Last Man

Since last November conductors at the New York Philharmonic-Symphony have included an Englishman, a Russian, a Rumanian and a Mexican (TIME. Nov. 16). Last week.a Pole, Artur Rodzinski, stepped up to finish out the last eight weeks of a season which Philharmonic devotees consider has almost compensated by its variety for the absence of Maestro Arturo Toscanini. Next season, with John Barbirolli on the podium throughout, promises to be sound and satisfying but not eventful.

Conductor Rodzinski has made unusual progress since he arrived in the U. S. twelve years ago. In 1924 Leopold Stokowski discovered him in Warsaw, a quiet young man of 30 who was conducting at the opera house instead of practicing the law his parents had intended him for. Next year he went to Philadelphia with Stokowski, was assistant conductor there for four years. He spent four more conducting in Los Angeles until in 1933 the Los Angeles Orchestra began to have trouble. William Andrews Clark Jr., who had supported the orchestra for 14 years, announced he could do so only one more season (TIME. Oct. 30, 1933). The directors thought a change of conductors might help ticket sales and engaged German Otto Klemperer. Artur Rodzinski went to Cleveland to become the second conductor that city's orchestra ever had.* Rodzinski showed himself conscientious as well as brilliant. Besides building up the audience for his regular symphony series, Rodzinski added opera to his schedule and made his Wagnerian performances famous. People came from 40 cities to hear his Parsifal last April. Last summer he became the first permanent conductor of a U. S. orchestra to lead at the Salzburg festival. There he was received warmly, delighted even fastidious old Arturo Toscanini./-

In ardent passages Rodzinski still likes to put down his baton and shape the music with his bare hands, a habit he picked up from Stokowski. From Stokowski too he may well have learned the flexible beats and ingenious phrasing that made many concertgoers consider him the ablest conductor they had heard this season. Others felt he exaggerated certain passages beyond all reason, such as the second movement of the Sibelius Second which he takes more slowly than any other conductor alive.

*Nicolai Sokoloff had led the Cleveland Orchestra since its founding in 1917.

/-Though Toscanini conducted the Philharmonic for eleven seasons, he never signed a permanent contract. Last permanent full-time conductor was Josef Stransky.

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