Up from the Grave

"My God!" marveled Conductor Antal Dorati. "What spirit! They're better than ever!" He sounded like a man who had just seen a corpse walking--as indeed he had. Ten months ago, the Philharmonia, considered by many to be London's finest orchestra, had been formally dissolved by its founder-owner, Impresario Walter Legge (TIME, April 17). Nonetheless, the orchestra struggled back to life, gave its official comeback concert under Otto Klemperer in October. Since then, the New Philharmonia, as it is now called, has shown that it is as robustly alive and kicking --if Leggeless--as at any time in its distinguished 20-year career.

Proud Heritage. It was a do-it-yourself resurrection. Rejecting Legge's death sentence, Philharmonia members enlisted a sympathetic lawyer to help them over the legal shoals (even their name was owned by Legge), reorganized as a cooperative. By scrambling for TV concerts and recording engagements, the New Philharmonia has managed to stay solvent by a semiquaver, even manages to provide its members with 25 hours of work a week, about as much as they averaged in the old days.

The orchestra's peak came during the late '50s, when it played as many as 340 recording sessions a year, earned international acclaim for its matchless recordings of Beethoven's symphonies under Conductor Herbert von Karajan. Ironically, the Philharmonia's subsequent financial troubles resulted in large measure from a musical heritage of which Londoners are justifiably proud. In all, the city boasts five first-rank orchestras, of which only one--the BBC Symphony--is financially secure. The once great Royal Philharmonic, which has skidded deeply into debt since Sir Thomas Beecham's death in 1961, is barely alive.

Unexploited Fame. The orchestras are clamoring for increased subsidies from city and national governments, which this season will give the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic and the New Philharmonia each a meager $72,000 v. the Berlin Philharmonic's annual subsidy of $1,400,000. Meanwhile, the three recipients have agreed to coordinate their schedules, thus avoiding the program overlapping and duplications that have hurt all of them.

Moreover, as the London Symphony discovered from a triumphal world tour last year, none of Britain's top orchestras have fully exploited their international fame. Last week, the New Philharmonia announced plans for a tour of Mexico and South America this summer, to be followed by a swing through Europe. Next year the orchestra that wouldn't die will make its first U.S. tour in a decade.

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