Biggest & Best

Ignace Jan Paderewski earned $27,000 at one sitting in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden last February for the Musicians' Emergency Aid. Nearly as much for the same purpose was realized by the "perfect program" (Wagner's Parsifal Prelude and Good Friday Music. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) which Arturo Toscanini crossed the ocean specially to conduct in Carnegie Hall last May (TIME, May 9). Last week was publicized a series of bigger biggest, greater greatest benefit performances. With the co-operation of National Broadcasting Co., Dr. Walter Damrosch will put on five monster concerts in Madison Square Garden--Nov. 26, Dec. 10, Jan. 2, 11 and 25. Proceeds will go to the Musicians' Emergency Aid. Some features:

Prices: $1.50 top ($3 for the final concert). A 175-piece orchestra, each player getting $20 (at previous benefits the fee has been $15). All other services, including management, donated by NBC. A Bach concerto for three pianos executed at one & the same time by Harold Bauer, Ernest Hutcheson, Josef Lhevinne, Ernest Schelling (see p. 32) and two others. Concertos played by Fritz Kreisler and Sergei Rachmaninoff, brought together for the first time at one & the same concert. An all-Tchaikovsky program, with Ossip Gabrilowitsch playing the piano concerto.

Biggest of all will be the last, with an orchestra of 200, chorus of 1,000, and 1,000 actors, dancers and soloists in a colossal pageant-pantomime. This will be a world premiere, with scenery by Joseph Urban. Who the composer and what the subject. Dr. Damrosch would not tell last week. No shooter of all his fireworks at once, he said: "I shall keep the secret closely locked in my breast until the right time comes."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.