(5 of 5)
conductors.
Toscanini's 14 Beethoven concerts sold out to the doors. The
Wagner performances planned for April 15, 22 and 29 should do as well.
Toscanini's greatest admirers wish that he had Koussevitzky's skill at
program-making, that he did not lavish so much of his genius on
mediocre scores by his countrymen. But no criticism touches the Maestro
so long as he feels that he is faithful to a composer's intention. Once
he has made a decision nothing can budge him. He took a beating in
Bologna three years ago rather than play the Fascist Hymn at what
seemed to him an inappropriate occasion. No coaxing could get him to
Bayreuth when Adolf Hitler discriminated against his fellow musicians
who happened to be Jews (TIME. June 19). He took one of his stands last
week when he refused to talk at his birthday party. Many a Sunday
afternoon subscriber remembered that he had made a speech three years
ago when Signora Carla was home in Milan with a broken leg. At great
expense that day Columbia Broadcasting System had arranged a short wave
connection lo Italy and at the end of the concert, to everyone's
amazement, the Maestro rushed up to the microphone and in his croaking
voice said: "I send you my best greetings. I will sail in two days and
I will see you and embrace you." At the Sunday afternoon broadcasts
Critic Lawrence Gilman (New York Herald Tribune) talks about the composers,
describes the music. Last week he spoke only of Toscanini. Said
he: "When one thinks back over the countless manifestations of Mr.
Toscanini's art as a conductor that we in this country have been
privileged to experience, one recalls none that did not leave in the
mind a deepening conviction that he represents, with a peculiar
completeness, the ideal of the great interpreter. . . . He has proved
to us. by repeated demonstration, that the supreme artist must depend
for his spiritual sustenance upon elements no less rare than simplicity
and selflessness and faith. He has brought closer to us the greatness
of exalted and imperishable things. ..."
* Between 1922 and 1928, when the Xew York Symphony merged
with the Philharmonic, Mr. Flakier spent $1.048,152 on the Damrosch Or-
chestra. (His father made the Flakier fortune on Standard Oil. Florida
railroads.) The Philharmonic's operating expenses will amount to
$686,000 this season. Salaries for 108 musicians and three conductors
amount to $438,861. Receipts are estimated at $545.826. Neither Mr.
Mackay nor Mr. Flagler felt able to help finance the orchestra this
season. Bank loans made it possible. The Leipzig Gcivamlhaits Orchestra
is older. *When Toscanini sailed last spring for Europe a little pile
of broken spectacles was found in the back of his closet.
