Season's Best

After tabbing up ballots from 700 critics and editors in the U.S. and Canada, Musical America handed out its annual honors for the season's best broadcasting musicians. Just as he had nearly every year since 1944, when the magazine made its first poll, 82-year-old Arturo Toscanini ran away with the show.

Toscanini was, said the critics (and for the sixth time), the best "regular symphony conductor": his performance of Verdi's A'ida (TIME, April' 4) was "the outstanding event of the year," and the National Broadcasting Go. (which has put Toscanini on the air for nine years without benefit of sponsors) was "the network most faithful to serious music."

Other conductors who won special laurels : Fritz Reiner, for conducting the Met's broadcast (over ABC) of Salome (TIME, Feb. 14); 30-year-old Leonard Bernstein, "best guest conductor"; and the Boston Pops' Arthur Fiedler, "best program conductor." Favorites in other musical fields: Contralto Marian Anderson, Tenor Ferruccio Tagliavini, Pianist Robert Casadesus, Violinist Jascha Heifetz, Organist E. Power Biggs.

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