The Elite Eleven

ORCHESTRAS The Elite Eleven

When the Ford Foundation awarded an $85 million grant to U.S. orchestras five months ago, it was paying tribute to the nation's richest and most underrated cultural asset. The symphony orchestra has long been a mighty factor in the creative life of U.S. communities, but most Americans, cowed by a self-consciousness about European culture, have never acknowledged it.

Actually, when it comes to making symphony music, the Old World is not only inferior to the U.S., it isn't even old. The New York Philharmonic, for example, was founded in 1842, is 40 years older than the Berlin Philharmonic; the St. Louis Symphony (1885) predates both Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra and the London Symphony. Indeed, by most any yardstick, U.S. orchestras outstrip their counterparts on the Continent. Last season the Vienna Philharmonic performed 50 concerts and the London Symphony 32, while the Philadelphia Orchestra played 179 and the Boston Symphony 206. Of the world's 2,000 orchestras, the U.S. claims 1,401, including 25 that rank as major. France, by contrast, has only two professional symphony orchestras outside Paris, Britain only six outside London.

What is more, the quality of the top U.S. orchestras has developed to such a marked degree in the past few years that the Big Five--Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Philadelphia --are being crowded for honors by numerous other contenders. The first to surface was the Pittsburgh Symphony under Conductor William Steinberg. Through unstinting musicianship and an easygoing charm, Steinberg has molded his orchestra into a precision instrument of the highest caliber (TIME, Sept. 11, 1964). Moving west, there are no fewer than five more orchestras which, by the outstanding efforts of their masterbuilder conductors, now merit room at the top with the Big Five and Pittsburgh, comprising, in all, what might be called the Elite Eleven.

> DETROIT SYMPHONY operates under the successful "Detroit Plan," which this season accounted for contributions of $275,000 from 185 corporations, and a broad base of individual support to back its proud claim of being "everybody's orchestra." Sweden's Sixten Ehr-ling, 48, who replaced the venerable Paul Paray as conductor in 1962, has tempered the heavily romantic repertory favored by "Papa Paray" with stiff doses of modern music, has sharpened the ensemble playing into machine-tooled precision, and has added a velvety sheen to the orchestra's sound with the addition of 23 new musicians this year. Intense, sharp-featured Ehrling has brought a dashing and vigorous new image to the Detroit podium.

> HOUSTON SYMPHONY has come a long way from the days when it played Old Black Joe for encores and accompanied a wrestling match at a war-bond rally. The secret of the Houston's success today is Sir John Barbirolli, 66, whose solid musicianship, gained during a long career as conductor of such ensembles as the New York Philharmonic and Britain's Halle Orchestra, compensates mightily for the lack of depth in his players. Mindful that attendance had skidded with the modernist programming of Leopold Stokowski (1955-61), Barbirolli plays it safe and sticks close to the classics, out of which he produces a sound as fresh and breezy as the Southwest itself.

> Los ANGELES PHILHARMONIC is right in the forefront of the city's cultural boom, with Conductor Zubin Mehta leading the way. Mehta, 29, the youngest conductor of any major U.S. orchestra, was appointed to the post three years ago, has won the respect of his musicians, who share the critics' opinion that he is the finest young conductor to come up in years. He is a somewhat theatrical figure on the podium, but his tone is warm and expansive, a reflection of his Viennese training. He has succeeded, moreover, in ridding the orchestra of much of its dead wood (and brass and strings, for that matter). And there are new instruments as well as new players: Mehta got the orchestra to buy $250,000 worth of good string instruments. "This improves the sound," he says. "Before, some musicians played on cheap, puny instruments."

> MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY, whose list of distinguished maestros has included Eugene Ormandy, Dimitri Mitropoulos and Antal Dorati, has a good find in 42-year-old, Polish-born Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (pronounced Skro-vah-cheff-ski). Since he took over six years ago, he has broadened the orchestra's activities to include performances with local dance and theater groups, chamber-music concerts, and several weeks of touring (in keeping with Minneapolis' reputation as "the orchestra on wheels"). A champion of modern music, the scholarly-looking Skrowaczewski is a stern, businesslike mentor who directs with the spare, efficient strokes of a Japanese brush painter. More technician than poet, his approach has built a solid following, which this season has filled the cavernous 4,822-seat Northrop auditorium to 91% capacity.

> SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY, after a period of decline during the tenure of Conductor Enrique Jorda (1954-62), is now breaking attendance records with Josef Krips, 63, who is a master of the singing legato style. In his four years at San Francisco, Krips has imported a raft of front-rank musicians from other orchestras, including a cellist from the Chicago, a clarinetist from the New York, an oboist from the Cleveland. A fleshy, cherubic-faced Viennese, Krips can be a mountain of motion when conducting--cajoling, grimacing, beaming like a silent-movie hero. A dynamo of energy, he has lengthened the season from 26 to 30 weeks, performed 20 concerts a season in the towns surrounding San Francisco. Says one flutist: "He wants everyone to play with a smile." With a recording contract soon to be signed and a junket through the Far East planned for 1968, everyone is smiling.

The pre-eminence of U.S. orchestras stems from a unique musical environment. Always a haven for the displaced musician, the top U.S. orchestras have been able to draw the best performers from an international pool. Thirty years ago, more than half of U.S. symphonies were composed of foreign-born musicians; today the proportion runs about 10%. Thus, U.S. symphonies are free from the national mannerisms that mark European orchestras. And while European players tend to grow phlegmatic in the security of their state-subsidized jobs, the self-supporting arrangement in the U.S. engenders a competition that compels each musician to produce his best. Says Concert Violinist Henryk Szeryng: "I always find that my best accompaniments in the U.S. are in February and March, the time when contracts come up for renewal."

Still, it is one of the realities of symphony life that players' salaries in the top 25 orchestras last year averaged only $5,267. The cultural explosion has attracted wider support, but resources are still woefully lacking. Though performing-arts centers are shooting up as fast as prefab bungalows, many orchestras must play under less than ideal conditions. The New Orleans Philharmonic, which performs in the Municipal Auditorium, often has to compete with the roars from a wrestling match on the other side of the wall; concerts in St. Louis' Kiel auditorium are punctuated with cheers at Hawks basketball games. In the mobile musicians' market, it is almost axiomatic that the best orchestras are those with the biggest budgets. Facing up to the demands of the modern orchestra, the Minneapolis Symphony hired a young concert manager who has a master's degree from the Wharton School of Business in "marketing opportunities for the symphony orchestra." That the U.S. has produced the best orchestras in the world despite such difficulties makes the achievement all the more remarkable.

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