make a forceful impression at first glance. He has two
outstanding likes: His Boston bull pup, and orange shortcake.
His one violent prejudice is against cheap music of all kinds.
Though he likes good music, whether it is old or new, classical,
romantic, or ultramodern, he confesses that one work above
all others is his favorite: the prelude to Tristan und Isolde.

272

Frank Tttack

Like Howard Barlow, Frank Black (music director of the
National Broadcasting Company) has risen from comparatively
humble musical origins. No great and glamorous career paved
his way to the radio microphone.

He was born in Philadelphia, on November 28, 1894. His
father, founder and head of a prosperous dairy business, had
every hope that his son would some day take over his work.
But Frank Black had a mind of his own. He studied at Haver-
ford College where he majored in chemistry; he also dabbled
with music, concentrating on playing the piano. Soon after
graduating from college, he was offered two different posts.
One, as chemical engineer, promised a stable economic future.
The other, as a pianist in a hotel in Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) ,
guaranteed more personal satisfaction than financial stability.
Frank Black went to Harrisburg.

After a season of playing the piano, he returned to Phila
delphia to devote himself to further music study. He became
a pupil of Rafael Joseffy, commuting regularly to New York
for his lessons. Joseffy frequently spoke of Black as his fa
vorite pupil.

Black entered music professionally as a writer of songs for
vaudeville. Later he became assistant to Erno Rapee at the
Fox Theatre in Philadelphia, then he edited a magazine de
voted to popular music, then assumed the direction of a phono
graph recording company. During a recording session, he

273

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

came into contact with a vocal quartet called The Revelers.
Black became their piano accompanist and coach; he also made
some tasteful four-voice arrangements of musical master
pieces. These arrangements were largely responsible for later
bringing this quartet its nationwide fame over the radio.

It was the great success of The Revelers which brought Frank
Black to the attention of radio executives. They asked him if
he would consider a radio post. Black (thinking of the de
plorable lack of good music over the air) said he would; but
his ambition in this direction was to organize a string symphony
orchestra, and to conduct it as a regular radio feature in the
best music of all time. The idea, at the time, appeared fan
tastic to the executives, convinced as they were that there was
no place for good music over the air. However, when there
was a need for some orchestral music, Black was frequently
called upon to serve as conductor. It was the success of these
performances and the clamor of radio audiences for more of
them that finally tempted radio officials to gamble with Black.
They permitted him to organize his own orchestral group, and
assigned him a regular radio spot.

From this time on, Black devoted himself assiduously to the
cause of good music over the air; and few musicians have
served this cause so stubbornly. In 1928, Black was appointed
musical director of NBC. With this appointment, good music
over the air reached man's estate. As conductor of the Magic
Key Hour, the String Symphony, and the NBC Orchestra, Frank
Black persistently brought the greatest music of the past and
the present to his nationwide audiences. He was not afraid of
striking new trails. One of his more recent radio series, for
example, was devoted exclusively to the works of young and
lesser known American composers who, Black felt, deserved a
hearing.

274

ALFRED WALLENSTEIN

HOWARD BARLOW

FRANK BLACK

ERNO RAPEE

MEN OVER THE RADIO

The post of music director of NBC make no mistake about
it! is no sinecure. It has been some years since Black has
enjoyed a vacation from his many arduous and taxing assign
ments. He rises early enough in the morning to be at his desk
at Radio City well before eight o'clock. Between eight and
nine, he outlines his work for the day, and attends to numerous
routine details. At nine o'clock his office becomes a beehive of
activity: Letters, telegrams, messages have to be read and an
swered; the phone rings almost uninterruptedly; manuscripts of
musical compositions have to be acknowledged.

A day's work for Frank Black could exhaust the energy and
time of a half-dozen different men. New scores have to be
read and passed upon; radio auditions of young artists have to
be attended; there are consultations with staff conductors and
musicians; the purchase of all musical instruments must be
personally supervised; orchestral arrangements of various musi
cal masterpieces have to be made for use on his programs
(Black has made numerous charming and effective string or
chestra arrangements of great piano sonatas of Mozart and
Beethoven); there are the rehearsals with the orchestra; and
there are conferences with radio executives. A day of work
does not end for Black until nine in the evening; but frequently
Bkck is still hard at work at his office till well past midnight.

In this feverish program of activity which consumes six days
a week, fifty-two weeks a year, there is no time for diversions.
Black enjoys rifle-shooting, and he would consider himself for
tunate if he could find the time to putter around aimlessly on a
farm. But the pursuit of such hobbies must wait for some dis
tant future. Meanwhile, Black gets his exercise by walking
briskly each day from his home in East 57th Street to Radio
City; and he finds relaxation by handling his precious collection
of first editions and musical manuscripts.

< 275

3

^Alfred Wallenstein

Alfred Wallenstein of the Mutual Broadcasting System has
come to radio work by way of a comprehensive training in
several great American orchestras and under world-famous con
ductors. Like Barlow and Black, he is of American birth. He
was born in Chicago on October 7, 1898, of distinguished
German lineage: one of his ancestors was Waldenstein von
Wallenstein, the national German hero of the seventeenth cen
tury. Soon after Alfred's birth, the Wallenstein family moved
to Los Angeles. When he was eight years old he was asked
which he preferred for a birthday gift: a bicycle or a cello. He
chose a cello, and began its study with Mme. von Grof e, mother
of the famous jazz arranger and composer, Ferde Grofe.*
After a period of additional study in Leipzig with Julius
Klengel, Wallenstein made his concert debut in Los Angeles,
five years after having taken his first lesson. He achieved a
certain measure of fame in Southern California as a prodigy.
For a year he toured the vaudeville houses of the country on
the Orpheum circuit. Then, returning to California, he as
sumed a post with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He
was so young at the time that before he was given a contract
with that orchestra, he had to promise its conductor, Alfred
Hertz, that he would henceforth wear long trousers.

In 1917, he was engaged by Anna Pavlova to tour with her
in South and Central America.

* The real family name was "von Grofe,"

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MEN OVER THE RADIO

After three years with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which
he had joined in 1919, Wallenstein was engaged by Frederick
Stock to occupy the first cello chair of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. For seven years he remained in Chicago, not only
performing the orchestral repertoire, but also frequently ap
pearing as soloist. His work attracted the attention of Tosca-
nini who, in 1929, brought Wallenstein to New York for the
first cello post with the New York Philharmonic. Toscanini
had a high regard for Wallenstein's musicianship. He fre
quently advised him to abandon his cello and to turn to con
ducting. Such advice and coming from such a source was
not to be taken lightly; it touched the strings of Wallenstein' s
inmost ambitions. He had, as a matter of fact, already acquired
some taste for conducting an orchestra. In 1931, he directed
a radio concert. After a summer session at the Hollywood
Bowl in 1933, he organized his now famous Sinfonietta for
WOR. Then his swift rise to popularity brought him the office
of musical director of WOR in February, 1935. That he did
not abandon his orchestral job impulsively to consider only
conductorial work was only because of his devotion to Tosca
nini. Toscanini had often said that, in conducting the Philhar
monic, he counted heavily on such men as Wallenstein. As
long as Toscanini needed him, Wallenstein was determined
to stay.

