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Now resuming the conversation with Eugene Ormandy here is George St.. Let's go back now for a moment because we have you conducting for the first time for the first times I should say you ultimately became the chief conductor at the Capitol Theater. No no never. I became associate conductor. I see you know I was offered the position but I did it I felt that now that I knew that I had some talent to conduct I have to work very hard. So while I was working that I studied studied every day every school way back in books through wood and studied the art a few Tulare and the structures a few get everything. Even though I've done it 15 years earlier at the Royal Academy wouldn't it. But now I have to refresh my memory now I had to look at it as a conductor. No one as a as as a student who had to take the subject now I had to really be part of it.
The gist of it is this corps alone alone. Yes and since I was able to as you said before that memorize these things and I thought it this way I can really learn a composition. I learned a whole repertoire while I was still at the theater hoping that one day the opportunity presented as chief conductor I couldn't have done it and I wasn't interested. Furthermore I'm sure that this was an instinctive feeling that I had which turned out to be right. If I had become chief conductor I could have never become a symphony conductor. Why do you say that. I said because. Then then I would have been stand as a just a form of moving picture and I would say because by then already they brought in jazz bands on the stage which we never used to have before. And just when the Jazz has been scathing I resigned and joined Columbia CBS. Before you went to Minneapolis as principal conductor in 1931 you had a series of very significant guest
conducting appointments along the way. Could you recall some of those. The situation then was approximately the same as it is now. Only then shortly after the war there were very few American conductors who had any knowledge of real conducting and European conductors were in such demand and I asked for so much money that you couldn't get them over here for a full season. Only someone like Mangal became for half a season and went back into the concepts about business and can that the other half. So Mr. Jetson who whom I consider one of the great managers he's still active at eighty seven eighty six. Mr. Jetson knew that the time has come but we have to try a some try out some of the Americans. So he picked on me for some reason I don't know why but he watched me conducting a ballin in Carnegie Hall.
Members of the New York Philharmonic and they were in terms of when to give that boy a chance he seems to have the talent you know and and these colleagues of mine started him off to look for me and he invited me to conduct two upper us in at the concert for out of the summer concerts at the stadium and put out a so-called American opera company which has dissolved since but this is 1929. So and next year the Philadelphia Orchestra started this summer concerts where on a Dell Corporate that Robinhood there of it's not exactly the same place but it was then but more or less all along the same same place anyway. They started it on a shoestring and of course I was asked if I would conduct two concerts actually was trying me out and he would he remarked that we to do a film on a distant for a symphony concert and Philadelphia Orchestra. And I was so
honored to to be allowed to stand before these two great organizations that I was just happy as could be. And the orchestra was just marvelous to me the audience and the critics were just out of this world. So I immediately invited me for next summer. And I remember just in saying to somebody behind my back but I knew he was talking about the I'm going to watch this boy and next year I conducted it was in 1931 the whole week and trusted me with a whole week by Dan and they're not going to tell you what a stereo he concentrated me on Philadelphia and this results were just as wonderful as could be. And I went back to my radio hours and then came November the skinniest sudden cable that he cannot come.
No conduct that was willing to replace him Stokowski had to go to New York they were going to exchange for the first time so he had to go to New York to be closed because he was going to cause change amounting to film and it was going to need and those two weeks were empty. They tried me out for one. Apparently it worked all right. So they invited me for the second week and just while I was conducting the second way Mr. broke into you know so it's and many of Minneapolis I hate to say it is but the beginning of my career was based on on the illness of other conductors of Truman. Just too much there actually is and rapidly before. Well well that makes it three Marika's just going to have trouble with his arm. The scientists and then in 35. My first wife and her family were in a place called Strobel in Austria about an hour from Salisbury and I had a call. No water just to kill from Linz the limbs broken a festival. Would I conduct the seventh Preakness infant in the next day with one for the house I'm so
happy and so happy that I knew with very well. So I phoned my brother in law in Vienna breaking my breasts who would meet me tomorrow in the Linsanity I conducted that from that day I became the Bruckner conductor of Austria. I mean these are illnesses illnesses and of course every time I thought of these great men whom I admired and dog. I said to them I said them just so terribly sorry that you had to get ill to for me to get an opportunity this opportunity and I remember Bruno Walter said Don't worry that's the way I got my my 5.2. Well actually I haven't so many but the significant fact is that the man who steps in and has to be ready. Oh yes or this would be a travesty and we never hear about it but you know one is given the opportunity but it's the staying power that makes a difference. So here you are in Minneapolis what five six years. Then
