Music: Klemperer for Los Angeles

All spring the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been scouting around for a strong, vital conductor who would build up the orchestra’s patronage against the season of 1933-34 when Copperheir William Andrews Clark Jr. has announced that he will no longer stand its deficits. Last week Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic drive rebounded to Los Angeles’ benefit. As soon as Conductor Otto Klemperer was kicked out of the Berlin State Opera where his contract had four more years to run, Los Angeles quickly signed him.

Conductor Klemperer is as exciting to watch as the music he makes. He is so tall (6 ft. 7 in.) that he uses no podium but even without one he has to bend like a melon rind to get level with his men. When he spreads his arms an entire orchestra seems to fall under the shadow of his wings. For a lush string passage one arm will suddenly take the form of a violin while he plays on it with the other. He stands erect for staccato effects, hunches his head forward and fairly plucks the quick, short notes from out the instruments. He takes his crescendoes with hair and coat tails flying.