Two years ago the New York Philharmonic-Symphony's board of directors were casting about for a successor to Maestro Arturo Toscanini, just retired. Shortly after they signed up Germany's famed Wilhelm Furtwangler it was announced from Berlin that Conductor Furtwangler had accepted the high, Nazi-dominated post of Generalmusikdirektor at the Berlin State Opera. Thereupon irate Philharmonic-Symphony subscribers demanded, and got, Conductor Furtwangler's immediate resignation from the Philharmonic-Symphony post (TIME, March 23, 1936).
Leader of these irate subscribers was Ira Hirschmann, bright-eyed, bushy-haired vice president of Manhattan's Saks-Fifth Avenue department store. Fed up with the...
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