you went to Philadelphia succeeding Stokowski. What is it thirty two years. Thirty second years now you're in the thirty second year. You know opportunity Nux. But it does not for 32 years. Be prepared and let's face it. I sometimes address young students conductors and all the music musical students and it comes to them as a shock I see it on their faces when I say to them young ladies and young gentlemen all you say to you you have picked the most beautiful profession in the world. And when you grow older you would never want to be anything else than what you're doing because you're bringing beauty to yourselves and to others. But it all it will not come easy to you because none of you believe it. I know that in all the forty some years that I have been conducting I never had one day off without at least two or three hour
study. And boy you should see their faces they're so shocked and disappointed that they would have probably have to do the same thing I said and you know I never missed it. So then Joyce said I look for it. I could sometimes take of a week or a couple of weekends. I wouldn't I have to be in training mentally emotionally and my memory has to be going all the time not only maintain this role of excellence there in Philadelphia but you've kept pace with the times. Oh yes that is the music that you play is representative of the various decades that we've put up with you and it's not easy if you know they're here they're very conservative. May I interrupt both of you and interject something else Mr. Armine at times has been considerably ahead of his times. Because at one point when I was still with NBC I had a single package of records that must have weighed a hundred
pounds and it was a highly significant first step in American music. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about maestro with a broken seventh the Mahler center that the Mahler second. I thought so was what I had in mind to still hear luck pure luck on my part at how did this come about. At that particular time this recording as I recall was made in about 1935 no haps 33 33 Yes this is even more astonishing at that time. The Victor Company wanted very much for me to do a very simple little piece. We found Sure you couldn't avoid have had a buyout if you don't like it. The shunned the porker and few I remember it very time ignited the daily I brought it just by accident from the end because every song ever used a home in Vienna my first wife was me and he's my second wife is Viennese so we had a home there and I used to see all the publishers and they said to me there's a very good piece just the upper is not so hot but this is there's a wonderful token few you could do it.
So I just brought up the word and made my debut in Philadelphia with that when it replaced Toscanini I was going to play it someplace else but here it was my mom but my big chance and a recording that actor Mr. Charles O'Connell in those days. Unfortunately that no. But he went to jets and he says could I record this with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Allman and it just said no you couldn't because nobody else is allowed to come to the Philadelphia Orchestra but misses the Cubs. So it just so happened that stock of Mr. Jackson mentioned this to me and I knew the contract situation in Minneapolis which has changed. I can tell you since that probably because of me they could be asked to play recordings concerts broadcasts anything but as long as they used up the same six hours a day you see all and I knew that I said to her I thought the suggestion I could do it
in Minneapolis and I could do much more. Anything he wants I could do. We have very good sight readers there. Why don't you let me do that. He says How do you know you can do it I said it won't cost them a penny. The man will cost nothing. I will cost nothing just the expenses and bring in the engineers and Mr. O'Connell. So it all account on account of the believe it he checked with Mrs Scott Carla Scotty and the manager of the orchestra in Minneapolis she says. Yes true is when can you let us have about two weeks she says. Oh Christmas we have nothing to do for two weeks then and they came for two weeks. We give them seven days six hours of recordings anything you want and you he picked anything he wanted. Sure I'm back speculator not the perambulator suite of car carpet areas this was a first performance and I love that. Possibly the first or Strauss album which he asked for and I'm told it's
still is being watched is still being talked about. They made a lot of money I didn't get a penny but well it was alright I didn't put it for the good of the music and of the orchestra. And he said to me what big works do you plan for next season. I said do you think you can come back. He says we are coming back it's all set. He says Could you just before Christmas play the Second Mile and to have even the seven Bruckner as it in fact intend to play them and I had five hundred voices in the chorus. A picture to local church singers was always a good none of whom could speak a word of German. I had three big 7 9 and 11 a 12 ton church bell was transported from St. Paul from a church that was not being used anymore and put and and there stayed backstage had to be strengthened because they were
so heavy and they were big and if you ever have an opportunity to listen to the end you will hear those real church bells nothing can replace no electronic church but you can replace the real memories. And we did it at a performance in Brooklyn 78 It is a regular recording session and those were the first recordings and that the Mahler recording brought with the widow of Mahler out of me close and until her dying day. We were the most intimate friends. Well this must have been a tremendous satisfaction. Well if I was ahead of my time I don't know because I think my mother was very ready at that point and broke her. Certainly Mahler was ready but I think the unfortunate thing was that American audiences weren't quite ready. Another topic I would like to interject. During all these years of conducting you have encountered many soloists playing concertos with the orchestra and I know that one long