Then, in 1936, Toscanini resigned his Philharmonic post,
Wallenstein no longer felt bound by his conscience to remain
at his desk. By this time he had already made a name for him
self in radio. He, therefore, forsook his orchestral duties as
cellist and devoted himself exclusively to his radio assignments.

A man of many different tastes, ranging from the indoor
sport of poker to the outdoor pastime of deep-sea fishing,
from playing tennis and billiards to watching boxing matches,

277

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Wallenstein's one abiding passion remains music. He has be
trayed that passion through the catholicity of his tastes; and
through his restless bent for musical explorations which have
sent him into forgotten lands in search of new musical spices.
In his office as music director of the Mutual Broadcasting Sys
tem, he has brought a veritable horn of plenty to radio; there
have been endless riches for every taste and every preference.
One series he has devoted to all the church cantatas of Johann
Sebastian Bach; another to all the piano concertos of Mozart
(with Nadia Reisenberg as soloist) ; still another, to operas by
Mozart, including some never before heard in this country. He
has unearthed old music, long forgotten, and restored it to
the world symphonies by Stamitz and Telemann, suites by
Rameau, Couperin and Alessandro % Scarlatti, overtures by
Johann Christian Bach and Sacchini. He has conducted other
works, the ink of which was still wet on the manuscript: Not
the least distinguished of his many memorable cycles was one
dedicated to modern American choral music, and another to
modern American operas.

His distinguished work over the radio has not passed un
noticed. For several years successively he won the award of
the National Federation of Music Clubs because of his signifi
cant contributions to American music. In 1940, a national poll
of radio editors placed him third among those who made the
most eventful musical contributions to the radio, the other two
being Toscanini and Barbirolli. In 1942 he was given the
George Peabody Radio Award for distinguished musical serv
ices, sometimes referred to as the "Pulitzer Prize of the Radio/'

*

That orchestral concerts over the air frequently cannot stand
measure with those in symphony halls is not exclusively the
fault of their conductors. Unfortunately, radio symphonic

, 278

M K N O V R R THE RADIO

performances call for hasty preparation, except in the case of
:he NBC Orchestra directed by a Toscanini or a Stokowski. It
is not possible for a Wallenstein or a Barlow to concentrate on
the minutiae of a performance as other conductors are able to
do for a public concert. There is, in consequence, some superfi
ciality and there are evidences of hasty preparation. Yet con
ductors like Howard Barlow, Frank Black, and Alfred Wallen
stein have proved their baton gifts even under such unfavorable
auspices. Listening to their concerts over an extended period
is to be aware of their sound musicianship, their versatility, their
fine flexibility in changing with every different idiom. Their
performances might lack the breadth, epic scope, sweep, di
mension which other conductors can achieve; but they ire sensi
tive interpreters, who fill their posts with dignity.

They have also proved their gifts with excellent guest per
formances with American orchestras, where they are permitted
to work to best advantage. Howard Barlow combines his radio
work with the post of principal conductor of the Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra, in which he succeeded Werner Janssen in
1939; he has also given guest performances with the New York
Philharmonic (at the Lewisohn Stadium), and with the Phila
delphia Orchestra (at Robin Hood Dell) . Frank Black has
conducted the NBC Orchestra. Alfred Wallenstein has di
rected concerts with the major orchestras of Philadelphia, Cleve
land, and Los Angeles. In these performances even more than
in their concerts over the air the musicians have proved their
worth. They may not be in the class of Toscanini, Stokowski,
or Koussevitzky; but conducting has room for others besides
immortals. Radio need not feel apologetic about the three
major conductors it has produced; they can stand with self-
respect in the company of America's foremost exponents of the
baton.

279

Erno Rapee

Erno Rapee belongs in this group of conductors not because he
is a great interpreter, but because he, too, has wielded a notice
able influence. As a conductor of a New York motion-picture
house orchestra, it would seem that his musical sphere is a
limited one. Yet by enlisting the radio microphone, he has
extended that sphere until its periphery borders the entire
country. Eloquent words might be spoken of the manner in
which he improved the standard of music in the cinema theatre;
how, where other conductors satisfied themselves (and their
audiences) with a convenient library of musical charivari you
know, Hearts and Flowers and Rustle of Spring, (in a more
expansive mood) the Raymond and Poet and Peasant over
tures ad nauseam he leaned more heavily on great music. He
introduced a modern and fully equipped symphony orchestra
into the movie theatre, instead of employing the haphazard
assortment of instruments which satisfied the other conductors.
And with this orchestra he proved that the greatest music of
all time could be as palatable to movie audiences as the more
banal pieces, and much more serviceable for the purposes of
good theatre.

All this is very significant in its own way; but it is hardly
significant enough to have assigned to Rapee national impor
tance as a conductor. His fame, and his significance, stem
rather from his work over the radio. Each Sunday afternoon
he has conducted the Radio City Music Hall Symphony Or-

280

MEN OVER THE RADIO

chestra in programs which did not speak down insultingly to
its audiences; on the contrary, it quietly assumed that symphony
hall standards applied to the radio as well. Rapee has fea
tured cycles which would do honor even to the greatest of our
orchestras: One was devoted to all the Sibelius symphonies;
another to the Rachmaninoff piano concertos; still another to
modern music the first time, I believe, that an American
orchestra attempted such a panorama and on such a scale; a
fourth to the "Wagner music-dramas, and a fifth to Italian
opera; a sixth to the nine Mahler symphonies, including that
gargantua of orchestral music, the Eighth Symphony, last
heard in New York in 1912 under Stokowski.

However much one may wish to be generous to Rapee be
cause of these (and other) achievements, it is difficult to
ascribe to him any outstanding distinction as a performer. He
has played a rich repertoire over a period of many years, touch
ing every style and idiom; he has a long list of first perform
ances to his credit as well. Yet rarely has he satisfied us, and
never (to the best of my memory) has he moved us. He plays
all the notes and that is about alL The guiding hand of the
artist is never in evidence. It is surface music, more in the
nature of a fluent reading than an interpretation of an artistic
conception* Granted that his performances are necessarily
hastily prepared yet, if he were a compelling personality of
the baton, guided by sound musical instincts and strong artistic
compulsions, there would occasionally emerge, even in superfi
cially rehearsed performances, moments of grandeur, moments
when the poetic speech of an artist rings loud and clear. Be
sides, as a guest of many famous orchestras in the East and the
West including the San Francisco Symphony and the Phila
delphia Orchestra he has had the opportunity to prove him
self; and it cannot be said that he has done so.

