Returns

In Manhattan, last week, high in New Steinway Hall, clerks of the Stadium Concert Management sorted letters, thousandsof them, neatly typewritten letters, smudgily scrawled letters, letters from Manhattan, letters from far away, from tired city folk, from vacationists taking their Stadium concerts by radio. Into piles they put them to be counted ballot-wise to make up a concluding "request" night program. Tchaikovsky was first. The program: Pathetic Symphony (Tchaikovsky); Don Juan (Richard Strauss) ; Tales of the Vienna Woods (Johann Strauss); 1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky).

The thousands there in the flesh stamped their approval, hurled their straw mats into the air, restrained themselves patiently to hear yet another speech by Conductor Willem van Hoogstraten. The thousands far away, in stuffy sitting-rooms, carpet-slippered, collarless, on cottage porches lit by a cool, waning moon, heard the last tremendous strains of the overture, whisked their dials around to another station. The Manhattan outdoor concert season had ended.