time association you had with rock man enough there in Philadelphia. My first experience with my I don't know how much time you have left was such that really if you allow me this takes about three minutes please please I will tell it to you. You see when I was made conductor the Minneapolis orchestra I had to have all the solos who were already engaged. It was the middle of the season in November and the press stories with a lot of money and it was plain that his attacking anybody ations. Well knowing what a difficult man he could be if you wanted to. I asked him to receive me in New York I'd go back to New York and to him and he will probably play a true he would play it for me and tell me what he wants and he replied it's nothing to it. This is easy. He said it's not necessary it was a long trip two
days to go through the years to come. So he said I'll be there I'll give you two rehearsals and a first you're still the only rehearsal turned out to be went very well. He never stopped once he looked at me always for every cue and if I knew the work checking because it was just a youngster a little to get and he got up says thank you very much. Very good very good. If you left I said do you want to rehearse tomorrow he says What for. So I said. But then came the next concert performance. Now you all know this. These variations and you know that money is one of the very age I think it's about 21 where the piano takes off alone for the whole variation and I really has that with the orchestra before he even came to the rehearsal and said I'm not going to conduct a beat time while he plays the variation. But just before the before the orchestra and therefore by intrigue and one by before that he's into I said when he chose the two for
I start to conduct a little one two three one two three one two three people will pop up. So it was well rehearsed at the rehearsal of the NME obviously and here Professor comes my my experience when I when I wish I didn't have absolute bass he started to play the the variations he took off with terrific speed and he didn't play more than one line. When I said to myself My God what is he playing. It's not in the music. Now if I didn't have absolute pitch I would have not even noticed. I would have just counted the bars but he was playing approximately what was written but in an entirely different key. And finally I just looked at him. Meanwhile the passport ration came down and looked at you I was shocked and he says OK so I didn't give the fourth class so caught up and you're stuck in a beautifully and you just didn't learn until until we can meet.
So from then on until the very end all I could think of I hope he's not going to hit me in public. I hope that I was not as much at fault as he might think I would be but he's a composer sort of a natural will think that I was at fault and he was so tall he was six feet four. I was five feet five. He was taller than I standing on my platform. And I moved as far as a dad without falling off the platform and all I could see while I was conducting accompanying him. Perspiration coming our time. So now why did I have to leave radio. I was so happy that's why I kind of thought that's at least I can go back to it if something happens. So it was all over and I just turned away in fear that he something will happen I didn't know whether a Russian can do if he gets mad. But instead he came over put his arms around me shook hands with
Absolute Poker Face. He said to me thank you Miss Amman. We'll explain later. So I thought at that point I knew that I was no longer one of the four but I didn't know how he's going to take it. So we went backstage and he pulled me out every time and his eye looked very funny at five feet five five next to six feet four men but he was a little boy next to me. I didn't want to go and he sister that I carefully and he made me think about him and so afterwards he said no you come to my room and it was all over. Lock the door. He's vipers there. He says no way explain to me. Some think you spoke very good but not correct English. Just before I comb over here I was in London and I have a good friend
called what you see at beach because we all know him and he play my abody ations and he said to me and I'm quoting of every To morrow there is a Sarah game I play your body ations tonight. Come here. Oh I don't want to hear you my body I don't like my body. Asians do here he says plead if you are my friend you got me. Anyway he said he went and when we said we got to this Venetian he got lost. So the variation before during our concert. All he said to himself I hope it will not happen to me tonight. Very second I did think I was credible this is amazing. That was my first experience. You can imagine how close we got right there I can't imagine.
And he just loved me like a son. But this is a story that I've told a few times of course but not too often it might come as a surprise that I had not heard it I think it's a marvelous story story every word of it. May I ask you something about Saratoga please. I know you taught way back in those early years at the conservatory. Yes you were Professor while you were also a student at the university. Now you started here at Saratoga affiliated with the Philadelphia Orchestra the marvelous summer series of concerts and an educational plan that wasn't adding to it. Yes last year. You must have been very closely involved with this with the development of this summer program. In part I was. It's a different program altogether which was originally called the spring Congress which which was held in the University of the state the state of Michigan and
I attended one of them and conducted one of them some four or five years ago and had a wonderful time with these youngsters because they're so enthusiastic so hardworking and they're marvelous marvelous teachers they're all first men from various orchestras in the in this part of the world. But we are trying to do now and they're working very hard. I offered to attend all my rehearsal as all my guest conductors rehearsals so that with their own school they follow our way of rehearsals and see what we are doing and how we get our certain results which they otherwise wouldn't know because they're too busy with the notes. And I suggested that they should also rehearse those very things because when we have four different programs in one week. So close together is difficult because they cannot digest all of that. If for four or five consecutive days after all they still 17 18 19 years old or someone even younger.
