Music: Man from Minneapolis

Long after their ruckus with temperamental Artur Rodzinski (TIME, Feb. 17, 1947), the directors of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra seemed unwilling to give full-conductor powers to anybody else. Staggered by guest conductors and triumvirates, the U.S.’s oldest (108 years) and once finest orchestra lost much of its poise and polish. Last spring the directors finally overcame their hesitation, picked Minneapolis’ Greek-born Dimitri Mitropoulos, who shared the season with Leopold Stokowski last year.

At the Philharmonic’s first fall concert in Carnegie Hall last week, traditional opening gun of the Manhattan music season, Philharmonic fans greeted their new conductor with a heart-warming welcome.

With the first wave of his long, seemingly boneless hands, tall Conductor Mitropoulos gave them a sample of the moderns-cum-classics programs they could expect on many evenings this season. The opener: a monstrously brassy orchestration by the late Italian composer, Alfredo Casella, of the Chaconne from Bach’s Suite No. 2 for Solo Violin. Beethoven’s happy Fourth Symphony, delicately if fussily performed, smoothed down ruffled feathers momentarily, but Prokofiev’s screaming Symphony No. 5 got some of them ruffled right up again.

Booster Shot. In one way, 54-year-old Dimitri Mitropoulos is just the man to give the Philharmonic a booster shot. No prima donna, he has tried to win his musicians with consideration (he does not want to be dictator, he says, but president of a republic), and by giving them the first feeling of security they have enjoyed in years. Last week all of last season’s players were back in their chairs.

In choosing a man with Mitropoulos’ zeal for new music, however, the Philharmonic trustees have taken something of a gamble. The new conductor’s programming may drive some of the more traditional away from the box office, and 1950 is a poor year for the Philharmonic to do that. The symphony ended last season with an $81,500 deficit. This season, for the second year in a row, subscriptions are down and the Philharmonic has no sponsor for its Sunday broadcasts. Nonetheless, Mitropoulos’ arguments have convinced the Philharmonic’s board that he is on the right track. He believes that the U.S. can develop a great musical culture, but to do so new U.S. music, and other new music, must be heard. Says he: “We have to show a front to Europe, to the rest of the U.S. We cannot stand on our high buildings and cars alone. What lasts in world history? Only culture, finally.”

No “Glamour.” A modest, monastical-ly-minded bachelor who disdains money and “glamour,” takes St. Francis of Assisi for his model, Mitropoulos once surprised Minneapolis society by living in a cubicle in a University of Minnesota dormitory; he donated much of his $25,000 salary to needy composers. He has not changed his ways in Manhattan. Last month, when he took the Philharmonic into Manhattan’s Roxy Theater as the stage attraction (partly to reach new audiences), he turned half of his own $5,000-a-week salary over to the orchestra’s pension fund. He lives alone in a small apartment half a block from Carnegie Hall, usually eats unceremoniously at a hamburger shop across the street.

After twelve years in Minneapolis, why has he come to New York? His answer shows his confidence and pride in his new orchestra. Says Mitropoulos: “I thought I owed myself a better instrument before I die. Would any artist refuse to have a Stradivarius?”