Music: First Fiddle

As some football teams have co-captains, so some symphonies have co-conductors. Back to work from his summer home in Sanbornville, N.H. last week went one of the Philadelphia orchestra’s co-conductors, blond-haired, Budapest-born Eugene Ormandy. Mr. Ormandy had spent a diligent summer, working over programs, boning up on the violin, his first love, with Virtuoso Jascha Heifetz.

Far from Philadelphia last week was the symphony’s other co-conductor, sad-eyed Leopold Stokowski, resting in Beverly Hills, Calif, after a less industrious but equally eventful European summer in the company of Greta Garbo. Since Great Conductor Stokowski’s blow-off with the symphony directors in 1934, when he relinquished his post as music director, he and co-Conductor Otmandy have been nominal equals.

After Mr. Ormandy’s return, the directors announced: 1) that Conductor Stokowski had signed up for eleven concerts next spring, and 2) that “in recognition of musical achievement” the post of music director would be revived for Conductor Ormandy. For happy Violinist Ormandy this meant more pay, official confirmation that he is Philadelphia’s first fiddle.