The Fishbergs and Borodkins

The two most numerous musical families in the U.S. are the Fishberg-Glantzes and the Borodkin-Gusikoffs. Spread from Hollywood to Manhattan, with relatives in half the major symphony orchestras of the U.S., these two strains of musicians could each constitute a sizable orchestra. Collectively, they constitute one of the most impressive genealogical phenomena ever studied outside of Boston.

The simple statistics are arresting. Among the Fishbergs and Glantzes there are in the U.S. (and Russia has more): ten violinists, eight trumpeters, three pianists, two flutists, two clarinetists, two saxophonists, two drummers and one double bassist. Among the Borodkins and Gusikoffs there are five cellists, two violinists, four trumpeters, two drummers, one violist, one pianist, one clarinetist and one trombonist. The total amounts to some 47 orchestra players, includes twelve violinists, twelve trumpet players. Among the most prominent are Mischa Mischakoff (real name Fishberg), concertmaster of the NBC Symphony; Harry Glantz, first trumpet of the NBC Symphony; Sidney Baker (a Fishberg), first trumpet of the Chicago Symphony;* Charles Gusikoff, first trombone of the Philadelphia Orchestra; Saul Caston (a Gusikoff), assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Isaac, the Patriarch. The Gusikoffs are an old Moscow family tracing themselves with pride to Michael Gusikoff (1806-37), great pioneer virtuoso on the xylophone. The Borodkins are from Minsk and have known, and intermarried with, the Gusikoffs only since both arrived in the U.S. The Fishbergs and Glantzes, however, knew one another intimately in the Ukranian town of Proskurov where Pincas Glantz and Isaac Fishberg played in the local band under the Czars. The patriarch Isaac Fishberg, 94, is still as spry as a Bessarabian goat. He lives with his grey-haired wife Fannie in a little three-room apartment in Brooklyn. Isaac is a flutist. Last week Isaac conducted the Fishberg family's Passover services with true patriarchal dignity. Fishbergs from Manhattan and The Bronx, with their wives and children, put away their fiddles and trombones to visit him in Brooklyn. Vigorous, blue-eyed Isaac, his grey, cropped hair covered with a black skullcap, looked them over sharply. Isaac (by a previous wife) had begotten so many children he could hardly keep track of them. Of a total of 16, ten--Arriga, Theodore, Jascha, William, Mischa, Pearl, Lisa, Bessie, Rebecca and Fishel--were in the U.S. Ten grandchildren were either professional musicians or on the way to that calling. Isaac's favorite son is Mischa Mischakoff, who earns about $25,000 a year.

Pink-cheeked Isaac Fishberg speaks only Yiddish and is a man of great spirit. In spite of his age, he gets up at 4 o'clock every morning to visit the synagogue, does the family marketing himself on the way home. He is infuriated if anyone suggests that his health is delicate. He has high blood pressure, but claims to enjoy it. He views most of his in-laws with tolerance, but would not live with any of his descendants for a prophet's ransom.

Two weeks ago 94-year-old Isaac Fishberg came home after a night out and had to be put to bed because of a serious nosebleed. He refused to tell where he had been. The truth finally leaked out. Bored with the routine of domestic life, Isaac had sneaked away with his flute to a Jewish wedding where he had played for four hours at a stretch.

Perfect Order

The latest conductor to make a first-class impression on U.S. musical criticism is George Szell (pronounced Sell). This week the husky, formidable-mannered Czecho-Hungarian winds up a season at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera during which he has directed some of the finest Wagner the U.S. has heard in a generation.

Szell's Wagner, like his Strauss and Moussorgsky, is remarkable not only for power and dramatic vitality (as was that of the late Artur Bodanzky) but also for its meticulous clarity. He manages to keep the highest lucidity of musical patterns among half-a-dozen stars, a hundred chorus singers and a hundred orchestra players. He does this by being one of the most coldly efficient tyrants who ever stood in the Metropolitan's orchestra pit.

George Szell is a Jewish refugee from Nazi Europe and a fervent Hitler-hater. But his outward manner suggests the average American idea of the typical Nazi. He fixes his orchestra with a thick-spectacled stare that would do credit to a cinema Prussian. Some conductors get their effects by kindness and psychological subtlety; some approach the technique of a lion tamer. George Szell is among the latter. For him the Met's lions jump through their hoops under dazzling control.

Born in Budapest, George Szell grew up an infant prodigy, made his debut as a pianist and composer at the age of ten with the Vienna Symphony. He rose to be chief maestro of the pre-Hitler Berlin Opera. This summer he will conduct at Philadelphia's Robin Hood Dell, Chicago's Ravinia Park and the Hollywood Bowl.

Szell lives with his striking, chestnut-haired Czech wife in a Manhattan apartment so scrupulously kept that visitors are almost afraid to sit down in it. A devout gourmet, he frequently terrifies his wife by tying an apron around his muscular torso and assuming autocratic control of the kitchen. He resents all imputations of artistic temperament. Says George Szell: "There is nothing interesting about me. I have no hobbies. I am not melancholy. My accounts are all in perfect order. I am so damn normal.. . ."

*Now with the U.S. armed forces.

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