After four years of vigorous "cultural exchange." U.S. audiences last week had their first chance to hear a Russian symphony orchestra and to compare it with what they know at home. Occasion: the start in Manhattan of a 20-city tour by the Moscow State Symphony, one of Russia's two major symphony orchestras (the other: Leningrad's Philharmonic).
Conditions for judging the Moscow players were not ideal: at the insistence of Impresario Sol Hurok, the Russians were offering a straight Tchaikovsky repertory during the first two weeks of their stay, with no other classics and no modern works. (Muttered Permanent Conductor Konstantin Ivanov,...
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