281

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Yet, we must repeat, if he is not an artist to inspire emulation
for his interpretations, he does arouse admiration for his high
purpose. When the musical historian of the future traces the
evolution of our musical growth, he will no doubt find that in
this growth Rapee played his part, and played it well.

Erno Rapee was born in Budapest on June 4, 1891. A child
prodigy on the piano, he studied at the National Academy of
Music in Vienna with Emil Sauer. Graduating, he accepted
his first baton assignment, as assistant to Ernst von Schuch
with the Dresden Orchestra. Not given enough work to sat
isfy his restless temperament, he resigned to return to his
piano. He toured Europe in recitals and in guest appearances
as soloist with the great orchestras.

In 1912 he came to the United States and became a pianist
at the Monopole Restaurant on New York's East Side. For the
next few years he fulfilled a variety of musical assignments,
ranging from an assisting artist with such chamber music en
sembles as the Letz Quartet to conductor of Hungarian opera
at Webster Hall in downtown New York.

He met S. L. Rothaf el (the Roxy of motion-picture fame) ,
then the enterprising manager of the Rivoli Theatre, who of
fered him the post of conductor at this theatre. From this
time on began an association between Rothafel and Rapee
which was to continue for many years and exert a decisive
influence on music in the motion-picture theatre. Wherever
Rothafel went, in his meteoric rise as showman, there Rapee
went with him: from the Rivoli to the Capitol, to the Roxy,
finally to the grandiose Radio City Music Hall. la these various
theatres Rapee has given some 20,000 performances of serious
musical works since 1918, when he launched his ambitious plans

282

MEN OVER THE RADIO

by directing Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave Overture (the first
time, I believe, that so dignified a work was performed in a
motion-picture house). As early as 1921 he had advanced
sufficiently toward the goal he had set for himself by per
forming for his movie audiences a work so esoteric as Richard

Strauss' Ein Heldenleben and it must be remembered that in

1921 Ein Heldenleben was not quite so familiar to music lovers
as it is today! "Movie theatre orchestras, I am sure, helped to
pave the way for the splendid growth of symphony orchestras
in America/* Rapee once told an interviewer. There can be
no doubt that they played at least a minor role in this devel
opment.

There have been several brief periods of interruption in
Rapee's long and active career in the motion-picture theatre
field. In 1925, Rapee went to Germany to serve as director of
a chain of 180 UFA motion-picture theatres, at which time he
introduced to Germany American standards of motion-picture
entertainment. Shortly after this he worked in Hollywood, and
in 1931 he became music director of the National Broadcasting
Company. But, feeling that his place was with the baton,
Rapee always strayed back to his duties as conductor, fre
quently sacrificing a more substantial annual income to do so.

283

(Conductors for Tomorrow

Izler Solomon

Because so much more than native musical talent is required for
conducting integration of personality, maturity, culture, and
experience the baton has never been kind to child prodigies.
From time to time there emerges a youngster whose innate
musicianship and intuitive feelings for musical expression
bring him (momentarily at any rate) to the head of an orches
tra. But these have never been very happy musical events;
they always assumed the aspects of a circus performance rather
than a respectable and dignified artistic exhibition. Children
have been known to perform major concertos of Mozart, Bee
thoven, or Brahms on the violin or the piano with insight
and stylistic distinction children like Heifetz, Josef Hofmann,
and Menuhin. I do not know of any occasion when a sym
phony of Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms was conducted with
equal understanding by a child conductor, though many have
tried. I will go even further: Of the children who have attracted
some notice as prodigy conductors not one, to my knowledge,
has developed into a fully realized artist. Willy Ferrero, the
American born son of an Italian clown, is no exception, though
he is today a professional conductor. He made his debut at
the age of six at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, following which
he appeared with many leading European orchestras. He in
spired admiration because of his intuitive feeling for rhythm
and tempo, which made it possible for him to direct works
like Wagner's Meistersinger Overture and Beethoven's Fifth

287

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Symphony with technical assurance. Ferrero has been con
ducting in Italy in recent years but it can hardly be said that
he is a formidable artist or that he has in any way lived up to
his early promises.

Only recently a child conductor excited admiration and pub
licity in New York with guest performances with the NBC
Orchestra. Lorin Maazel, aged eleven, was the first child ever
to direct a major American orchestra, and he directed it in
programs which would have taxed the experience and equip
ment of a much older musician. The story goes that at the age
of eight he revealed he could read a full orchestral score; that
on his ninth birthday (as his gift) he was given the opportunity
to rehearse an orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Marcbe Slav. His
career began officially with the National Youth Orchestra which
he directed at the New York World's Fair. A guest perform
ance at the Hollywood Bowl (where he shared the baton with
Stokowski) prefaced his New York appearances with Tosca-
nini's orchestra.

, But young Maazel, for all his apparent talent, has proved
himself to be little more than a routined time-beater. He
seems to know the music he conducts, and he responds to it
emotionally. He has a good ear. But he has no understanding
of the artistic forces which give the music its dramatic, emo
tional, or lyric greatness. He plays bar by bar as if he had
been taught to do so by rote; of imagination, sensitive refine
ment, artistic planning or design there are not the slightest
traces.

Consequently, if we are to search for the conductors for to
morrow, we will not find them among child prodigies, fyut
rather among young men who have already reached man's
estate and have had an opportunity to prove their talents.
Your prodigy conductor is a man having approached maturity.

288

CONDUCTORS FOR TOMORROW

Erich Leinsdorf, aged thirty, is unquestionably one of tomor
row's conductors; but Leinsdorf already is of our own time as
well, holding as he does one of the major conductorial posts
in this country at the Metropolitan Opera House,

One of the younger men who has yet to acquire a permanent
post of first importance but who most certainly will is Izler
Solomon. His work with lesser organizations has been so
meritorious that he bears careful watching. Solomon has never
had a conducting lesson in his life. But he has such a natural
bent in that direction that he has acquired an entire conservatory
education from his experiences. There is nothing about his
performances today to suggest inadequate preparation. He has
mastery of the baton and orchestra and score; he has sound
instincts and tastes; he has authority. These qualities and his
extraordinary personal magnetism have brought him far; and
they will carry him much further.

He was born in St Paul, Minnesota, on January 11, 1910.
In 1919 his family moved to Kansas City, where he began
to study the violin. His aptitude for music attracted some at
tention. A Kansas City organization subsidized him. Coming
East, he divided his time between New York and Philadelphia,
studying music, playing in orchestras, and attending concerts.
The concert hall was, as a matter of fact, his principal con
servatory. It was there (most frequently at Stokowski's con
certs in Philadelphia) that he acquired discrimination and back
ground these, and his ambition to become a conductor.

In 1928 Solomon was appointed facility member in the de
partment of music at Michigan State College in East Lansing.
He was assistant there to Michael Press, who took him in hand
and gave him private lessons in violin playing and in musical
interpretation.

Solomon first tried his hand at conducting in East Lansing.

