Classic Popularity

For most of its 20 years, Chicago's bi-weekly Down Beat has been strictly a hep-cat's magazine. But last year, after due deliberation, its editors decided that classical music was becoming entirely too popular to be ignored, decided to start reporting it.* This week, in a candid imitation of its own annual polls of pop music favorites, Down Beat published the results of its first survey of classical favorites. Excerpts:

BEST MAJOR ORCHESTRA: 1) Philadelphia Orchestra, 2) Boston Symphony, 3) NBC Symphony.

BEST MINOR ORCHESTRA: 1) Louisville Orchestra, 2) Houston Symphony, 3) Pittsburgh Symphony.

BEST CONDUCTOR: 1) Arturo Toscanini, 2) Dimitri Mitropoulos, 3) Charles Munch.

YEAR'S BEST SYMPHONY RECORDING: Beethoven's Ninth, Toscanini conducting (Victor).

YEAR'S BEST NEW WORK RECORDED: "So many ballots were not filled out . . . that the final results were not decisive."

*And watched their circulation go up more than 8% (to 42,000) in a year.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.