Music: Talk about Cleveland

Guest Conductor George Szell (pronounced Sell) had really sold himself. When he led the Cleveland Orchestra in December the house was jammed, the audience thundered applause, and the Cleveland critics raved. Last week Cleveland signed Conductor Szell to a three-year contract—on his own terms. His salary: more than $30,000 a year, the largest ever paid to a Cleveland conductor.

Szell, 48, is a tall, near-bald, thick-spectacled Czech-Hungarian, who conducted the Berlin State Opera B.H. (Before Hitler). A stern, formal leader, he has since 1942 conducted some of the Metropolitan Opera’s best-disciplined performances. He plans to add eight men to the Cleveland orchestra, to bring its membership to 92. Said he: “A new leaf will be turned over with a bang! People talk about the New York, the Boston, and the Philadelphia. Now they will talk about the New York, the Boston, the Philadelphia and the Cleveland.” Thus top success was in sight for the orchestra founded 27 years ago by oil-&-steel Tycoon John L. Severance and Mrs. Adella Prentiss Hughes, indefatigable crusader for music in Cleveland.

Szell’s appointment put Cleveland’s regular conductor, Erich Leinsdorf, 33, out of a job. Leinsdorf succeeded Artur Rodzinski who bossed the Cleveland for ten years, then graduated to the New York Philharmonic. Last week Rodzinski’s three-year contract with the Philharmonic was up. He had improved its sloppy ways, but he was no Toscanini. The Philharmonic re-signed him for one year.