Tribute to Maestro Solti
Sir / Your article on Conductor Georg Solti [May 7] and the Chicago Symphony was just right. It was a romantic piece for a romantic orchestra.
(THE REV.) JOSEPH MATTERN
Marinette, Wis.
Sir / We Mahlerites are especially pleased with Sir Georg's interpretations of Mahler.
AVIK GILBOA
President Gustav Mahler Society Los Angeles
Sir / It appears that Maestro Solti in stabbing himself with his baton is perpetuating a tradition. It began with Jean Baptiste Lully, who, as an early ensemble conductor, clobbered his toe with the large cane he used to gesture toward his 24 violins. He died of resultant blood poisoning.
In more recent times, stories abound concerning baton accidents. Maestro Alessandro stabbed himself. One conductor I know personally jabbed his left eye. Any musician can recall numerous occasions on which the "stick" has gone flying into the orchestra or audience—unintentionally, of course!
BASIL TYLER
Associate Professor of Music University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
Sir / TIME'S hymn of praise to Sir Georg Solti is in effect a rhapsodic tribute to the Chicago Symphony and to its master builder, Fritz Reiner. When Reiner arrived in Chicago in the early 1950s, the orchestra that had been shaped so nobly by Frederick ("Papa") Stock had fallen on hard times. Maestro Reiner changed all that. Reiner's method centered on perfectionism, brought out with elan and excitement, yet with an economy of baton flicking, writhing, bouncing or grimacing.
IRWIN GOODWIN
Alexandria, Va.
Sir / Surely an orchestra that is "on the rise" is the New Jersey Symphony under Henry Lewis.
JAMES PEGOLOTTI
Jersey City
Sir / Your music critic, in not even mentioning the St. Louis Symphony and Walter Susskind, is nuts.
RICHARD E. MUELLER
St. Louis
Sir / Your music critic William Bender rated the Boston Symphony Orchestra behind those of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. I disagree. I would rank the Boston Symphony as equal to and often superior to these orchestras.
ALAN SCOVELL
Cambridge, Mass.
Sir / I did miss seeing the Houston Symphony in your rating of U.S. orchestras.
MARJORIE LEVY
Atlanta
Sir / The Detroit Symphony can, and often does, play up a storm.
GILBERT E. ROSE
Grosse He, Mich.
Sir / Until one sees Stanislaw Skrowaczewski laugh out loud in the midst of a rapturously joyful piece of Haydn, or watches him reach out his arms to conduct a Bruck ner symphony with all the tenderness of a father embracing his first-born child, then one is missing many facets of our Minnesota maestro.
C.A. RANTA
Minneapolis
Sir / Anyone who would not include Washington, D.C.'s National Symphony Orchestra on an orchestral "on the rise" list is either shortsighted, a cultural snob or has a closed mind.
RICHARD A. ANDERSON
Silver Spring, Md.
Watergate (Contd.)
Sir / The only honorable thing left for Nixon to do is tell us why it was so important for him to be re-elected and then to resign.
VERA CLARK
Vacaville, Calif.