289

DICTATORS OP THE BATON

He was responsible for the formation of a city orchestra, of
which he was designated to be the concertrnaster. The sudden
death of its conductor, just before the concert, placed the direc
torial responsibility in Solomon's hands. He remained the
conductor of the orchestra after the first concert.

It was the Music Project of the Federal Works Administra
tion that discovered Solomon. He , had convinced the Emer
gency Relief Administration of the need for a state music-
director and was given the post. He worked out an elaborate
program for the musical activity of the state which later became
a model for all other similar ventures throughout the country,
Guy Maier, regional director, was so impressed by Solomon's
capabilities that, before long, he transferred him to Chicago
and there placed him in charge of the Illinois Symphony Or
chestra, a WPA organization.

Solomon led this orchestra for six years, and matriculated as
a professional conductor. He compiled an admirable record
of first performances of modern works by European and Ameri
can composers, and gave Chicago its first hearings of sym
phonies by Shostakovitch, Sibelius, and Khrennikov. Besides
this, he developed an admirable symphonic body which made
important artistic contributions to the cultural life of the city.
Nikolai Sokoloff , national director of the WPA, referred to the
Illinois Symphony as the best WPA orchestra in America.

In 1939 Solomon was appointed director of the Women's
Symphony Orchestra in Chicago. This orchestra was also de
veloped by him into an excellent ensemble. One year later it
was sponsored on a weekly national hook-up radio program
which, incidentally, helped to popularize Solomon's name.
During the past few seasons he has also made numerous
guest appearances with major American orchestras, including
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NBC Orchestra, the Chicago

290

DEAN DIXON

SYLVAN u-vix

CONDUCTORS FOR TOMORROW

Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, In these assignments
Solomon has again and again given striking evidence of his
growing powers as interpreter and his ever increasing com
mand of an extensive and varied repertoire.

There seems every reason to believe that his continued
growth and evolution will place him in an imposing position
among the leading American conductors of tomorrow. Cer
tainly no other young conductor of recent years has given us
so much reason for optimism.

291

Dean Dixon

Another young conductor whose work gives us every reason for
faith in his future is Dean Dixon, the only Negro conductor
ever to direct a major American orchestra. Dixon's career is
the triumph of talent over the greatest obstacle which -can be
placed in the way of a young musician acquiring conductorial
assignments: race prejudice. His appearances with the NBC
Orchestra and, at the Lewisohn Stadium, with the New York
Philharmonic revealed a definite baton personality with fine
interpretative gifts and an ability to lead men. It is not an
easy road that has brought a Negro to the conductor's stands
of two great American orchestras. That the road has, at last,
been traversed speaks well both for Dixon's capabilities and
for the capacity of true talent to assert itself.

His mother, who was passionately fond of music, designated
him for a musical career. She would carry him in her arms,
while he was still a baby, to the gallery of Carnegie Hall, where
he would listen attentively for part of the program and then
would comfortably fall asleep. Popular music was tabu in the
Dixon household. Dean was never permitted to touch the
radio. "As soon as he came in the house/* his mother con
fessed, "the radio got out of order. That was a kind of family
custom. And when he complained that all of the other chil
dren, in other homes, listened to the radio, we told him that
somebody had to play the music that came over the air and that
if he studied hard he might do that when he grew up/'

292

CONDUCTORS FOR TOMORROW

He showed a native equipment for music. He had perfect
pitch, and was able, as a child, to identify any note or com
bination of notes that were struck on the piano. Beginning
the study of the violin at the age of three-and-a-half, he proved
he could learn musical lessons easily, though only the firm in
sistence of his mother could keep him at the merciless grind of
daily practice. His music teacher definitely pronounqed him a
boy of talent when he was thirteen. A few years later,
through the offices of Harry Jennison, head of the music de
partment of De Witt Clinton High School (from which Dixon
was graduated in 1932), he entered the Institute of Musical
Art. At the same time he continued his academic studies at
Columbia University, acquiring a Master's Degree, then taking
the necessary courses for a doctorate. In 1936 he was passed
on to the Juilliard Graduate School with a fellowship in con
ducting.

He had been conducting as early as 1932 when he organized
his own orchestra at a Harlem Branch of the YMCA. At first
his orchestra consisted only of one violin and one piano; and
his baton was a pencil But he continued building up and
working with his orchestra until it grew into an ensemble of
seventy musicians recruited from the neighborhood. He used
his own lunch money to finance the venture for the purchase
of the music and musical instruments, and for renting re-'
hearsal rooms until (in 1937) a group of women became
interested in his venture and decided to subsidize it. The Dean
Dixon Symphony Orchestra gave annual concerts which eventu
ally attracted such widespread attention that word of its out
standing work reached Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. A concert by
Dixon's orchestra was arranged at the Heckscher Theatre which
succeeded in focusing the limelight upon its brilliant young
conductor.

293

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

Sometime before this Heckscher Theatre concert, Dixon con
ducted his first concert at Town Hall. Several other minor en
gagements followed until, in 1940, he was given the baton over
the National Youth Administration Orchestra. He conducted a
cycle of Beethoven symphonies, and many other ambitious pro
grams (including new music by young American composers) .
His pronounced baton talents were always in evidence. "Work
ing with a group of inexperienced youngsters whose natural
boisterousness was not always under control, he was confronted
with a special disciplinary problem," wrote Ella Davis in the
New York Times, "He solved it with patience. Once when a
player persisted in talking while other instruments were re
hearsing, Dixon stopped and asked the offender to play his
own part, which he did, from beginning to end. When the
solo was finished and the others had remained perfectly
still throughout Dixon said quietly, 'All right. Now you can
talk while we play'/'

Samuel Chotzinoff, music director of the NBQ attended
Dixon's concert at the Heckscher Theatre and was so impressed
by the performance that he contracted the young conductor to
direct the NBC Symphony Orchestra for two concerts. Young
Dixon, who had already proved that he could handle young
sters and amateurs, now displayed professional skill in directing
a world-famous ensemble.

Once again quoting Miss Davis: "He literally never raises
his voice. When he does get impatient or angry, which isn't
often, he resorts to withering sarcasm. . . . His authority stems,
not from a sense of personal power, but from his knowledge
of the music. Dixon can play, and is familiar with the diffi
culties and limitations of every instrument in his orchestra
which makes him appear to the lay observer surprisingly tol
erant of poor playing in the face of his avowed desire for per-

294

CONDUCTORS FOR TOMORROW

faction. For this very reason, however, he is able to convey
without lengthy explanations just what he wants from the vari
ous instruments.

"When Dixon appeared for his first rehearsal with the NBC
Orchestra . , . Mr. Chotzinoff had some qualms as to how the
players, veterans all, would react to this young man whose
name was unknown to most of them. The guest conductor
stepped to the podium, raised his baton (he conducts without
one now) and the men gave him everything he asked for.
He knew exactly what he wanted and wasted no time talking,
From the very beginning he was master of the situation."

