Music: Ring in the New

To his admirers in the nation's capital, tall, husky Conductor Hans Kindler is one of the U.S.'s great conductors (and, say some Washington ladies, "the most beautiful man"). To his detractors, he is a man "who can't even beat a waltz," a fellow who likes to chop up scores: one Washingtonian calls Kindler's National Symphony Orchestra "the only orchestra in the world to give a ten-minute performance of Petrouchka."*

Last fall the detractors won. The symphony's directors offered Netherlands-born Hans Kindler a new contract with one hand and evidently a hint with the...