Violinists: Distinguished Fraternity

When the teen-aged violinist made his debut in Manhattan 25 years ago, one critic suggested that “David may turn into a musician of stature when he grows up.” Only he never really grew up — physically, that is. Artistically, however, David Nadien developed into a giant. He demonstrated that last week at Manhattan’s Philharmonic Hall when he strode on stage — all 5 ft. 4 in. and 116 lbs. of him — and played Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with elegance and grace, a tone pure and silken, and a technique that was a marvel of dizzy ing leaps and lightning runs. During the long ovation that followed, Conductor Leonard Bernstein embraced Nadien, and the violinist motioned for the orchestra to stand up and take a bow. Instead, they stayed seated and ap plauded and tapped their bows against their music stands.

It was, in effect, a welcome-to-the-fold gesture, for the performance was Nadien’s solo debut as the new concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. When his appointment was announced last February, some Philharmonic fans were aghast. Nadien had never played in a major symphony orchestra before, and had spent most of the past dozen years in recording studios playing for crooners, rock ‘n’ rollers, Muzak and TV jingles. Still, despite his commercial coloration, he has long been respected by fellow musicians as one of America’s most outstanding fiddlers; he is legendary for his ability to sight-read anything and to play it impeccably in any style under any circumstances, whether it is a love song to Rinso White or a complex passage in a Paganini concerto. When the Philharmonic asked him to audition last winter, he breezed through every obscure score that Bernstein thrust upon him, won in a walkaway over 40 aspirants.

Music for Music. Nadien is son of Golden Boy. Raised in Manhattan, he is the offspring of an undefeated bantamweight boxer who fought the champion to a draw, then gave up the ring to appease his wife and train his son in his own first love, the violin. David soloed with the New York Philharmonic at 14, later combined his concert career with studio work, often recording from seven to nine hours at a crack. His new job means a cut of about $15,000 in his yearly income. “Before, it was music for money’s sake,” he says. “Now it’s music for music’s sake.”

At 40, Nadien joins one of the world’s most exclusive and most distinguished musical fraternities, the concertmasters of major U.S. orchestras.

Among them:

> Detroit’s Mischa Mischakoff, 69, is the dean of U.S. concertmasters.

Born in Russia, he was concertmaster of the Moscow Philharmonic before coming to the U.S. in 1922, held down the first chair in Philadelphia and Chicago, won the label “Toscanini’s third hand” during the 15 years he played under the great Italian at the NBC Symphony. He moved to Detroit in 1952, where he helped rebuild the orchestra from scratch. A patriarch in baggy pants and sports shirts, Mischakoff is a demanding but amicable leader, prides himself on his collection of shredded manuscripts and broken batons cast aside by the terrible-tempered Toscanini.

> Cleveland’s Rafael Druian, 44, has been the solid cornerstone of Conductor George Szell’s ensemble for six years, is the epitome of the unruffable consistency demanded of the concertmaster. Born in Russia, trained in Cuba and the U.S., he was concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony for eleven years before going to Cleveland.

> San Francisco’s Jacob Krachmalnick, 44, has played first fiddle in Philadelphia and Amsterdam, spent one year as an artist-in-residence at the University of California, and then fled (“Everybody sits around on their tenures; it’s no place for professionals”) to the San Francisco. The orchestra’s 30-week season suits him perfectly, since it gives him time to tour with his chamber-music trio and spend lucrative summers playing film scores in Hollywood.

> Chicago’s Steven Staryk, 34, like Nadien, worked as a studio musician, mostly “playing the music for bedroom scenes in movies.” Articulate, supremely cool, the Toronto-born violinist was appointed concertmaster of the London Royal Philharmonic at 24, then played in the same capacity with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw before going to Chicago in 1962. Says he: “The days of the swaying, anticipating, overanxious concertmaster are over. Today, masterly musicianship and maximum self-control are the order.”

> Boston’s Joseph Silverstein, 33, raised in Detroit, is one of the top three or four concertmasters in the world. That is some achievement in view of the fact that he was expelled from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute at 17 (“I was too distracted by girls and baseball”). Silverstein is one of the few concertmasters to work his way up from the ranks; he joined the Boston string section in 1955, ascended to the first chair in 1962. Says Boston Symphony Conductor Erich Leinsdorf: “He has some sort of beam or antenna, so that he knows what I want almost before I do.”

A good concertmaster is as rare as a humble conductor. He is indispensable to a conductor’s success and, as such, is guarded and pampered like a mistress. Sir John Barbirolli refers to his man as his “chief of staff,” Eugene Ormandy’s is his “mind reader,” William Steinberg’s his “seismograph,” Donald Johanos’ his “stroke oar.”

A concertmaster is all that and more, relying on a sixth sense to translate the ideas of the conductor to the musicians. He derives his authority from the simple fact that he can play better than anyone else in the orchestra, sets the standard that the rest of the players are expected to live up to. He plays all the important violin solos in an orchestral piece, and, indeed, ought to be so familiar with the literature that he can substitute at the last minute for an absent violin soloist.

He is also responsible for keeping everyone in tune, determines the proper bowing for the strings, an all-important factor in correct phrasing. When the maestro wiggles a meaningful finger, the concertmaster responds accordingly and, in an instantaneous chain reaction, his lead is followed by each row of string players and ultimately by the entire orchestra.

In effect, he is a subconductor, able, and often compelled, to rescue the maestro when he misses an entrance or loses his place. Ravel was such a notoriously bad conductor that soloists who were condemned to play under his baton sometimes made a secret pact to take all their cues from the concertmaster. Says Leinsdorf: “If you have a good concertmaster, you don’t have to move your left arm so much.”

Switch, Switch. A concertmaster’s influence is so strong, in fact, that by his example he can alter the entire sound of an orchestra. The suavity and elegance of Nadien’s playing, for example, have already given his string section a correspondingly new tone. Beyond that, the concertmaster helps decide promotions, auditions, prospective new players, and acts as a father confessor as well as a liaison between the men and the maestro. Barbirolli says that the Italian appellation for concertmaster, violino di spalla, is more apropos: “His is the shoulder that the conductor leans on.”

Or anybody else who happens to be onstage. During a Cleveland Orchestra concert six months ago, the E string on Soloist Isaac Stern’s violin suddenly snapped in the final movement of a Brahms concerto. Concertmaster Druian quickly gave Stern his Stradivarius, passed the disabled instrument to Assistant Concertmaster Daniel Majeske and continued playing on Majeske’s violin. Majeske replaced the string and—switch, switch—Stern finished with a flourish on his fiddle, having missed only one measure of music. Says Druian, with the understatement typical of the supercool concertmaster: “It’s all part of the job.”