What Ever Happened to Little Lorin?

When he made his debut as conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1940 Lorin Maazel was a plump little child, no taller than a cello and braver than a flute. "I have yet to prove my mettle," said the ten-year-old maestro after climbing down from the podium where he had proved himself a wizard. Last week, at 32 Maazel was again before the Philharmonic, a wizard with plenty of mettle, especially by his own reckoning. "I am considered " he proclaimed, "the leading conductor of my generation."

Maazel is among the very few Americans who rank Maazel that high but his appreciation of himself is widely shared in Europe where, in the past few years, he has conducted more orchestras than most people could shake a stick at. He disap peared from American music in 1945 after six years as Little Lorin, the boy won der. Adolescence-- its fuzzy cheeks and squeaky voice-- had done him in -"I lost my market value as soon as I ceased to be a monstrosity." Sobering up in Pitts burgh, he studied hard, learned the vio lin, became a linguist and left for Europe --at 22. a forgotten celebrity.

To Be a Prophet. Maazel was soon in aly, plotting his comeback. "I took a long, cool look at conducting," he says Of course I liked the power and prestige being a conductor-- but did I really have anything to say?" After deciding that he did, he began to build his new career, using as touchstones his La Scala debut (". . . the finest since Toscanini, icy told me . . .") and his debut at Bayreuth the Teutonic holy of holies. I was the first American and the young est man ever to appear there," Maazel says, and it was beautiful." Soon he was second only to Herbert von Karajan as Europe's darling. And having triumphed over adolescence in Europe, he was eager to triumph over his painful memories of home. It's great to be a prophet in your own country," he mused, "especially when you're already a prophet overseas."

But the critics were baiting their prodigy traps. After he made his November debut with the Metropolitan Opera they sprang: "hand to mouth" conducting said one, adding that Maazel is a martinet whose merciless, metronomic beat is in fact, a mask that covers weakness and insecurity. Such talk may have momentarily quieted Maazel, but it did not shake his confidence. Last week at Philharmonic Hall, he led a Beethoven Fifth Symphony in which fate really did seem to knock at the door; under Maazel. the horns spoke high German, and the double basses, which before had hidden shyly in the hall's odd acoustics, danced like circus elephants. Maazel had made an impressive return.

To Be a Man. Gifted with absolute pitch and an IBM memory that swallows symphonic scores at a glance, Maazel conducts with clear, functional beauty, avoiding ostentation to such a degree that he occasionally loses the spirit of his work in his wish to perfect it. When a tenor faltered during Maazel's Der Rosenkavalier, the maestro coolly ignored him, pushing ahead with a relentless beat that humiliated the singer and ruined the song. But in the concert hall, his command of the orchestra is invariable, and his reading of the great scores is almost errorless.

With five more Met performances ahead of him and the strong echo of his successes with the Philharmonic behind, Maazel is full of the old chutzpah again."I must say,'' he says eagerly, ''that I'm proud of what I've done, not only for myself but for the image of the American artist abroad. Forget this expatriate business--the thing that matters is that one of my concerts in Prague, say, does more for good will than years and years of propagandizing by the embassy. People from the embassy have told me this." Musicians have told him so. too. but the Maazel they see most clearly is not the blushing ambassador. He is the young maestro who was called "Little Lorin" for so many years that he now insists on "Mr. Maazel.'' the austere young genius who in his zeal to become a man sometimes cannot still Little Lorin's sweet, boastful voice.

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