295

Sylvan Levin

A major experiment in opera performances successfully operated
in Philadelphia has brought the work of its resourceful young
conductor, Sylvan Levin, to the attention of the music world.
The Philadelphia Opera Company was founded in 1938 by
C David Hocker and Sylvan Levin "to attract a new audience
to opera as well as to revitalize the art itself, and at the same
time to offer opportunities not available elsewhere for Ameri
can singers and composers to develop in the lyric art." It has
succeeded well in all these aims. It has attracted new audiences
to opera by presenting it in the English language, and in fresh
ened and modernized translations. It has, to a measure, re
vitalized the art by boldly inaugurating experiments in stage
direction (at the hands of Dr. Hans Wohlmuth) and in scenic
design. It has also undertaken a fresh and inviting repertoire
combining old operatic favorites with such less frequently heard
masterpieces as Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (performed
one year before the Metropolitan Opera House revival) , Ravel's
UHeure Espagnol, Reznicek's Spiel oder Ernst, and the Puc
cini trilogy of one-act operas, now presented in America in its
complete form for the first time. Opportunities have been
offered to American singers provided by no other source by
offering them the major roles as well as the minor ones: There
is no "star system" in Philadelphia. In the same season one
singer may be called on for a minor role in one opera and for
a leading role in the next. All the members of the company

296

CONDUCTORS FOR TOMORROW

are required to attend every rehearsal of every opera, so that
they might become intimately familiar with every role. Finally,
the American composer has been represented by the world pre-
mire of Deems Taylor's Ramuntcko and by the first opera
house performance of Gian Cario-Menotti's radio opera, The
Old Maid and the Thief.

All this and Sylvan Levin's intelligent, painstaking and
sensitively musical direction have put the Philadelphia Opera
Company prominently on the musical map of our country.

Levin, like Rodzinski and Ormandy, is a Stokowski discovery;
the direction of his career was given a powerful impetus by the
Philadelphia conductor. Born in Baltimore on March 2, 1903,
he studied at the Peabody Conservatory. After his graduation
he supported himself by playing the piano in motion-picture
theatres, night clubs, and hotels. In 1927 a scholarship enabled
him to return to music study to the Curtis Institute, where he
was a piano pupil of Moriz RosenthaL

He met Stokowski in 1929, and from that moment on his
ambition was to become a conductor. Stokowski became in
terested in him, encouraged him to think of conducting as a
career, and gave him all-important advice and criticism. When
Stokowski decided to present Moussorgsky's Boris Godunoi
(in its original orchestration) with the Philadelphia Orchestra,
he entrusted the task of coaching the singers to Levin.

From now on Levin was intimately associated with Sto
kowski, and was his right hand man in the preparation of
every ambitious concert. Stokowski's performance of Alban
Berg's Wozzeck, one of the most pretentious undertakings of
the Philadelphia Orchestra, was prepared in every detail by
Levin,

His official debut as conductor took place in 1930 when he
directed a performance of Gianni SMcchi with the Philadel-

297

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

phia Grand Opera Company. Levin remained conductor of
this organization for three years, conducting ten different
operas. He also turned to the direction of symphonic music,
appearing as a guest at the Robin Hood Dell in the summer
of 1932, and, one year later, collaborating with Leopold Sto-
kowski in a commercial fifteen-minute broadcast of symphonic
music over a nationwide network (Levin conducted some sixty
of these programs) . In 1933 he helped to found the York
(Pennsylvania) Symphony Orchestra, which he led until 1936.
He also conducted several other orchestras throughout the
country.

When C. David Hocker decided to launch a new opera com
pany in Philadelphia along original and progressive lines
he called upon Sylvan Levin to help him. Levin has remained
the principal conductor of this organization since that time and,
despite the variety of operas he was called upon to direct, has
always performed with dignity and distinction.

298

zAppendii

'IX

1

^zstfg^^

zA Select 'Bibliography

A. ON CONDUCTING

BACHRACH, A. L. (Editor), The Musical Companion ("The
Conductor's Role," by Julius Harrison). London: V. Gol-
lancz, 1934.

BARBIROLLI, JOHN (with STEPHEN WEST): 'The Con
ductor and his Orchestra." Etude, October, 1938.

BERLIOZ, HECTOR, An of Conducting. New York: Carl
Fischer, 1936,

BOULT, ADRIAN, Handbook on Conducting, London: H.
Reeves, 1922.

EARHART, WILL, The Eloquent Baton. New York: Wit-
mark & Sons, 1931,

GEHRKENS, K, W., Essentials in Conducting. Boston: Oliver
Ditson, 1919,

HOWARD, JOHN TASKER: "The Orchestra Conductor/'
Harper's Magazine, November, 1937.

MAXKO, NICOLAI (with LUDWIG WIELICH): "Practical
Hints for the Conductor/' Etude, February, 1941.

ORMANDY, EUGENE (with JAY MEDIA): "Be Ready for
Your Opportunity/' Etude, June, 1938.

REINER, FRITZ (with ROSE HEYLBUT): "The Secrets of
Conducting/' Etude, July, 1936.

SAMINSKY, LAZARE, Music of Our Day. New York: Thos.
Y, Crowdl> 1932.

301

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

SCHERCHEN, HERMANN, Treatise on Conducting. London:
Oxford University Press, 1934.

SIMON, ROBERT E,, Jr. (editor), Be Your Own Musk Critic
(' 'Facing the Conductor/' by Leon Barzin). New York:
Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1941.

WAGNER, RICHARD, On Conducting. London: William
Reeves, 1897.

WEINGARTNER, FELIX, On Conducting. London: B. and
H, 1906.

WILSON, ROBERT B., The Technique of Orchestral Con
ducting. London: The Macmillan Co., 1937.

B. ON CONDUCTORS

ARMSBY, LAURA WOOD,, Musicians Talk. New York: The
Dial Press, 1935.

CHOTZINOFF, SAMUEL: "Practical Orpheus: Stokowski,"
New Yorker, March 21, 1931.

DAMROSCH, WALTER, My Musical Life. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926.

DREYFUS, G.: "Notes on Conducting: Conversations with
Koussevitzky," Atlantic Monthly } December, 1936.

EWEN, DAVID, Living Musicians. New York: H. W. Wil
son Co., 1941.

EWEN, DAVID, The Man With the Baton. New York : Thos.
Y. Crowell Co., 1936.

FRANKENSTEIN, ALFRED V.: "Meet Mr. Monteux," Victor
Record Review, September, 1941.

FRANKENSTEIN, ALFRED V.: "Twenty-five Years a Con
ductor: Frederick Stock/* Review of Reviews (U.S.), Jan
uary, 1930.

OILMAN, LAWRENCE, Arturo Toscanini and Great Music.
New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1938.

302

APPENDIX

HEYLBUT, ROSE: "Sir Thomas Beecham Has His Say,"
Etude, April, 1942.

HUSSEY, D.: "Bruno Walter at a Rehearsal/* Saturday Re
view (London), January 3, 1925.

