MIdwestern Heat

The U. S. orchestra season opens in three heats: Eastern orchestras first, Midwestern next, far Western last. Boston, Manhattan and Philadelphia were well embarked on their seasons last week when simultaneously in Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Detroit four batons began cutting the air. Elderly, thickset Frederick Stock held the stick for Chicago, stalwart, British Eugene Goossens for Cincinnati, brisk Nikolai Sokoloff for Cleveland, quiet, slow-moving Ossip Gabrilowitsch for Detroit. The Midwestern conductors chose safe & sane courses last week, free from hazardous, modernistic hurdles.

Midwestern audiences, aware that they were fortunate to be hearing orchestras at all this year, wanted nothing more exciting. For them it was enough to lionize their conductors. Cincinnati praised Goossens for breaking tradition, allowing part of his programs to be broadcast. Detroit's ovation made Gabrilowitsch blush. Cleveland was extra cordial to Sokoloff since this is probably his last season with the orchestra he has conducted since its infancy.* Chicago's welcome to Stock showed clearly that it had not forgotten how near it came to losing its orchestra over a dispute with the Musicians' Union (TIME, March 14).

In Chicago the passing of Samuel Insull's Civic Opera made it look as if the Orchestra would be left alone in the musical field. But last week a popular-priced performance of Aida drew 10,000 people to the Chicago Stadium, home of hockey games, prize fights, the late Republican and Democratic Conventions. Manhattan's Maurice Frank staged the production (the first of 20), used the Civic Opera orchestra and chorus, one piece of scenery. Impresario Frank is not attempting to solicit the patronage of Ryersons, McCormicks, Swifts and their peers. In his excitable way, he likes to remind people that the high-priced, subsidized opera which socialites favored proved a failure.

* Next July and August Conductor Sokoloff will conduct an orchestra of his own on the grounds of his estate in Weston, Conn.

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