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> Cleveland's Rafael Druian, 44, has been the solid cornerstone of Conductor George Szell's ensemble for six years, is the epitome of the unruffable consistency demanded of the concertmaster. Born in Russia, trained in Cuba and the U.S., he was concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony for eleven years before going to Cleveland.
> San Francisco's Jacob Krachmalnick, 44, has played first fiddle in Philadelphia and Amsterdam, spent one year as an artist-in-residence at the University of California, and then fled ("Everybody sits around on their tenures; it's no place for professionals") to the San Francisco. The orchestra's 30-week season suits him perfectly, since it gives him time to tour with his chamber-music trio and spend lucrative summers playing film scores in Hollywood.
> Chicago's Steven Staryk, 34, like Nadien, worked as a studio musician, mostly "playing the music for bedroom scenes in movies." Articulate, supremely cool, the Toronto-born violinist was appointed concertmaster of the London Royal Philharmonic at 24, then played in the same capacity with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw before going to Chicago in 1962. Says he: "The days of the swaying, anticipating, overanxious concertmaster are over. Today, masterly musicianship and maximum self-control are the order."
> Boston's Joseph Silverstein, 33, raised in Detroit, is one of the top three or four concertmasters in the world. That is some achievement in view of the fact that he was expelled from Philadelphia's Curtis Institute at 17 ("I was too distracted by girls and baseball"). Silverstein is one of the few concertmasters to work his way up from the ranks; he joined the Boston string section in 1955, ascended to the first chair in 1962. Says Boston Symphony Conductor Erich Leinsdorf: "He has some sort of beam or antenna, so that he knows what I want almost before I do."
A good concertmaster is as rare as a humble conductor. He is indispensable to a conductor's success and, as such, is guarded and pampered like a mistress. Sir John Barbirolli refers to his man as his "chief of staff," Eugene Ormandy's is his "mind reader," William Steinberg's his "seismograph," Donald Johanos' his "stroke oar."
A concertmaster is all that and more, relying on a sixth sense to translate the ideas of the conductor to the musicians. He derives his authority from the simple fact that he can play better than anyone else in the orchestra, sets the standard that the rest of the players are expected to live up to. He plays all the important violin solos in an orchestral piece, and, indeed, ought to be so familiar with the literature that he can substitute at the last minute for an absent violin soloist.
He is also responsible for keeping everyone in tune, determines the proper bowing for the strings, an all-important factor in correct phrasing. When the maestro wiggles a meaningful finger, the concertmaster responds accordingly and, in an instantaneous chain reaction, his lead is followed by each row of string players and ultimately by the entire orchestra.