Notes of Triumph

"The fulfillment of a dream!" crowed NBC's General David Sarnoff: "What a joy it is that this can be done while our beloved maestro is still a young man." And with that, Arturo Toscanini, who will be 81 this week, raised his baton, and led the NBC Symphony into its first televised concert.

Last week, after Music Czar Petrillo lifted his ban on television (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), the networks scrambled to be first to televise their big symphonies. CBS won by a nose, with a telecast of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was an interesting performance: Maestro Eugene Ormandy, unwarily popping a peppermint into his mouth in midpassage; the camera ogling the girl members of the orchestra. But for most televiewers it was just a curtain raiser for Toscanini, half an hour later.

Up & down the East Coast, televiewers, many of them seeing their first symphony concert, were stirred by the dynamic old man. And Toscanini, unnaturally docile about it all, was in top form. No less adroit was the photography of Director Hal Keith's three cameras. The television eye followed the music smoothly as it proceeded from section to section of the orchestra. It caught some remarkably candid glimpses of the maestro that concertgoers never see: Toscanini's glittering eyes, flashing eloquent messages to his musicians; his triumphant roar in the midst of a Wagnerian crescendo; the beads of sweat, glistening on his brow.*

Afterwards, the praise was mountainous. "I ... enjoyed it very much," wired President Truman. "Very good, very good" muttered Petrillo (who had been invited by NBC to play his trumpet with the orchestra, but had cannily declined).

*Technicians noted one minor flaw: in the closeups, Toscanini's starched white cuffs made long shadows on the screen.

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