Music: Up Strike Orchestras

(See front cover)

From one end of the land to the other, symphony orchestras last week, tuned themselves for the opening of a new season. Manhattan, Philadelphia and Seattle actually began their concerts. Important bands in other cities busied themselves with rehearsals or announcing schedules.

In Boston. Most ambitious of the season’s programs is that mapped out by the Boston Symphony. The occasion warrants it. Fifty years have passed since the late Major Henry Lee Higginson undertook to provide Bostonians with a permanent orchestra, brought over German George Henschel to take first command. Despite his 80 years, Henschel came back last week to inaugurate the jubilee season with a repetition of his original program. Conductor Sergei Alexandrovitch Koussevitzky anticipated the opening with a superb radio concert, planned his actual return for the season’s second week. Scheduled for the winter are the premieres of many contemporary works, a Beethoven Festival to be given in Washington through the first week in December, a Bach Festival in Boston in March.

To Sergei Koussevitzky is due 100% credit for the Boston Symphony’s present excellence. Seven years ago it was in sorry state. Frenchmen Henri Rabaud and Pierre Monteux, successors to the maligned Karl Muck,— had proved incapable. The directors were appraising all the availables in Europe when they came upon a Russian exiled in Paris. They traced his history: at 12 he had been chef d’orchestre in the theatre of his native town (Tver in North Russia), composed whatever music was required for the plays and conducted the entr’actes. At 14 he went to Moscow to study, chose for his instrument the bull fiddle, toured Europe for ten years as a contrabass virtuoso. By 1919 he had achieved his ambition, become a conductor again. Koussevitzky concerts were soon famous in Moscow and Petrograd but that was not enough for its leader. He wanted to reach the great masses of Russians who had never heard a symphony concert. So for several summers he chartered a steamer, cruised the 2,300 mi. down the River Volga playing to the peasants who gathered on its banks. The Revolution made Russia impossible for most musicians. Koussevitzky left along with the rest, settled in Paris where in partnership with his wife he still conducts the profitable music-publishing house called Edition Russe.

The choice of Koussevitzky for Boston has proved singularly happy. He is an excellent musician, although it is said he cannot read a score, has to hire pianists to teach him new music before he in turn can transmit it to his men. He has the magnetism, the energy which were necessary to rejuvenate Boston’s orchestra in 1924. He has an insatiable interest in new music and a talent for playing it. His programs are indisputably the best in the country. So is his understanding of Ravel and Debussy.

In Boston Koussevitzky has become completely at home. He has an establishment in Jamaica Plain, an entourage which includes his wealthy, matronly-looking wife Nathalie; a vivacious niece, Olga Naumoff, who is his secretary; Valet Ivan who prepares him occasional Russian dishes; Ivan’s wife; and Droll, a lively Boston terrier. Often in the early morning the Maestro may be seen walking in the Rockwood Street section around Jamaica Pond. Even those who do not recognize him suspect him of being a great man. He pays no attention to traffic lights, strides across the busiest streets stopping the onrush of automobiles with much the same gesture that he uses to get a pianissimo from his bandsmen.

Koussevitzky likes Boston, is rightfully proud of the wonders he has worked with the Orchestra. And Boston is well-pleased with her Russian. She admires his distinguished appearance, his faultlessly tailored clothes. She thrills to his music, the imploring, personal manner in which he makes it. But Koussevitzky’s victory has extended beyond the concert hall. Not only is his music fashionable but he has won the battle of Beacon Hill, been accepted and feted as no other conductor before him. Philadelphia’s Stokowski, whose social success has been faintly tinged with notoriety, might well envy Koussevitzky his last great honor : election to the exclusive Somerset Club. (Arturo Toscanini would fail to see any artistic significance.)

