Word: conductor
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...Washington took the stage of Poll's Theatre, Washington, last week. It was the first concert of the Washington Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Kurt J. Hetzel, promised since early last summer to the only city of its size and development not possessing a permanent, flourishing orchestra. Conductor Hetzel, tall, slender, dynamic, had had his men together for only five ensemble rehearsals. Nevertheless they played creditably, excellently, an exacting if not unhackneyed program, which included Liszt's "Les Preludes," Tschaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and the Tannhauser Overture...
Kurt Hetzel was formerly conductor of the Holttheater at Mannheim, of the Stadttheater of Strassburg. He was two years at the Royal Opera House at Munich, three years at the German Opera House at Czernowitz, Roumania. He has lived in Washington for less than a year...
...long, they rise and leave, bowing to their friends and murmuring goodbyes, and hurry away to scones and cinnamon toast and caroling kettles, leaving the music to make its swanlike end exclusively for the benefit of the ushers and those that have free seats, etc. Ah, if only Conductor Leopold Stokowski would treat these Friday excursionists as they treat him, lovers of music have said. If he would return their courtesy, the scene in the auditorium would be something like this...
...curtain rises. Two musicians?the first violin and the cellist?are seated, chatting. Conductor Stokowski strolls vaguely in from the wings. He bows. Puzzled applause from the audience?murmurs of "But good heavens, Victoria, where is the orchestra? . . . Down behind that backdrop? . . . I think it is simply too quaint. . . ." That no orchestra lurks behind the backdrop is clearly demonstrated when Mr. Stokowski raises his baton and the scrannel strains of the violin and cello tremble, quite unsupported, in the hostile air. . . . Now another musician comes in. He carries a horn and a handkerchief and flops down in the first convenient...
This is what music-lovers have often wished would happen. This, in substance, was what happened last Friday. Philadelphians were "dumbfounded by Stokowski's satire." Some applauded. Some hissed. Forty odd first-row patrons walked out. At last a conductor had had the courage to give a Philadelphia audience a few hints on behavior...