"Are You a Windmill?"

The young man on the podium was flogging the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestra at a dead run through Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony when a handclap sounded from the raised platform at the rear. "Mr. Goldstein," said Conductor William Steinberg with icy politeness, "why are you in such a hurry? We do admire the playing of the orchestra, and we are surprised they can play all the notes, but we would rather listen to the music of Mendelssohn." The young man on the podium flushed, resumed at a slower tempo. Hour after hour, it went on that way last week while 19 fledgling baton wavers flailed away under Steinberg's watchful eye through Liverpool's international competition for conductors.

Wrapped in Conceit. The competition was the inspiration of Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Conductor John Pritchard, who feels that there are plenty of young conductors around with more talent than they can shake a stick at. Why not test them with a first-rate orchestra? He invited Cologne-born William Steinberg, conductor of both the Pittsburgh Symphony and the London Philharmonic, to help him judge a contest for musicians under 40. The pair screened 90 applicants, "weeded out all the dilettantes,'' ended with a list of 19 competitors from nine countries. Each had to prepare a repertory of twelve classical orchestral works, four works with soloists, any two of a list of four modern works.

Conductor Steinberg did as much teaching as judging. He went on the theory that all conductors are wrapped in conceit ("The degree of conceit among conductors is enormous, even in beginners"), and often cut them down so adroitly that, as one contestant put it, he "demolished your authority entirely, right in front of the orchestra." Most frequently. Steinberg jumped on the contestants for exaggerated gestures. When he spotted a shoulder-to-waist stroke, he would inquire acidly: "Are you a windmill?" Contestants soon learned that a 3-in. flick of the baton before the sensitive Liverpool Philharmonic could do the work of a 2-ft. stroke with less finely tuned orchestras.

Clap to Silence. One contestant stopped the music to complain that the orchestra was not following him. Snapped Steinberg: "They are going slow because you let them." At one point he clapped the orchestra to silence and commented: "One group played their eighth notes too fast; did you spot it?" The contestant thought that it was the second violins. "To my ear," said Steinberg, "it was the violas, but I did not want to let out the secret."

After two weeks and fifty hours of music, Conductors Steinberg and Pritchard agreed on three "equal merit" awards, signifying that no single winner stood out sharply above the others. The winners: India's Zubin Mehta, 22; Detroit-born Haig Yaghjian (pronounced Yog-jun), 33, founder of the semiprofessional Fresno (Calif.) orchestra; Norway's Sverre Bruland, 35. Conductor Steinberg, 58, was disappointed, but not particularly surprised that the contest did not turn up the "fair-haired wonder boy we were looking for." Said he: "Conducting is, in its best sense, conveying experience. How can young men convey experience?"

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