Discord in Chicago

Artur Rodzinski had been fired, but he was still on the job. (He will leave April 30.) He took the Chicago Symphony on a tour from Iowa to Texas last week, and everywhere they went, he and the orchestra got rave reviews. Back in Chicago, critics and public were singing an angry chorus against the Symphony Board for dismissing Rodzinski.

The name most frequently mentioned in the chorus was Board President Edward Ryerson's; he had found Rodzinski harder to handle than his own Inland Steel Co. employees. He had made the mistake of saying that the firing of Rodzinski "was motivated purely by business reasons." That set Chicago music-lovers on their ears. So the symphony was worried about a $30,000 deficit, when the city was hearing good music? One Chicago businessman offered to cover the deficit himself. A La Salle Street lawyer gathered contributions, from $1 to $50, to pay off the orchestra's debt. Neither the raising of voices nor the raising of money budged the board.

At week's end, the board named six guest conductors for next season. They were top names all right*--but no orchestra ever ran well without a permanent conductor. And the permanent conductor a good many Chicagoans wanted was the man who had just been fired.

*Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, George Szell, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch and Fritz Busch.

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