Word: conductor
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...Conductor Serge Koussevitzky and his Boston Symphony had to pause during Tschaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, one night last week in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, while Conductor Koussevitzky asked the audience to sit down, be quiet. The billows of smoke that were gushing out on the stage and swirling among the imperturbable musicians, were only from a fire in a rubbish chute, which was quickly controlled. When a friend congratulated Koussevitzky not only for averting a panic but for keeping his tempo precise and unhurried through it all, Koussevitzky answered: "Ah! But tempo is tempo and tranquillity is tranquillity...
...contestants and the impressions they made on 20 artist-judges gave the occasion its importance. In the judges' chairs sat such worthies as Composer Arnold Schönberg, Conductor Tullio Serafin, Tenors Paul Althouse and Giovanni Martinelli, Sopranos Gertrude Kappel, Greta Stückgold, Frida Leider. Of the 225 contestants eight had been chosen for the finals. There were Harold Haugh, earnest, 28-year-old theological student from Cleveland; William Roveen, 25, who for four years has earned his music lessons by waiting on table in a summer camp; Paul Ward, whose last job was a clerkship...
...Then his baton cut sharply into the air. First passage was for the violins. The Maestro's stick seemed suddenly to become a violin bow playing tenderly across imaginary strings. His left hand molded phrases, shot up like a policeman's warning to keep the pianissimos. Most conductors make an elaborate show of signaling to the different players, whipping up climaxes. Toscanini had done all that at rehearsal. When he quivered his hand over his heart the men knew that he wanted the most from them. And always he sang, as he wanted the orchestra to sing. Toscanini...
...Lower Broadway. The musicians stood up to play then. Several chosen for their "appearance and address" acted as ushers, wore white gloves until the Society discovered it could save $4.75 if they went barehanded. Never has a Philharmonic concert been canceled. Only two have been postponed, one when Conductor Anton Seidl died suddenly, the other when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Radio has made the Philharmonic the world's most widely heard orchestra. Columbia Broadcasting System figured that 9,000,000 listened to Toscanini's birthday concert, the 2,981st concert that the Philharmonic has given. For its artistic...
...conductors. Toscanini's 14 Beethoven concerts sold out to the doors. The Wagner performances planned for April 15, 22 and 29 should do as well. Toscanini's greatest admirers wish that he had Koussevitzky's skill at program-making, that he did not lavish so much of his genius on mediocre scores by his countrymen. But no criticism touches the Maestro so long as he feels that he is faithful to a composer's intention. Once he has made a decision nothing can budge him. He took a beating in Bologna three years ago rather than...