Ambitious Backs

When Ethel Leginska decided ten years ago that she would be a conductor, musicians and laymen regarded her as an eccentric, a publicity seeker who was ambitious beyond her sex. Leginska pioneered valiantly if erratically, proved that women could wave a baton as capably as they could play the harp or violin. Last week, by coincidence, two lady conductors turned ambitious backs in Manhattan's Town Hall.

One was Gertrud Hrdliczka, a comely Viennese who was conducting in Russia when she met Werner Hofmann, a U. S. engineer who was installing machinery for a Soviet oil refinery. Conductor Hrdliczka quickly became Mrs. Hofmann, settled down to live in a plain clapboard house in Larchmont, N. Y. For her concert last week she somehow managed to hire 60 expert players from the Philharmonic-Symphony. The men liked her. Her manner was agreeable, her beat graceful and sure. Hrdliczka's concert sounded better than Antonia Brico's which took place four days later. But Antonia Brico had a stiffer undertaking.

Conductor Brico dealt with women who were eager but inexperienced. Nucleus of her organization was a small group of nine young players who wanted her advice last autumn for a radio program. Their talent impressed her. She visualized a big ladies' band that would be known as the New York Woman's Symphony Orchestra. With her dark eyes alight she went out on a hunt for more musicians, marched on the White House where she persuaded the President's wife to head her list of sponsors.

Obstacles were many. But Antonia Brico learned determination when she was Wilhelmina Wolthus and washed clothes and scrubbed floors to work her way through the University of California. When she decided to be a conductor she went straight to Karl Muck in Bayreuth, persuaded him to take her for a pupil. When she assembled her woman's orchestra she knew very well that her problem would be to find players for the winds. Finally 25 were recruited, all so earnest that they were oblivious to the fact that women look even funnier than men when blowing (see p. 51).

Miss Brico will say little about the individual players because "all the ladies are jealous." But a few were conspicuous for their labors last week. There was young Julia Drumm who played capably on the flute; wiry Jeannette Scheerer who understands a clarinet; Tympanist Muriel Watson who practices on boards at home because she has no drums of her own; slender Maxine Scott who wrapped a tuba over her shoulder and puffed manfully through a Wagner finale.*

Miss Beatrice Oliver played the oboe as if she had never heard of the doctors' treatises which warn all oboe-players against congestion in the head. She sounded A. The other players took the pitch. Conductor Brico appeared in a severe black jacket, bobbed her bushy head and the concert was off. The strings played soundly and vigorously through Beethoven's Egmont Overture, his Second Symphony, a Chopin concerto in which Pianist Sigismund Stojowski. once Brico's teacher, soloed academically. Brico conducted with force but not affectation. The strings were rarely delicate but they caught her determination. The trumpets were strident, too, but knew their notes. Only the French horns soured continuously. The women who played them seemed completely baffled.

* Because many of the ladies are unable to afford taxis, the City gave them a special permit to carry their instruments in the subway.

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