Word: orchestra
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Conductor Erich Leinsdorf, a Mozart specialist, led the orchestra correctly, but without paprika. Apart from Mezzo Regina Resnik, fine as an old fortuneteller, the only really convincing member of the cast was Walter Slezak, making his Met debut as the pig farmer, Szupán. The son of famed Tenor Leo Slezak, 57-year-old Actor Slezak had wanted to stand on the stage of the Met for as long as he could remember, was delighted when he got his father's old dressing room...
...other end of the scale, the Vienna Philharmonic performed Anton Bruckner's sprawling (80 minutes) Eighth Symphony, a superromantic exercise whose occasional eloquence and melodic beauty is drowned in the wearisome repetition of meaningless climaxes. The orchestra brightened things again with a fine, majestic performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (The Unfinished) and a round of selections from various Strausses, including a Fledermaus overture that seemed to transform Carnegie Hall into a crystal-hung ballroom...
...Remoortel rapped them to silence and led them into Beethoven's Egmont Overture, housewife and teen-ager played with astonishing competence. At the start of its 100th season, the St. Louis Philharmonic demonstrated again what its admirers have long claimed-that it is the finest non-professional orchestra in the world...
Only one U.S. orchestra-the New York Philharmonic-is older than the St. Louis Philharmonic. Founded 20 years before the city's professional orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Philharmonic has attracted generation after generation of St. Louis families to its ranks, has sent alumni by the score into virtually every major U.S. orchestra. Its quality amazes visiting conductors, especially Europeans unaccustomed to amateur playing on such an ambitious scale. Last week's concert included, in addition to the Beethoven selection, Mozart's Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra, Chausson's Poem for Violin...
...such contemporary crowd rousers as the overtures to Michele Carafa's La Prison d'Edimbourg and Francois Boieldieu's La Dame Blanche. Most of the time since, it has stuck to a rigid amateur policy; only the conductors and guest soloists are pros. Part of the orchestra's success stems from its organization; its governing board is made up of playing members, and each of the orchestra's 95 instrumentalists must survive an annual audition; if any player does not measure up, he loses his place, must give way to fresh outside talent. Every orchestra...