Says German Conductor Hermann Scherchen: "I enjoy doing what other conductors don't want to do or can't do." Known to U.S. listenersfrom his records onlyas a master of the classical repertory, he is equally famed in Europe as the tireless proselytizer for modern music, the man who got hearings for Berg, Von Webern, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Milhaud long before their names had seeped into the record catalogues. Last week Conductor Scherchen was out plugging the work of another early comrade in music; in Frankfurt he conducted a series of packed performances of Igor Stravinsky's witty 18th century-styled opera, The Rake's Progress.
Scherchen displayed...