U.S. Conductors

U. S. Conductors

No U. S.-born conductor has ever been conceded a place at the top of his profession ; and few have ever rated a job as chief of even a second-rate U. S. symphony orchestra. A rare exception is the Kansas City Philharmonic's Karl Krueger, who last week completed a tour of Italy as guest maestro with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Fuzzy-headed, cigar-puffing Krueger, who during the past four years has put Kansas City, Mo., on the symphonic map, was born in Atchison, Kans.

Principal reasons for the dearth of famous U. S.-born maestros have been: 1) a lack of places where the young U. S. conductor can cut his teeth; 2) snobbishness. In Germany, where conducting is as specialized a profession as brain surgery, conductors are systematically trained and systematically advanced in their careers. The neophyte, having mastered several musical instruments and taken a complete course in musical composition, enters a conductors' class at the konservatorium, where he studies the symphonic and operatic classics and learns how to shake a stick at an orchestra. Then he graduates. But that is only the beginning. Assigned to the staff of an opera house, he spends years rehearsing choruses, teaching singers how to sing their parts, helping conductors whip scenes into shape. Eventually, if he shows talent, he is allowed to conduct an opera or two. Only after a long term as a full-fledged opera conductor does he attempt the exacting business of conducting a symphony orchestra. Conducting opera is like driving a 20-mule team, gives an ideal training for conductors. A Brahms symphony holds no technical terrors for a man who is able to keep a badly-rehearsed chorus, five or six erratic singers and an orchestra in the same place at the same time.

The U. S. has no small, provincial opera houses. Assistant conductorships in the few permanent U. S. opera companies are very seldom awarded to U. S.-born aspirants, full-fledged conductorships almost never. U. S. audiences, long accustomed to judging other types of musicians impartially on their merits, still flock more eagerly to hear a fourth-rate foreign conductor than to hear a fairly well-equipped and conscientious native maestro. Boards of directors of U. S. symphony orchestras, sometimes influenced by socialite patronesses, usually demand colorful or famous personalities. Current in orchestral circles is the remark of a well-known pianist's wife:* "When a conductor in Europe has a love affair, the result usually is a child; in America an entire orchestra."

To compete with full-fledged & experienced European rivals, many U. S. conductors have not only studied in Europe but have launched their careers there. European opera houses will occasionally take on a U. S. student for odd jobs. Second-rate European orchestras can usually be hired for concerts. But hiring a loo-man orchestra to practice on is a luxury that only a very liberally financed maestro can afford.

Today there are signs that the U. S. is about to produce a healthy home-grown crop of conductors. The signs: 1) Courses in conducting are being offered by the most important music training schools in the U. S./- 2) Wide contacts of these schools have enabled them to place young U. S. conductors at the heads of orchestras in smaller U. S. cities; 3) Widespread growth of symphonic music in the U. S. in recent years has demonstrated to the U. S. man-in-the-street that conducting is not a mysterious foreign hocuspocus, but a legitimate, highly skilled job.

* From Chords and Discords, by Sam Franko, published last month by Viking.

/- Among them: Manhattan's Juilliard Musical Foundation and National Orchestral Association, Philadelphia's Curtis Institute.

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