The tidy Dutch were checking over the books of Amsterdam's famed Concertgebouw Orchestra. If everything was in order, Conductor Eduard van Beinum's musicians would get their annual subsidy as usual. But this time everything was distinctly not in order: Van Beinum's predecessor, the great Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, was still down on the books for 10,000 guilders ($3,760) a year, even though he had been sent into musical exile in 1945 for collaborating with the Nazis.
Nobody had quarreled with the annuity when it had been granted to aging, cello-sized (5 ft. 4 in.) Conductor Mengelberg in September 1939. Through 44 years, except for stretches in New York (1921-29) and London, he had devoted himself to pounding and polishing Amsterdam's orchestra into one of the two or three finest in the world.
Six Years or Forever. But when Hitler's armies invaded The Netherlands, Mengelberg welcomed them with open arms. At war's end he fled to Switzerland, and the Dutch Centrale Ereraad voor de Kunst (Central Council of Honor for the Arts) forbade him to conduct ever again in Holland, later reduced his banishment to six years—well knowing that for Mengelberg, then 76, six years might be forever.
Last week, Amsterdam's councilmen made short work of lopping off the annuity. But to Willem Mengelberg, a senile remnant of musical greatness, it made small difference. Because of Dutch currency restrictions, he had received only about a quarter of his stipend anyway; most of his money came from Swiss investments.
In his 16-room "Chasa Mengelberg," there is a huge library and a piano, but no running water, electricity or radio. Until a TIME correspondent visited him last week, he did not know that two German musicians, accused but cleared of collaborating —Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and Pianist Walter Gieseking—had been forced to cancel U.S. performances* after stormy protests.
"I Have Never Indulged." Dressed as usual in golf togs, Willem Mengelberg leaned on two sticks as he walked along the snow-covered paths around the Roman Catholic chapel he had vowed to build if his chasa was spared in World War I. "I have never indulged in politics," he said. "My art is public property; I am not supposed to withhold it from anyone."
"In 1945 [it was in 1947] Queen Wilhelmina asked me to return the decoration which she had once bestowed on me. And do you know why? A newspaper poll once revealed that Mengelberg was the most popular name in Holland, and that the Queen held only second place . . ." His secretary apologetically intervened: "He sometimes can't get the facts straight any more . . ."
Said Mengelberg: "I am not like many other conductors ... I do not envy anyone success. If someone tells me there is a conductor who is superior to Mengelberg, I bow humbly." After a moment's thought, he added: "But whenever I hear that person's performance, I simply cannot understand what makes people think he might be better than me."
*But not in Britain. Last week Furtwangler was signed to conduct three concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in London next fall. Soloist in two of them: Violinist Yehudi Menuhin.