In Manhattan. For years the musical monopoly over Manhattan’s smart set was unquestionably held by Opera. Prior to the formal first-night at the Metropolitan none but the truly musical concerned themselves with the utterances of great composers. But in the past few seasons a subtle change has come to pass. Symphony concerts have become the height of fashion. Symphonic tastes are being cultivated. Subscriptions are at a premium. Last week as fashionable a gathering as ever attended opera gathered for the first concert of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony. Yet not Conductor Arturo Toscanini, whose administration is in large measure responsible for the current Philharmonic vogue, but a henchman chosen by him last spring in Germany (TIME, June 16) held the baton. His name: Erich Kleiber. His home: Berlin, where he is director of the Staatsoper on Unter den Linden.

Weber’s Freischutz Overture, an unknown Mozart serenade, Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel—this was the conventional program with which Kleiber chose to introduce himself to the U. S. By hearsay most members of his audience knew him to be a charming, unassuming person, born in Vienna, educated in Prague (where privation robbed him of his hair), trained in the opera houses of Darmstadt, Barmen-Elberfeld, Dusseldorf, Mannheim. They knew him to have a pretty U. S. wife, a former Ruth Goodrich of California whom he met three years ago in Buenos Aires when he was conducting at the Colon and she was attached to the U. S. Embassy there. They had heard of his penchant for photography, his admiration for Napoleon, Nikisch, Toscanini; of his open-mindedness toward all new music. Yet personal detail holds scant interest if a conductor’s music is uninspired. To their regret, through the Freischutz and the Mozart, the Philharmonic’s subscribers could not refrain from reckoning the weeks until Toscanini’s return in November. But the Beethoven was more compelling and the Strauss earned the newcomer an ovation.

Critics were unconvinced. They were amused that Conductor Kleiber looks like a sturdy, militant edition of their colleague, Samuel Chotzinoff of the New York World. Their verdict was of the kindly, noncommittal sort, as if they realized the unfairness of trying to fit a merely capable musician to the seven-league boots worn so easily by the giant Toscanini.

In Philadelphia subscribers were meticulously prompt for the opening of the 31st season. They had been warned that last year’s system would prevail: doors would be closed at the beginning of the concert, none admitted until the lights went up for intermission. Last year this decree caused considerable dissatisfaction among subscribers. Many objected to what seemed to them the highhandedness of Conductor Leopold Stokowski. Tardiness, they argued, was occasionally unavoidable, long waiting in the lobby an undeserved penance. Was it too much to expect Stokowski to follow the conventional pattern, start his program with a short number, then admit latecomers before proceeding with the rest of the concert?

As if to show his disdain for so unappreciative a herd, Stokowski began his program last week with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony which takes the best part of an hour to perform. A few unfortunates were locked out, but neither Stokowski nor his audience gave them thought. He was completely absorbed in recreating long-familiar music, later in translating the Prometheus of Skriabin in which Pianist Harold Bauer was expert soloist and the Firebird Suite of Igor Stravinsky.

Thanks to the income from a $2,000,000 endowment fund, outstanding contributors to which were Orchestra President Alexander Van Rensselaer and the late Edward Bok, the Philadelphia season is a long, ambitious one this year. Stokowski will conduct the first part of the season (with the exception of the two weeks when he changes places with Toscanini), Ossip Gabrilowitsch the second part, Stokowski the last. Alexander Smallens, talented conductor of the defunct Civic Opera (TIME, Apr. 21) has been engaged as assistant. A South American tour is under consideration for spring.

In Seattle the Orchestra has followed the example of Cleveland, chosen for its new manager a woman, Bertha M. Stryker, energetic worker in the Seattle Music and Art Foundation. (Cleveland’s capable orchestra manager is Adella Prentiss Hughes.) Karl Krueger, young Viennese conductor who took over the Seattle Orchestra at the time of its reorganization in 1926, again has sole command.

Detroit’s opening concert was scheduled to present Ossip Gabrilowitsch as soloist as well as conductor. Associate Victor Kolar will have charge during Gabrilowitsch’s tenure in Philadelphia (see above). A tour will take in several college towns.

Cleveland will begin, its 13th season Oct. 16 under Conductor Nikolai Sokoloff. In January it is anticipated that the Orchestra will move into its own hall, given by John L. and the late Mrs. Severance.

