Dreaming the Possible Dream

Within the fat man there may be a thin man, within the milquetoast a hero, within the bookkeeper a poet. Within every man, in any case, there seems to lurk an orchestra conductor -- ready, at the sound of an 'A', to spring onto a fantasized podium in some glittering concert hall of the mind, drawing rich, powerful music from the players and bravos from an astounded audience. Few laymen get any closer to realizing this dream than wagging a finger behind their program notes, or surreptitiously waving their arms in front of their hi-fi sets. Last week, a 52-year-old physician named Michael Bialoguski conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra before 2,200 people in London's Royal Albert Hall -- and it was all real.

Such a moment of glory has its price.

For Bialoguski, it was $6,000, which went for renting the hall, hiring the 79-man orchestra and a guest soloist, Pianist Fou Ts 'Ong. Bialoguski also paid for such extras as a pair of contact lenses to replace his thick, dark-rimmed glasses ("the eye is important in guiding musicians").

Bialoguski's urge to conduct had acquired the force of "a biological necessity." He first felt it as a youth in Vilna, Lithuania, where he studied in the local conservatory and became the director of a music theater. During World War II, he emigrated to Australia and studied to become an M.D., but continued with music as a member of the violin section of the Sydney Symphony. Simultaneously, he served the Australian government by infiltrating the Soviet Union's intelligence network there--a career that he capped by helping to persuade Soviet Espionage-Chief Vladimir Petrov to defect in 1954.

Cheers from Patients. Five years ago, Bialoguski moved to England, set up a practice in the London suburb of Epsom and launched his musical quest in earnest. The Royal Academy and the Royal College of Music both rejected him as too old to enroll in conducting courses, so he practiced with amateur orchestras around London. When he approached Sir Adrian Boult, the doyen of British conductors, Boult offered to become his patient if he would stick to medicine. Instead, Bialoguski took a master class in conducting with Franco Ferrara in Siena, Italy. Eventually, Boult let Bialoguski rehearse the New Philharmonia in Beethoven's Prometheus overture. He did so well that the orchestra agreed to last week's concert.

In a program of Turina, Beethoven and Chopin, Bialoguski had his moments of stiffness, and his technique was limited by the tendency of his left arm to mirror the movements of his right. But even by professional standards, his clear, straightforward performances were adequate; by any other standards, they were remarkable. He got five curtain calls, plus a scattering of cheers from some of his patients, who had rented a box.

Afterwards, was it time to return to dispensing pills on his suburban rounds? Not a bit of it. "I'd rather be a conductor than a doctor any time," Bialoguski said. Whereupon he packed his reviews and his pocket-edition scores into a battered briefcase and set out in search of a job.

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