Death in Detroit

For three weeks, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra had lain on its bed of pain waiting for its chief financial doctor, Board President Henry H. Reichhold, to make a move that would either cure it or kill it (TIME, Sept. 5). Last week he moved, and the patient died.

First, Conductor Karl Krueger resigned, tired of "combating tawdry intrigues." Instead, he planned to organize a new American Arts Orchestra in Manhattan, composed entirely of U.S.-born or U.S.-trained musicians. Then Reichhold himself resigned, appealing to Musicians' Union Czar James Caesar Petrillo to "personally step in and investigate." Petrillo refused: "I cannot in good conscience advise the Detroit musicians to accept less than they received last season, as their wages and conditions and length of season were already considerably under the standards of other major symphony orchestras . . ."

With that, Board Vice President John S. Sweeney Jr. (whose son is the orchestra pianist) urged his fellow board members "to wash the whole thing up and dissolve." After a three-hour session, they merely voted unanimously not to present a 1949-50 season.

That did not mean that Detroit would starve for good music. The newly formed, 30-piece Little Symphony had planned a series of four concerts. The Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Orchestras were coming avisiting.

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