But I'm very much in it and involved in it and I'm going to hold a seminar where them and I'm going to appear and conduct them becomes a public concert which I did also in Michigan. Interlochen No no not until I know it wasn't like it was East Lansing East Lansing. That's what I did it into like I did something else with this too. That's I'm out I knew that you had and I was going Oh yeah as wonderful as a Saratoga is and as significant a contribution to the musical life of America as it is I know that there are many many disappointed persons because Philadelphia isn't able now to get back up there. What are lacking for those. Well you know we were there. Yes we have a summer home not too far from what I see and where I will probably go back again today to completely change but I have I'm very close to the interlocking picture on them and I'm on the board of advisors and knocked them out it was a dear dear friend of mine and of course Dr. Hastur Newman he
is a marvelous man a great intellect brilliant man. And we have discussed location of the over the telephone the problems that come up. And because that is just a marvelous institutionalise you can't even compare. So it was eight weeks to it here a whole year round progress as a calendar year round programs not only academy academic year but is a calendar year. That's a great institution. I'm so glad to be here. You don't storm and I'm wondering how what is there in your attitude toward all this work that you do that gives you the same excitement and vitality toward everything that you do. There's Saratoga Interlochen the Philadelphia Orchestra recordings. I capture the same sense of excitement about it. First of all music itself the great music excites us. First of all to learn and then to perform and prepare. Once we
prepared it and to go before an audience we were inspired. The music inspires us. My colleagues in the orchestra in Philadelphia and so today right here in Chicago is Spier me and I hope in a way I do too. To them and. And when we bring great music to musical Lee not necessarily educated but appreciative audiences. I have a feeling that we have done something good for their souls. They went home better human beings after the concert is over and if I could if the union law would permit me to I would give encores for two hours after the concert is over and these are humans where the men are very happy that I really have a look because I feel that I didn't give them enough because they appreciate it so much. Another think it's so marvelous to go to these cities and where they don't really have an orchestra
and I know that you can go because it is does that too. They have no orchestras and they hear it is great. They see that marvelous mass of men and women sitting there playing like one person and watching one conductor and hearing books that I haven't heard so much so many times on the radio and on the recordings and I tell you the questions that come to me in have been for many years now 20 or 25 years. Because not only young students of colleges and high school no longer think that they're sissies or because they love great music but they really are proud of it and they carried out all the recording on their arms or tapes now it's just the latest fad and and listen to these records and they just study them with scores. And many times they come to me. Innumerable times and I say to me Mr. Ormond you might ask your question. I said No not at all. I know exactly what you're going to ask me what. Why did they do a
certain second team or a Cappy to relation in a different tempo than I did on the special record that you have read on the lawn. He says yes how did you know. I said look these these questions come up all the time and the other is very simply this what you hear is actually the performance of that one particular day when we were in that particular mood and when our blood ran as fast or as slow as it did at that moment. But human beings you hear the same symphony tomorrow evening. He said I'm going to a store and you will hear probably entirely for the I don't know I can't tell until I give the first downbeat the human being is one hundred and six or seven you would be standing there. We are not machines. That is a machine adding quickly that is the best substitute still to the real thing. But this certainly is true. Well I'm afraid that we have exceeded the time we promised
to limit ourselves to believe me gentlemen it is a great joy to talk with such outstanding musicologist and musicians and people who understand our problems. You're coming back to Chicago with your orchestra and could we at that time resume this conversation because there are many things we haven't covered. May I say make another suggestion. I believe I will conduct you are August before. So let's do it when I meet again for the one we love. I'd like to thank you very much of me delighted to continue. Well thank you so much Mr. me thank you. Great pleasure. This has been a conversation with Eugene Ormandy distinguished music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra participating Reverend Parsons professor of music theory at Northwestern University's School of Music and program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And George Stone program director of Zenith radio corporation's radio station WEAA FM.
This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.
Series
A conversation with
Episode Number
#9 (Reel 2)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-5q4rp77n
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Description
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Date
1969-02-11
Topics
Music
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:21
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University of Maryland
Identifier: 69-12-9 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:06
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Chicago: “A conversation with; #9 (Reel 2),” 1969-02-11, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-5q4rp77n.
MLA: “A conversation with; #9 (Reel 2).” 1969-02-11. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-5q4rp77n>.
APA: A conversation with; #9 (Reel 2). Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-5q4rp77n