Artist at Home

The recital, reported New York Times Music Critic Howard Taubman. was "admirable"--but it got Taubman sore. The artist: 32-year-old, Philadelphia-born Violinist Berl Senofsky. The locale: the Metropolitan Museum's small Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (700 seats). Wrote Taubman next day: "There is something gravely wrong here. Berl Senofsky is an American violinist who beat all comers to win first prize in the Brussels 1955 competition, and he gets to play in New York as guest of the Metropolitan's Young Artists Series. Leonid Kogan, a Russian violinist [TIME, Jan. 27], who won the Brussels prize in 1951. comes to the U.S. and plays here with the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony orchestras." Senofsky has not played in any of Manhattan's major halls since his Brussels victory. Who is at fault? "All of us." said Taubman. "Managers, boards of directors, public, critics. Mr. Senofsky is not the only American musician who . . . has failed to be treated with sufficient honor at home. It is an old American habit to minimize our own."

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