LEVANT, OSCAR, A Smattering of Ignorance. New York:
Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1940.

LOURIE, ARTHUR, Serge Koussevitzky and His Epoch. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1931.

LUDWIG, EMIL: "Bruno Walter: Leader and Dreamer," New
York Times Magazine, October 8, 1933.

MCMAHON, THOS. P. (with KATHARINE HOFFMAN):
"Front Page Maestro: Leopold Stokowski," Today, April 18,
1936.

NEWMAN, ERNEST: "Serge Koussevitzky," American Mer
cury, January, 1924.

NICOTRA, TOBIAS, Arturo Toscanini. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., 1929.

PIASTRO, MISHEL: ''Genius Fortissimo: Arturo Toscanini/'
Collier's, December 25, 1937.

PIERCE, ARTHUR D.: "Stokowski," American Mercury,
March, 1931.

SHORE, BERNARD, The Orchestra Speaks. London: Long
mans, Green & Co., 1938.

SINCLAIR, D. W.: "Six Orchestral Conductors" (including
Damrosch and Monteux), American Mercury, February, 1924.

STEFAN, PAUL, Toscanini. New York: Viking Press, 1936.

STEFAN, PAUL: "Toscanini at Seventy- five," Opera News,
March, 1942.

TAUBMAN, HOWARD: "Rare Musical Bird: Stokowski/'

Collier's, August 19, 1939-

TAUBMAN, HOWARD: "Strenuous Maestro Stokowski,"
York Times Magazine, November 16, 1941.

303

DICTATORS OF THE BATON

WALKER, STANLEY: "He Knew What They Wanted : Alfred
Wallenstein," Woman's Home Companion, November, 1940.

YEISER, FREDERICK: "My Friend Eugene Goossens," Victor
Record Review, July, 1941.

The Chesterian Magazine (London) published a series of
critical essays on modern conductors between 1937 and 1939.
This series included the following:

Sir Thomas Beecham, by Robert H. Hull (Vol. 17, No. 124) .
Eugene Goossens, by A. Walter Kramer (Vol. 17, No. 126) .
Serge Koussevitzky, by Terence White (Vol. 18, No. 133) .
Dimitri Mitr opoulos, by Frank Choisy (Vol. 18, No. 132).
Leopold Stokowski, by David Ewen (Vol. 16, No. 120) .
Arturo Toscanini, by P. O. Ferroud (Vol. 16, No. 118).
Bruno Walter, by Corrado Farigliano (Vol. 20, No. 141).

304

or ^American Orchestras

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Koussevitzky)
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Stock)
CINCINNATI! SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Goossens)
CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA (see Rodzinski)
COLUMBIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Barlow)
DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Kolar)
INDIANAPOLIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Sevitzky)
KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Krueger)
Los ANGELES PHILHARMONIC (see Rodzinski)
MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Ormandy)
NBC ORCHESTRA (see Rodzinski)
NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, WASHINGTON, D. C

(see Kindler)

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SYMPHONY (see Barbirolli)
PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA (see Stokowski)
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Reiner)
RADIO CITY Music HALL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Rapee)
ROCHESTER PHILHARMONIC (see Iturbi)
ST. Louis SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Golschmann)
SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY (see Monteux)

305

INDEX

American National Orchestra, organ
ized by Barlow, 269

American Youth Orchestra, 67, 71,
85-86, 133

Athens Symphony Orchestra, con
ducted by MitropoukiS, 107

Auditorium, Chicago, 135

Bach music, conducted by Stokowski,
67, 72, 73, 84, 85

Ballet Theatre, New York, directed
by Smallens, 245

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 279

Barbirolli Chamber Orchestra, 186

Barbirolli, John, 5, 278, 177-191

Barlow, Howard, 33, 131, 267-272

BarrSre, Georges, 6

Barzin, Leon, 20-21

Baton, first use of, 22

Bayreuth, Toscanim in, 12, 42, 46, 58

Beatrice, opera by Mitropoulos, 106

Beecham Opera Company, 260

Beecham, Sir Thomas, 16, 21, 260;
career, characteristics of, 159-166

Beethoven Symphonies: Fifth, 10,
135: Ninth, 41, 45, 151; Pas
torale, 68; Seventh, 49

Berg, Alban, 64, 81, 297

Bergmann, Carl, 188

Berkshire Music Center, 14, 101-102

Berkshire Symphonic Festival, 101

Berlin Opera Orchestra, 251

Berlin Philharmonic, 89, 107, 143,
155, 251

Berlin Staatsoper, 107

Big Broadcast of 1937, Stokowski in,
83

Black, Frank, 33 131, 279; career
and characteristcs of, 273-275

Bodanzky, Artur, 3, 207, 208-209,
212-213* 216

Boris GodunoVf conducted by Kous-
sevitzky, 92; by Stokowski, 297

Boston Opera Company, 244

Boston Symphony Orchestra, 93-96,
100, 108, 131, 172, 231, 261

Breeskin, Elias, 223

British National Opera Company, 260

Bruckner Festival, conducted by Or-
mandy, 204

Budapest Opera, 220

Buffalo philharmonic, 291

Biilow, Hans von, 5, 18, 23, 26-27,
97; school of conductors, 147

Busch, Fritz, 154-158

Capet, Lucien, 235

Capitol Theatre, Ormandy plays in,

197-201

Capu, Andre", 170
Carl Rosa Opera Company, 258
Carnegie, Andrew, 121
Carnegie Hall, 269; Stokowski in, 64
Carpenter, Elbert L., 202
Casals, Pablo, 5-6
Cassado, Caspar, 185
C&fde Musical, directed by Golsch-

mann, 236
Charlottenburg Opera, conducted by

Walter, 151

Chicago Opera Company, 237, 244
Chicago Symphony, 132, 134-136,

140, 277, 290
Chotzinoff, Samuel, musical director

of NBC, 294

Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, 257
Cincinnati Symphony, 257, 261
Clark, Jr., William Andrews, 228
Clavilux, 65
Cleveland Musical Arts Association,

229

Cleveland Orchestra, 225, 229
Cologne Municipal Orchestra, 1 38
Colonne, Eduard, 191
Colonne Orchestra, 169
Columbia Broadcasting System, 201,

267, 270

Concerts Berlioz, 169
Concerts Golschmann, 235
Concerts Koussevitzky, 92
Conducting, batonless, 22; essentials

of, 7-10; fashions in, 18
Conductors, duties and obligations of,

31-32; German School of, 12; per
sonality in, 9; young American,

33-34

Copland, Aaron, 102, 271
Coronation Festivities in London, 222
Covent Garden, 151, 162-63; 259;

Barbirolli at, 186; Reiner at, 222
Curtis Institute, classes by Reiner at,

221-223, 228

Damrosch, Leopold, 124-126, 190
Damrosch Opera Company, 121
Damrosch, Walter, 34, 189-190, 236

