The Season

For the opening of the Atlanta Symphony's 13th season last week, the women of the Symphony Guild promised everyone champagne punch at intermission, and apologized for serving it in paper cups. The New York Philharmonic, whose far less serene opening had come two days late because of a musicians' strike for more pay, last week featured gifted young (27) Thomas Schippers conducting Cherubini and Prokofiev symphonies. The Kansas City Philharmonic, lucky to make its 25th season despite a big deficit, was out to win new fans by playing in movie houses, churches, synagogues and high-school auditoriums (one concert will be sponsored by the Katz Drug Co.; admittance: a cash-register receipt). Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera opens this week with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, while in Fergus Falls, Minn. (pop. 14,000) a bravura rendering of Norwegian folk songs was given by a 70-voice male chorus, and 300 citizens were studying Handel's Messiah for a Christmas performance.

So it went from coast to coast. The music season was on with the blast of trumpets, the scraping of fiddles, the cries from the voice boxes of a thousand singers. The sounds rose in immense variety from symphony orchestras and chamber-music groups, from hallowed opera houses and bare school auditoriums. The music was modern and ancient, classic and romantic, expertly and miserably played. There was so much of it that the whole U.S. recording industry could not get it down on vinyl and all the hi-fi sets in the U.S. could not play it back.

The Symphonies. The Boston Symphony had already been on a "Western tour" (Rochester to Cincinnati); later in Boston it would introduce highly touted Russian Violinist Leonid Kogan and present the novelty of French Saxophone Virtuoso Marcel Mule. The Chicago Symphony was recruiting a brand-new 150-voice choir under famed Choral Conductor Margaret Hillis; the Cleveland Orchestra opened its 40th season with Conductor George Szell directing the first of nine commissioned works: Alvin Etler's Concerto in One Movement.

Texas made symphony news all its own. Fort Worth is putting a new, 60-man orchestra into the field; the San Antonio Symphony claimed, the distinction of having hired the first woman concertmaster of a major U.S. orchestra: shy, petite Nannette Levy, 30, who throws her whole body behind her impassioned bowing. The Dallas Symphony will open the season with selections it is dedicating to veterans, with a Congressional Medal of Honor winner present as a guest. In Houston Leopold Stokowski, who flies into a rage if anyone says he is more than 70, has found an unlikely new musical home, and though he has never quite stepped out of the limelight, is experiencing another renaissance. Stokie's Houston Symphony concerts are sold 98% in advance, and he has produced first-rate new recordings in The Orchestra and Gustav Holst's The Planets.

Enthusiastic amateur musicians are tuning up for their biggest season. The Sioux City Symphony (70 semipros and amateurs) opened with Met Baritone Leonard Warren as guest. The Cedar Rapids Symphony (69 amateurs and 17 members of the musicians' union) had a full house with, said Conductor Henry Denecke, "no one out with the flu and the bases loaded," i.e., all five bass chairs occupied, no simple matter in Cedar Rapids.

Tours. The virtuosos, the prima donnas, the chamber-music ensembles and practically any other type of musical group worth mentioning packed their bags for tours to big cities and small towns. There was scarcely a well-known musician or musical group, American or European, that was not set to take off across the land. They could be ticked off right down the alphabet from A to Z (with the exception of X, since Greek Pianist Anna Xydis is not touring the U.S. this season): Contralto Marian Anderson, the Budapest String Quartet, Pianist Robert Casadesus, Soprano Lisa Delia Casa, Violinist Mischa Elman, Violinist Zino Francescatti, Pianist Emil Gilels, Pianist Clara Haskil, Pianist Eugene Istomin, the Juilliard Quartet, Harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick, Baritone George London, Violinist Nathan Milstein, Pianist Guiomar Novae's, the Obernkirchen Children's Choir, Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, the Quartette di Roma, Pianist Artur Rubinstein, Guitarist Andres Segovia, Mezzo-Soprano Jennie Tourel, Baritone Theodor Upp-man, Duo-Pianists Vronsky and Babin, Baritone William Warfield, Soprano Frances Yeend, Harpist Nicanor Zabaleta.

It looked like a season during which Americans, wherever they were in the U.S., would be within listening range of more--and possibly better--live music than ever before.

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