Gershwin in Bohemia

Music-lovers of Prague still liked Bach, Beethoven and Wagner, but they pined for a change of fare: for six years under the Nazis they had heard almost nothing else.

Last week the Czechs set out to discover what kind of noises Allied music had been producing behind the din of war. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the citizens of Prague opened a four-week Government-financed International Music Festival. Main courses in the feast: jarry American spice and the lean tonal dishes of modernists in Russia, France and England.

To make room for the music, the Czech Parliament moved out of its marble-columned Rudolfinum building. To represent the U.S. in two programs, the Czechs invited Manhattan's brash, brilliant 27-year-old Composer-Conductor Leonard Bernstein. For a week Bernstein, who speaks no Czech, waved an impatient baton at musicians rehearsing unfamiliar rhythms. At week's end sold-out houses heard a reasonable facsimile of more modern music than most U.S. concertgoers hear in a season.

The Czechs, whose love for American jazz is echoed from every kavarna (coffee house) in Prague, applauded compositions by Aaron Copland, William Schuman and Samuel Barber, but gave the loudest ovation to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, with President Truman's protege-pianist, Eugene List, as soloist (TIME, April 22). Bernstein led the orchestra through a rousing performance of his own apocalyptic Jeremiah Symphony. After concerts, Bernstein played the piano for Czech Philharmonic's conductor Rafael Kubelik and his violinist wife, updating them on the latest versions of Honky-Tonk Train and Empty Bed Blues.

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