254, 267; career and characteristics

of, 119-131

Danish Broadcasting Company, 156
Deati Dixon Symphony Orchestra,

293

Delius festival in London, 163
Detroit Symphony, 253-255
Diaghilev Ballet, 161, 169, 171, 261
Diaghilev, Serge, 92, 169, 170
Disney, Walt, with Stokowski, 84
Dixon, Dean, career and characteris
tics of, 292-295

Downes, Olin, 108, 196

Dresden Opera, 154-156, 221

Dresden Orchestra, 282

Drury Lane, 160

Dukas, music, conducted by Stokows
ki, 84-85

Duncan Dancers, music for, 201

Eames, Emma, 213-214

Eastman, George, 114

Eisfeld, Theodor, 188

Fantasia, 68, 82, 84-85

Ferrero, Willy, 287

Flagstad, Kirsten, 116, 205-209, 215

Florence May Festival, 151

Furtwangler, William, 3, 19, 23, 31,
193

Gabrilowitsch, Ossip, 6, 253

Ganz, Rudolf, 234

Gatti-Casazza, Giuslio, 57

Gericke, Wilhelm, Boston Symphony
under, 94-95

Gershwin, George, 116, 243

Gewandhaus Orchestra, 151

Glyndebourne Festival, 156-158

Golschmann, Vladimir, 234-236

Goossens, Eugene, 34, 114, 221; ca
reer and characteristics of, 256-261

Greek Orthodox Church, music in,
106

Hageman, Richard, 222

Hall< Orchestra, 164-165

Hamburg Opera, 149

Hammond tone sustaining piano, 65

Hanson, Howard, survey by, 134

Henschel, George, 94

Herbert, Victor, 222, 270

Hertz, Alfred, 168

Hess, Myra, 116

Higginson, Henry Lee, 94

Hindemith, 102, 145, 156

Hoeker, David C, 296, 298

Hofmann, Josef, 287

Hollywood, Rapee in, 283; Stokowski
i'n, 83-84

Hubay, Jeno, 199, 220

Hughes, Adella Prentiss, 225

Huneker, James Gibbons, 252

Hutcheson, Ernest, 271

Illinois Symphony Orchestra, 290

Indiana State Symphony Society, 237

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, 240

Institute of Musical Art, 244

Italian Opera, 281

Iturbi, Jose", 6, 112, 235; career and
characteristics of, 112-116

Janssen, Werner, 279

Jazz, 116

Jennison, Harry, 293

Johnson, Edward, 205-206

Joseffy, Rafael, 135, 273

Juillard Graduate School, 293

Jullien, Louis Antoine, 24-26, 63

Kammer-Rosenthal, Hedwig, 209

Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, 262

Kelson Truman Opera Company, 165

Kent, A. Atwater, 130

Kindler, Hans, 249-252

Klemperer, Otto, 223, 229; in re
hearsal with Schnable, 17; incident
with Labate, 30

Kolar, Victor, 253-255

Koussevitzky, Serge, 3-4, 6, 7, 9-10,
12-13, 16-17, 21, 30, 108, 115,
140, 158, 167, 172, 179, 235, 237,

239, 256, 279; career and charac
teristics of, 87-103

Krehbiel, Henry E., 29

Krueger, Karl, 262-263

Labate, incident with Klemperer, 30

Laibach National Opera, 220

Lamoreux Orchestra, 107

La Scala, 213; Toscanini era in, 56,

58-59

Leeds Symphony, 186
Leinsdorf, Eric, 205-216, 289
Lemberg Opera, 227
Levant, Oscar, 223
Levi, Hermann, 12
Levin, Sylvan, 296-298
Liverpool College of Musk, 259
London Symphony Orchestra, 28,

163, 186
Los Angeles Philharmonic, 228-229,

240, 277
Lully, 22

Maazel, Lorin, 288
Magic Key Hour, 274

Mahler, Gustav, 6, 12-13, 15, 17,
86, 97, 108, 149-151, 191, 204,
281 ; Eighth Symphony of, 80, 281 ;
First Symphony of, 108

Maier, Guy, 290

Malko, Nicolai, 19-20

Mann, Thomas, 44

Mason, Daniel Gregory, 3, 81

May Music Festival (Florence), 211

McDonald, Harl, 81

Mekhior, Lauritz, 205-207, 209

Mendelssohn, Felix, 5, 283

Mendoza, David, 200

Mengelberg, Willem, 3, 24

Metropolitan Opera House, 56-57,
59, 64, 120, 123, 125, 145, 147,
164, 171, 205-206, 209, 211-212,
213-215, 230, 289, 296

Mickey Mouse, 64, 84

Miguez, Leopaldo di, 54

Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra,
104, 202-203

Mitropoulos, Dimitri, 7, 9, 15, 22,
34, 104-110

Modarelii, Antonio, 223

Monteux, Pierre, 34, 77, 96, 167-173

Moscow Imperial Orchestra, 88

Moscow Imperial Theatre, 239

Moscow Philharmonic School, 88

Moszkowski, Moritz, 119

Mottl, Felix, 151

Moussorgsky, 90, 92, 99, 297

Mozart, 49, 63, 68, 99, 112, 119, 147,
155, 160, 245, 275, 287, 296

Muck, Karl, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21, 89,
95-98, 100, 172

Music Appreciation Hour, 131

Music Project of WPA, 290

Mutual Broadcasting System, 276,
278

National Academy of Music (Vien
na), 220, 282

National Association of Composers,
238

National Broadcasting Company, 59,
130, 273-274, 283, 294

National Federation of Music Clubs,
269, 278

National Music Council, 134

National Symphony Orchestra of
Washington, 240, 249-250

National Theatre (Havana), 244

National Youth Administration Or
chestra, 294

National Youth Orchestra, 288

Nazis, 40-41, 143, 145, 154

NBC Orchestra, 294-295; Black
with, 274, 279; Dixon with, 292;
Maazel with, 288; Monteux with,
173; Rodzinski with, 224-225,
230; Solomon with, 290; Sto-
kowski with, 65; Toscanim with,
42-43, 59

New Opera Company, 157

New Symphony Orchestra, 161-162,
165

New York City Symphony Orchestra
(WPA), 166

New York Philharmonic, 4, 7, 30,
43, 45, 59, 93-94, 100, 108, 113,
123, 131, 146, 157, 163, 166, 177,
179, 186-187, 195, 201, 215, 230,
277, 279, 292

New York Symphony, 122, 125, 146
New York Symphony Society, 120,

129, 145-146, 156, 236, 254
Nijinsky, 170-171
Nikisch, Artur, 19, 27, 29, 77, 89,

94-95, 97, 259, 262
Oberhoffer, Emil, 202-203
Ope"ra Comique Orchestra, 169
Oratorio Society, 125
Orchestra, Symphonique (Paris), 107
Oriental music, 66
Ormandy, Eugene, 5, 33-34, 104,

