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The pleasantly dissonant tuning up and chatter stopped in mid-note as the grey-haired man in the tan sport coat walked briskly across the stage to the podium. For a few silent moments his glance flickered over the musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his shale-blue eyes and handsome, melancholy face warm with affection. When his glance had embraced them all, Charles Munch picked up his baton, smiled and said: "Maintenant, relax." A moment later, Boston's 50-year-old Symphony Hall was rocking joyously with the rehearsal of Hector Berlioz' bounding overture, The Corsair.
Kindly, 58-year-old Alsatian-born Conductor Munch no longer really had to tell his musicians to relax. In eleven weeks as their first new conductor in 25 years, his musicians were freer of tension than they had been for years. In his first speech to them he had vowed, in his painful English, to do his best to maintain the high standards of the Boston. He also hoped "there will be joy." Forthwith, friendly "Charry" Munch (pronounced Moonsh) won their respect as a musician, and their love and obedience as a man. This week, as he rehearsed his 105 musicians for his eighth series of Boston concerts, he could work with confidence that most Bostonians had succumbed to him, man and music, just as his orchestra had.
A Genius in the Pot? To most U.S. musicians and music lovers, the ascension of Charles Munch to the nation's most prestigious musical throne had come with the jolting surprise of one of Hector Berlioz' sudden bursts of brass.
The name of Munch was not big in U.S. music. He had visited for the first time in the 1946-47 season, to be guest conductor in Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles; in 1948 he had conducted the French National (Radio) Orchestra on its U.S. tour. Although he had won respectful notices from critics, his name had seldom appeared in the calculations of the pundits and prophets who wanted to call the tune on Boston's new conductor. From the time 75-year-old Conductor Serge Koussevitzky announced that he would abdicate at the end of his 25 years of autocratic rule (TIME, April 19, 1948), they had been discussing heirs more apparent—31-year-old Koussevitzky Protege Leonard Bernstein, the New York Philharmonic-Symphony's part-time Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, Cleveland's George Szell.
But Boston Symphony President Henry B. Cabot and his 14 fellow trustees had been "keeping our eyes open for conductors for a long time." Boston proceeded "on the strange assumption," says blunt, silver-spectacled Harry Cabot, "that they were all available." The man they were seeking would be "the boss" in every sense of the word: in programing, choice of soloists and guest conductors. The Boston's trustees could promise this because they still follow the enviable first principles laid down by the orchestra's founder, Major Henry Lee Higginson: relationship of orchestra to conductor—absolute obedience; relationship of conductor to Higginson—absolute freedom. They also needed a man who could bear the burden of conducting at least 90 concerts.