Music for the Gourmet

Thomas K. Scherman is a man who has given Manhattan's already rich musical menu an added fillip of flavor. Since 1947, his Little Orchestra Society (38 players) has been delving into the "terrific repertoire" of little-orchestra music, new & old, that rarely gets played by the big orchestras in Carnegie Hall.

Last week enterprising Tom Scherman, 34, was in the midst of his most ambitious and successful musical venture yet: concert versions of opera. He had experimented with concert opera before--Orfeo ed Euridice two years ago (TIME, March 14, 1949) and Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio last season. Abduction was such a hit that he decided to repeat it this season and add two more Mozart operas, Cost Fan Tutte and Idomeneo. To Scherman, all were "particularly suited" for concert versions because "stagewise they are big bores."*

In Cosl last week, Scherman's singers were not quite first-rate, although they sang their English (in a new, bright translation by George and Phyllis Mead) so that every word of the comic story could be understood. Hopping and flapping on the podium, Conductor Scherman whipped up enough enthusiasm among his performers to more than compensate for minor defects in tempo and style.

Manhattan-born Tom Scherman decided while still in short pants not to follow his father Harry into the book business (Book-of-the-Month Club). Instead, he went to Columbia and Juilliard School of Music. He foots the whole bill for his Little Orchestra Society. At first, partly because he hired high-rate soloists such as Isaac Stern, Claudio Arrau, Joseph Szigeti, and gave them a chance to play music "they can't play in Oshkosh," he found his society a little expensive. Now, Scherman reports, "it's coming closer and closer to breaking even."

His formula for choosing his out-of-the-way programs is simple, if not 100% successful: "Any piece of music I get a bang out of, I think the public will like too." So far, he has given world premieres of David Diamond's Romeo and Juliet Suite, Norman Dello Joio's Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, Douglas Moore's Farm Journal (all commissioned by Scherman himself), and revived many a little-known smaller work by Haydn, Schumann, Brahms, Stravinsky and Schbnberg. He has no fear of running out of things to play. Digging around in the "terrific repertoire," he has found enough worthwhile but unfamiliar music to keep going "for the next ten years."

*The Metropolitan Opera's Rudolf Bing does not agree on Cost; next season he will stage it at the Met for the first time in 23 years.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.