Escape Music

The driver of a wartime ambulance in England was pleased to hear last week that one of his musical compositions had been loudly applauded. He had never heard the piece himself. The ambulance driver was William Walton, a tall, long-faced, 39-year-old Englishman who seems not to mind the gruesome sights of airraid victims, but says he hates the sweat and agony of musical composition. Nevertheless, William Walton has sweated out some of England's finest contemporary scores.

Composer Walton has lived with the celebrated, long-faced Sitwell family; to Sister Edith's verses he wrote Fac,;ade, his best-known, though least profound, orchestral work. Driving an ambulance, which William Walton has been doing for more than a year, kept him from hearing the world premiere of his violin concerto, written for Jascha Heifetz and played in Cleveland in December 1939. Fortnight ago, his job kept him from another first performance: his Scapino, a Comedy Overture, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony as part of its 50th-anniversary celebration.

Composer Walton's score arrived in Chicago late, only three weeks before it was to be played; it posed a problem for Chicago's Conductor Frederick Stock. Musicians' holographs are hen-tracky at best; this one was in pencil, was almost undecipherable. Conductor Stock and his assistant Hans Lange set to work to ink in the 500,000 notations, were soon floundering. They called in seven orchestra players, finally got the job done in ten days. At the first rehearsal, said Conductor Stock, the overture "sounded like Halifax." But its first playing proved it something else: a fine piece of musical escapism, which took its title Scapino from a character in the Italian Commedia dell 'Arte. Said Journal of Commerce Critic Claudia Cassidy: "A blithe, scapegrace, carefree sort of score, it makes you think Walton must have whistled it when he drove his ambulance through the London streets, spiritually thumbing his nose at Hitler." Last week England's No. 1 conductor, peppery, opinionated Sir Thomas Beecham, led the New York City Symphony (WPA orchestra which gives cheap, workmanlike weekly concerts) in the first of two engagements. In less than a year, Sir Thomas has traveled 60,000 miles, from England via the U.S. to Australia and back, stepping from toe to toe along the way. (California is still atremble over his insular low-rating of the movies and of U.S.

musical taste.) Sir Thomas hopes to return to England this summer, "to be in it with them over there." He still talks of "my orchestra"--the London Philharmonic, which he founded with socialite backing in 1932. But today the London Philharmonic is mostly its own orchestra.

Since last autumn, English music has been backed by the masses.

The Philharmonic has been playing one-night stands, has missed only two dates: one when its busses got bogged in Lancashire snowdrifts, the other when Liverpool was heavily bombed. Without rich backers, orchestra members earn less than they did before the war; principals average $28 a week, "rank" players $16. But the men say their spines feel better. The Philharmonic now has a democratic constitution, is run by a committee composed of the Sub-Leader, First French Horn, Third Horn, Principal Trombone, Rank Viola. The Rank Viola--Thomas Russell --is secretary, too busy today to play in the orchestra. He used to carry the Philharmonic cash in a little black bag, now has a bank account. Since the barnstorming began, the orchestra has played music like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (most popular) to 150,000 people, most of whom never heard a symphony before.

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