Word: conductor
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...most active members in the Club's history was Leonard Bernstein '39, protege of Serge Koussevitzky and well-known conductor and composer, who headed the program committee and managed to perform at all but one of the regular meetings of the Club in the year 1936-37 and played two works, including one of his own compositions, at the annual concert that year...
...staggering membership of one--Mr. Henry Gasset. Gasset, reluctant to go down in history as the last of the tribe, elected himself President of the organization, appointed himself as all the other officers, kept minutes of all his meetings with himself, rehearsed with himself with himself as the official conductor, and after his rehearsing, toasted himself with liquor bought with the dues which he paid to himself...
Many of Pierian's alumni have gone on to much greater achievements in the musical field. Perhaps the outstanding example is Leonard Bernstein 39, who has become a figure of world renown both as a composer and as a conductor. Bernstein led the New York City Symphony for several years, and was one of those considered to succeed Serge Koussevitzky as conductor of the Boston Symphony. For his composing abilities, Bernstein recently said of himself, "I am the logical man to write the Great American Opera...
...justified, about thin Mozart tones being swollen into Lisztian voluptuousness, about batteries of double basses grinding out Bach fugues, about programs of Morton Gould and Samuel Barber. But, instead of picking our noses to find something to grumble about, let us realize that Serge Koussevitzky is a very fine conductor, the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society is a very fine choral group, the Boston Symphony is a superb orchestra, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is one of the greatest artistic creations of Western civilization. A good time...
Scrupulously honest, he detects sham of all kinds instantly. Years ago, after Richard Strauss had asked him to conduct the first performance of his Salome, then gave it to another conductor, Toscanini went all the way from Milan to Vienna to tell him, "Strauss, as a musician I take my hat off to you; as a man [Toscanini here went through a furious pantomime of a man clomping on hats repeatedly] I put on twelve hats...