No.1 Japanese

If Vice President John Nance Garner were of noble descent, and if he had a musicianly younger brother who, after years of self-sacrificing study, set out around the world as the only American capable of conducting the world's leading orchestras; if this younger brother finally arrived in Japan and, first in Kyoto, the third city, and then in Tokyo, the capital, before a brilliant diplomatic assemblage, conducted Japan's No. 2 orchestra--if such a thing came to pass it would be the precise reverse of what happened last week in Washington. Under the proud eye of Ambassador Hirosi Saito, a spindly, round- shouldered, studious-looking Japanese of 38 named Viscount Hidemaro Konoye mounted the podium in Constitution Hall. Before him sat the Philadelphia Orchestra, which he had successfully guest-conducted a fortnight prior in its home city--the first Japanese conductor ever seen or heard in major U. S. music circles. At a reception in Manhattan, aged Walter Damrosch and conscientious John D. Rockefeller Jr. had pressed him with polite attention and inquiries (see cut). Now, in Washington, Japan's first music maestro, whose elder brother, Prince Funimaro Konoye, heads the Japanese House of Peers, made cultural face for his country such as no Japanese had ever made before.

As in Philadelphia, critics found Conductor Konoye sensitive and sound, tried not to smile at his ungainly, childish gestures. He made the Beethoven Second so splendidly alive that the audience, called him back repeatedly. Veterans noticed that Konoye's rendition of this symphony was close to a recording by Erich Kleiber. They were less puzzled when they learned that he had studied under that great Viennese in Berlin. Viscount Konoye was graduated from the Tokyo Peers' School, studied at Tokyo Imperial University, went to the Berlin University after the War. There he read philosophy for two years before realizing his great interest in music. From 1922 to 1926 he studied music in Europe, then returned to Japan and organized the first Japanese orchestra to use Western instruments. For ten years he worked with this group--the Tokyo Shin Kokyo Gakudan -- which now boasts 80 pieces. Wealthy Japanese, even his own family, gave his orchestra no support. To make ends meet Konoye moved his wife and two children into a one-room house, lived on $30 a month.

Not till Japan Broadcasting Association signed a contract with the Viscount's orchestra and made its future safe, did Konoye decide on a world tour. In Europe he conducted concerts in Germany, Italy, France and England.

Viscount Konoye makes himself understood in German better than in English. He is shy about himself, but enormously proud of his friendship with Leopold Stokowski. He buys phonograph records hungrily, owns the biggest collection in Japan. After his Washington concert, he announced he was to conduct the NBC orchestra on St. Valentine's Day.

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