108, 297, 192-204
Orpheum Circuit, 276
Palestine Symphony Orchestra, 42
Paris Opera, 22, 93, 171
Paris Symphony, 172
Paur, Emil, 95, 222
Pavlova, Anna, 276
Peabody Radio Award, George, 278
Pennsylvania Opera, 240
People's Opera (Budapest), 221
Philadelphia Chamber String Sim-

fonietta, 240
Philadelphia Civic Opera Company,

245
Philadelphia Opera Company, 222,

228, 240, 296-297
Philadelphia Orchestra, 33, 65-67,

71, 74-75, 77, 79-80, 82-83, 86,

113, 116, 131, 133, 171, 192, 193-

195, 197, 201-203, 221, 228, 240,

245, 251, 279, 281, 290, 297
Philadelphia Society for Contempo
rary Music, 245
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 219,

222

Pohlig, Carl, 76, 79
Prokofieff, 90, 92, 243; Third Piano

Concerto ot, 107
Promenade Concerts, 259-260
"Pulitzer Prize of Radio," 278
Queen's Hall Orchestra, 165, 259
Rachmani'noff, 196, 281 ; Concerto of,

196
Radio City, 275; Music Hall, 282;

Music Hall Orchestra, 280
Rapee, Erno, 199-200, 273, 280-283
Ravel, Maurice, 8, 99, 121, 167, 170,

236, 296
Reiner, Fritz, 245, 256-257; career

and characteristics of, 219-223
Xjtes of Spring, 14, 85, 170-171
Robin Hood Dell, 113, 201, 279, 298
Rochester Philharmonic, 114, 260
Rodzinski, Artur, 22, 34, 256, 297,

224-233

Rose, Arnold, 11
Rothwell, Evelyn, 184

Roxy, 200, 282 ; Theatre, 200

Royal Academy of Music, 185

Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, 162-
165

Royal College of Music (London),
72, 259

Royal Opera (Berlin), 149

Royal Opera (Madrid), 245

Royal Opera (Vienna), 149-150

Royal Philharmonic, 22, 160 T 186

Russian State Orchestras, 92

Safonov, Vassily, 22, 191

Saint-Saens, Camille, 107, 170; Con
certo of, 185

Salzburg, 41-42, 46, 51, 58, 146-147,
210-211, 230; Festival, 58, 144,
151, 230

San Francisco Musical Foundation,
168

San Francisco Opera Company, 222

San Francisco Symphony, 168, 172-
173, 276, 281

Schnable, with Klemperer, 17

Schneevoigt, Georg, 228

Schola Cantorum, 234

Schubert, C-Major Symphony, 135;
Unfinished Symphony, 49

Scottish Orchestra, 184, 186, 236

Seattle Symphony, 265

Seidl, Anton, 12

Scvitzky, Fabien, 237-242

Shostakovich, 229, 232, 290; First
Symphony, 81; Third Symphony,
81

Sibelius, Jean Julius Christian, 75,
78, 97, 99, 121, 232, 281, 290;
Symphonies, 80

Smallens, Alexander, 243-245

Smith, Kate, 68

Societe des Concerts Populaires, 171

Sokoloff, Nicolai, 225, 290

Solomon, Izler, 287-291

Soviet Union, conductorless orches
tras in, 5, 239; Mitropoulos in, 107

Spohr, in England, 22-23

State Opera (Warsaw), 239

Stock, Frederick, 34, 237, 277; career
and characteristics of, 132-140

StokowsK Leopold, 3-4, 9-10, 13,
15-16, 19, 21-22, 31, 33-34, 105,
115, 133, 140, 167, 172, 193-194,
197, 203-204, 223, 228, 237, 251,
252, 279, 281, 288, 297-298; ca
reer and characteristics of, 63-86

Strauss, Richard, 8-9, 75, 108, 137-
138, 143, 153, 156, 171, 191, 197,

214-215, 220, 222, 232, 243, 245,
283

Stravinsky, Igor, 8, 24, 65, 81, 85,
90, 92, 121, 167, 169-170, 236,
243

Stuttgart Opera, 155
Swedish Ballet, 236
"Swing," 116

Symphony Hall (Boston), 202
Szymanowski, 81
Taylor, Deems, 85, 297
Tchaikovsky, 75, 84-85, 90-91, 135-
136, 138, 165-166, 233, 288;
Fourth Symphony, 200 ; Piano Con
certo, 135
Thereminvox, 65
Thibaud, Jacques, 235
Thomas, Theodore, 135-137, 139, 190
Toscanini, Arturo, 3-4, 6-7, 9-11,
conducts at Bayreuth, 12-13, 15-
17, 19, 21, 31, 67-68, 70, 83, 98,
128, 140, 147, 156, 158-159, 177-
178, 184-185, 187, 192, 201, 210-
211, 213-215, 224, 230, 232, 239,
263, 278-279, 288; life and char
acteristics of, 39-60
Verdi, 40, 52, 57; manuscript letters

of, 53; operas, 42
Verley, Albert, 235
Victor Company, 82, 86, 90, 237
Vienna State Opera, 151
Volksoper (Berlin), 245
Wagner, Richard, 5, 12, 44, 49, 53,
56-57, 64, 119-120, 135, 155, 188,
205, 207, 209, 214, 220-222, 233,
281, 287; as Walter Damrosch's
godfather, 124-125; music-dramas
of, 120

Wallenstein, Alfred, 33, 276-279
Walter, Bruno, 7, 10, 14-15, 34, 41,
68, 143-154, 158, 204, 209-211,
232

Warsaw Opera, 228

Warsaw Philharmonic, 227-228, 240
Weber, Karl Maria von, 5, 56, 147
Weingartner, Felix, 11, 152, 191
Women's Symphony of Chicago, 290
Wood, Henry J., 259
W R Radio Station, 277
Wozzeck, 64, 81, 29?
York (Pa.) Symphony Orchestra, 298
Youth Concerts, 65
Youth Orchestra, 71
Ysaye, Eugene, 256
Zach, Max, 234
Zweig, Stefan, 47-48, 60

Behind the pure surging power of our finest
orchestral music, behind the flawless attune-
ment of America's most magnificent orches
tras, are men in whose souls lie the living
forces that create splendid symphonic music
from instrumentalists and written notes.

These are our orchestral conductors, whom
David Ewen affectionately terms Dictators of
the Baton.

To know these men is to have a richer
appreciation of fine music. And, through
David Ewen's deep-searching analyses of
thirty of the leading conductors in America's
contemporary orchestral scene in biograph
ical, critical, and personal portraits Dictators
of the Baton compels you to know them
intimately.

Artists all, from the paragon, Toscanini, to
such rising young leaders as Izler Solomon,
Dean Dixon, and Sylvan Levin, these con
ductors are revealed as vital forces molding
and elevating the musical tastes of our
people. Fused with these biographies are the
histories of our nation's leading orchestras, a
score of which are discussed in this important
new addition to musical literature.

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