Music: Tosccmini’s Finger

In 1878 a young Manhattan patrician named Templeton Strong turned down a proffered job with the swanky law firm of Strong and Cadwalader (now Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft), tucked an oboe under his arm, and took a boat for Europe. There, hobnobbing with such hall-of-famers as the late Franz Liszt, the late Joseph Joachim Raff, the late Edward Macdowell, he made a minor name for himself as a talented U. S. composer.

Thirteen years later he paid a visit to the U. S. When he found U. S. audiences could take his music or leave it alone, he went back to Europe for good, settled in Switzerland. As the years passed the U. S. public forgot all about him, musicians thought of him, when they did, as someone who had probably been dead a long time.

Last week no less forceful a finger than Arturo Toscanini’s reminded U. S. concertgoers of Composer Strong. Over his weekly NBC broadcast Toscanini played a strong composition called Die Nacht (“Night”). Listeners were not surprised by its musty romanticism, its able orchestration, which recalled the period of Wagner, Brahms and Schumann. But they were surprised to hear that musty U. S. Romantic Strong was still alive.

Originally scheduled for the broadcast had been a new symphony by 41-year-old U. S. Composer Roy Harris. But when it was brought to Maestro Toscanini’s attention that expatriate Composer Strong was past 80, he substituted Strong’s piece, cabled Strong to listen in on his Swiss radio set.