Philharmonic's Choice

With a chip on his shoulder Conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler left the New York Philharmonic nine years ago determined never to return so long as Arturo Toscanini shared that orchestra's command. The German's first U. S. concerts were brilliant. After Toscanini arrived in 1926, he became heckled by adverse criticism, lost his confidence, his force. Last month Toscanini announced that he could no longer continue as the Philharmonic's general music director (TIME, Feb. 24). Last week the post was offered to Conductor Furtwaengler. who promptly accepted it.

Though the Philharmonic directors had chosen a musician of outstanding ability, their announcement had instant and stormy repercussions. Some recalled the speech Herr Furtwaengler made in Berlin four years ago when he referred to U. S. orchestras as "pet puppies which one keeps without inner necessity." Others pronounced him a slave to Nazidom, objected because he had been slow to protest when Jewish musicians were exiled from Germany, that the complaint he finally did register was either softened or withdrawn. Same day that he received his Philharmonic appointment Furtwaengler was reinstated as director of the Prussian State Opera. A group of New Yorkers under Ira A. Hirschmann forthwith canceled their Philharmonic subscriptions, threatened to stir up a general boycott.

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