Too-Early Bird

When Conductor Walter Kappesser stood up before the St. Louis Choral Society at concert time one night last week, he had a newspaper instead of a baton in his hand. "I am about to do something very unusual," he told his audience. "I will now read you a newspaper review of the concert I am about to conduct."

From the first night edition of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Kappesser began reading a past-tense--and less than favorable--account of his "ambitious direction" of Mahler's Second Symphony. "To say that Mr. Kappesser triumphed over [the music's] handicaps," read Conductor Kappesser, "would scarcely be accurate. He did his best. The same acclaim is due his singers and his orchestra." The audience laughed at a line about "an appreciative audience." Scornfully Kappesser read off the reviewer's initials: "H.R.B."

St. Louis concertgoers knew that H.R.B. stood for Harry R. Burke, 65, a Globe-Democrat veteran who reviews not only music, but art and books as well. Harry Burke had worked hard in his early days to fan cultural interest in St. Louis, but of late, rival critics had suspected that some of his vague-sounding concert reviews might have been prewritten. He had been caught with the Choral Society review when someone put it into the early edition by mistake.

The Globe-Democrat's city desk began to get calls a few minutes after Kappesser's speech, hurriedly dispatched another man to cover the concert. In its midnight edition, H.R.B.'s two-paragraph review was replaced by a glowing, eleven-paragraph story headlined: CHORAL SOCIETY'S CONCERT IS MATURE AND IMPRESSIVE,

Two days later, after Critic Burke's session in the managing editor's office, the scuttlebutt was confirmed: some changes would be made. From now on, someone else will review art and music for the Globe-Democrat. Veteran Burke will do nothing but books.

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