And There I Stood with My Piccolo

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f5. FURTWAENGLER FINALLY GOTTHE JOB away from Mengelberg, but he was soon getting the old fish eye from the Philharmonic's Board of Directors, who were thinking about trying to bring the one-and-only out of Italy—Toscanini. The music critic on the Herald Tribune, Lawrence Gilman, had written Furtwaengler's epitaph in the nature of a scathing review of what most of us in the orchestra thought was a very magnificent all-Wagner concert, and Maestro Toscanini had now replaced Furtwaengler as the Philharmonic's permanent conductor. Mr. Toscanini hates to have people tell stories about his unbelievable sense of hearing and his fabulous memory, both of which he insists are accidents that could happen to anybody. Musicianship is all that really matters, according to the Maestro. Be that as it may, I'm sure going to tell a story about the ears that can hear the grass grow, and if he ever reads it I hope he'll forgive me. 98 The great Italian composer, Respighi, wrote a new symphonic poem called "Feste Romane" and dedicated it to Toscanini, who naturally was to give the first performance. Came Monday-morning rehearsal and we were about to run through the new Respighi piece for the first time. The first movement describes children screaming their brains out at play on the streets of Rome and is scored—to make the highest, squeakiest, most unpleasant , unmusical racket you can imagine—for piccolos, high violins sawing away just under the bridge, and a little squealing E-flat clarinet squeaking out a high F sharp, while the rest of the orchestra , including four drummers, play practically anything they like. We hit the down beat, which sounded like, a boxcar full of Decker's lowana Hams and Bacons with their tails caught in the wringer. Mr. Toscanini stopped the awful racket with a gesture and glared coldly at Mr. Gerhardt, the E-flat clarinet player. "F sharp, F sharp, F sharp," he said hoarsely (he says everythinghoarsely). We made a fresh start and the Maestro broke his nice long baton over the concertmaster's music stand. He doesn't use any music stand himself. He conducts everything from memory, even at rehearsals, so he doesn't need one. "F sharp, F sharp, fa diesis, fa diesis, O Dio, veigogna, ver99 gogna, in Italian means it's a Shame, vergogna, F sharp, F sharp!" When he's good and mad he translates as he goes along any insulting Italian words he might use to make sure you get the idea. His voice got louder and wilder as he looked helplessly into the empty house crying out for F sharp. Well, that went on for five or six starts. By this time Mr. van Praag, the orchestra manager, had rushed over to Mr. Gerhardt—who would have been far better pleased if he were dead—and was whispering, "Jacob, play F sharp, the Maestro says play F sharp." Poor Mr. Gerhardt rolled his eyes and moaned, "I am playing F sharp. I've been playing it since the beginning." Now I must interrupt myself at this point to ask you to observe the clarinetist next time you go to a concert. Sooner or later you will see him hold up his instrument horizontally and blow out water from under certain of the very small keys. This is almost a subconscious gesture and is done automatically every once in a while. Mr. Gerhardt was so upset that without actually knowing what he was doing he picked up his little clarinet and blew on the keys. The Maestro raised his baton one last time and threw a sensational down beat at the orchestra. Out came the squeal100 ing, hideous, cacophonous sound for the umpteenth time, and the Maestro sank weakly down in his chair, whispering, "At last F sharp—grazie a Diof Mr. Gerhardt had been fingering F sharp all the time, but a little water under the key had caused it to sound F natural and the Maestro heard it through all that dissonance when the man who actually played the note didn't even hear ithimself ! Two things Mr. Toscanini wasalways consistent about: (i) never play Tschaikowsky and (2) never have a soloist on any of his concerts excepting the Beethoven "Ninth." I don't remember exactly when he broke Jlule Number One about no Tschaikowsky, but I guess it's lucky he...