Chicago, Cincinnati and Minneapolis will hear their first programs on Oct. 17. Under Conductor Frederick Stock the Chicago Symphony will give its usual series in Orchestra Hall, additional concerts in Milwaukee and at the Uni-versity of Chicago. The Cincinnati Symphony points with pride to its thriving under the sponsorship of the Institute of Fine Arts (endowment scheme begun three years ago by Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft and her late husband). Minneapolis concerts under Belgian Henri Verbrugghen are to be broadcast over a nationwide hookup. Mrs. Carlyle Scott is this Orchestra’s new manager.*

California concerts are also scheduled to begin in October. Los Angeles will have its second season under Conductor Artur Rodzinski (formerly Philadelphia Orchestra assistant), its eleventh with William Andrews Clark Jr. as sole supporter. San Francisco will have two new conductors to succeed Alfred Hertz: for the first three months, British Basil Cameron; then Russian Issai Dobrowen (recent conductor in Norway).

The Portland (Ore.) Symphony is again under Willem Van Hoogstraten.

St. Louis will have three guest conductors: Spanish Enrique Fernandez Arbos, Czech George Szell and Parisian Vladimir Golschmann.

Omaha will have Joseph Littau, conductor at Roxy’s cinemansion in Manhattan, to succeed Sandor Harmati who is ill.

The Rochester (N. Y.) Philharmonic, nucleus of a civic orchestra which gives popular concerts and concerts for school children, will play first on Nov. 7 under Eugene Goossens.

The Syracuse (N. Y.) Symphony continues under Vladimir Shavitch.

Wire, Textiles, Music

Thanks to a printer, a carpetmaker, a banker and a conductor, Worcester, Mass, (famed for machinery, wire and textile manufacturies) was treated last week to its 71st festival of music. Six years ago New England’s oldest festival threatened to snuff out for lack of financial support. President Hamilton B. Wood of Commonwealth Press, a dabbler in musical composition, became indignant at the prospect. He won the support of keen Carpetmaker Matthew P. Whittall and Treasurer Harrison G. Taylor of the local Five Cents Savings Bank. Together these three canvassed the city for subscriptions, engaged Conductor Albert Stoessel. Now the annual concerts in Mechanics Hall are rewarded with increasing enthusiasm. Orchestral numbers, choruses and solos won high praise last week. Outstanding feature came at the second concert when prodigious Ruggiero Ricci, aged 9, played his violin in Mendelssohn’s E Minor Concerto. Because of pending litigation between his parents and his guardian, Violinist Mary Elizabeth Lackey (TIME, Aug. 11), young Ricci had been forbidden to leave New York State unguarded by police. Two stalwart officers accompanied him to the very stage of Mechanics Hall, but the boy was apparently unmoved by the stir they caused, or by the presence in the front row of his watchful father. With great self-possession he scraped a little curtsey, gave a rarely luminous performance of the Concerto, returned to his towering escorts.

Mr. Eckstein’s Bill

Louis Eckstein, retired publisher of Red Book and Blue Book, patron of rustic summer opera at Ravinia Park, 111., announced Ravinia’s 1930 deficit: $241,000, largest in 19 years. Patron Eckstein’s share: $139,107.20, other patrons making up the balance. Cost what it may, so long as he lives, Mr. Eckstein said, there will be opera at Ravinia.

Return of Morini

Prodigious child musicians have a way of flourishing like the flowers of the field and fading just as fast. An exception last week proved to be Violinist Erika Morini who nine years ago at the age of 15, made a debut memorable for rare technique, vigorous emotion. For three years Morini toured the U. S. successfully, then retired to her home in Vienna. Last week after six years she returned—mop of black hair, vivid green dress—and despite her acrobatic tactics impressed a Manhattan audience with her increased poise, understanding.

* 0n an hysterical, unproved charge of pro-Germanism, Muck lost his Boston post.

*There has been no merger with a St. Paul orchestra as was erroneously reported in TIME. The Minneapolis Symphony used to give concerts in St. Paul but this year the series has been discontinued.