Music: In the Gracious Presence

The loudest noise in British music last week was 28-year-old Harold Fielding. He hoped to do for classical music what Henry Ford did for the automobile. And he aimed to do it with imported U.S. stars. On a trip to the U.S. early this year Fielding signed up more than $400,000 worth of musical talent for British ears.

Fielding’s first importation was Conductor Andre Kostelanetz and wife Lily Pons. Critics mauled Kostelanetz’s opening program of classical bromides and filigree jazz. Said the Daily Mail: “The minuet [third movement of Beethoven’s First Symphony] was turned into a gallop and the finale beat all musical records on the dirt track. Lily Pons, otherwise Mrs. Kostelanetz, sang Lo, Here the Gentle Lark, Caro Nome and other coloratura tidbits. Such agile vocalizing may have impressed the film fans but it sounded very old-fashioned to me.”

Fielding has also signed up Jeanette MacDonald, and has his heart set on getting Deanna Durbin (“My inspiration came when I was little more than a child and saw Deanna Durbin in 100 Men and a Girl”). Fielding is a former child prodigy who made concert violin tours at eleven, studied under Joseph Szigeti, spent the war staging concerts for the London Philharmonic in 70 provincial towns. As a budding impresario, he always bills himself above his artists. Last week, for another Kostelanetz concert, he modestly gave himself second billing to royalty. His posters read: “In the gracious presence of Her Majesty the Queen, Harold Fielding presents Andre Kostelanetz. . . . ” London newspapers sent reporters to write about the Queen—but most of their music critics stayed away.