Tribute to Maestro Solti

Sir / Your article on Conductor Georg Solti [May 7] and the Chicago Symphony was just right. It was a romantic piece for a romantic orchestra.

(THE REV.) JOSEPH MATTERN

Marinette, Wis.

Sir / We Mahlerites are especially pleased with Sir Georg's interpretations of Mahler.

AVIK GILBOA

President Gustav Mahler Society Los Angeles

Sir / It appears that Maestro Solti in stabbing himself with his baton is perpetuating a tradition. It began with Jean Baptiste Lully, who, as an early ensemble conductor, clobbered his toe with the large cane he used to gesture toward his 24 violins. He died of resultant blood poisoning.

In more recent times, stories abound concerning baton accidents. Maestro Alessandro stabbed himself. One conductor I know personally jabbed his left eye. Any musician can recall numerous occasions on which the "stick" has gone flying into the orchestra or audience--unintentionally, of course!

BASIL TYLER

Associate Professor of Music University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Sir / TIME'S hymn of praise to Sir Georg Solti is in effect a rhapsodic tribute to the Chicago Symphony and to its master builder, Fritz Reiner. When Reiner arrived in Chicago in the early 1950s, the orchestra that had been shaped so nobly by Frederick ("Papa") Stock had fallen on hard times. Maestro Reiner changed all that. Reiner's method centered on perfectionism, brought out with elan and excitement, yet with an economy of baton flicking, writhing, bouncing or grimacing.

IRWIN GOODWIN

Alexandria, Va.

Sir / Surely an orchestra that is "on the rise" is the New Jersey Symphony under Henry Lewis.

JAMES PEGOLOTTI

Jersey City

Sir / Your music critic, in not even mentioning the St. Louis Symphony and Walter Susskind, is nuts.

RICHARD E. MUELLER

St. Louis

Sir / Your music critic William Bender rated the Boston Symphony Orchestra behind those of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. I disagree. I would rank the Boston Symphony as equal to and often superior to these orchestras.

ALAN SCOVELL

Cambridge, Mass.

Sir / I did miss seeing the Houston Symphony in your rating of U.S. orchestras.

MARJORIE LEVY

Atlanta

Sir / The Detroit Symphony can, and often does, play up a storm.

GILBERT E. ROSE

Grosse He, Mich.

Sir / Until one sees Stanislaw Skrowaczewski laugh out loud in the midst of a rapturously joyful piece of Haydn, or watches him reach out his arms to conduct a Bruck ner symphony with all the tenderness of a father embracing his first-born child, then one is missing many facets of our Minnesota maestro.

C.A. RANTA

Minneapolis

Sir / Anyone who would not include Washington, D.C.'s National Symphony Orchestra on an orchestral "on the rise" list is either shortsighted, a cultural snob or has a closed mind.

RICHARD A. ANDERSON

Silver Spring, Md.

Watergate (Contd.)

Sir / The only honorable thing left for Nixon to do is tell us why it was so important for him to be re-elected and then to resign.

VERA CLARK

Vacaville, Calif.

Sir / Watergate is serious. But not half as serious as the current "trial by newspapers and media." Let the court decide who is guilty if anyone is.

MARY K. KERICH

Wilton, Conn.

Sir / The events of the past year have given Americans a vivid example of how vital a free press is to a free society. One cannot exist without the other. The only source of information the people have, other than "official" Government information, is the news media. The press is the only check the people have on the actions of those who represent them in Government.

STEPHEN T. FROST

Minneapolis

Sir / The Democrats, by making such an issue over Watergate, have placed themselves in the embarrassing position of having to nominate "Caesar's wife" as their next presidential candidate.

(MRS.) CAMILLE BARTON

Valdosta, Ga.

Kleindienst Denial

Sir / In your May 14 story [on Watergate] you stated: "Angered, Hoover telephoned Kleindienst and threatened to reveal these embarrassing taps."

Without qualification of any kind, I categorically state that no such telephone conversation took place between me and Mr. Hoover. I further categorically state that I have no personal knowledge about such taps.

RICHARD G. KLEINDIENST

The Attorney General Washington, D.C.

P:TIME stands by its story.

The Right Idea

Sir / When I read your article, "The Third Age" [May 7], I wanted to hop on the next plane for France and join the sports club of retired persons at Grenoble.

Why do we in the U.S. build so many housing complexes where we herd the old together? Since they live in a world of diminishing contemporaries, they naturally tend to think old, and to resign themselves to a life of passivity without a struggle. We are making old age the final segregation.

I think the Grenoble Office of Aged Persons has the right idea. I should know, for I am myself a senior citizen and work as a VISTA volunteer among the elderly in two large segregated housing complexes in this city.

ERNESTINE F. ALLRED

Roanoke, Va.

Heading for a Convulsion

Sir / We want to thank you for using the excellent selection from our book The Energy Crisis as a prelude to your article [May 7]. We must regretfully conclude that the nation is headed for an energy-caused convulsion of our physical life-support system. Once this happens, the institutions that guarantee economic and social freedom will surely vanish in the turmoil.

One aspect of the energy crisis that gets more than its fair share of optimism is the rate at which power systems can be phased in. The phase-in times of geothermal power, the breeder reactor, solar power, etc., are longer than most energy observers think.

LAWRENCE ROCKS RICHARD P. RUNYON

Greenvale, N.Y.

Sir / Another alternative solution to the impending gasoline shortage is statutory lowering of freeway speed limits. I would prefer a few more driving hours to missing a trip this summer because I cannot purchase sufficient gasoline.

MARC STUART KLEIN

Los Angeles

Sir / You cite me as "accusing the multinational oil firms of merely acting as tax-collection agents for the oil exporters." No need to accuse anyone: the board chairman of British Petroleum called the companies tax-collecting agents, and I think rightly. As for any "concerted diplomatic effort to break the OPEC cartel," that cannot happen soon. Our Government, by threatening to pre-empt oil supplies and sponsoring preferential treatment for Saudi Arabian oil, has so scared and embittered our European and Asian friends that they would not listen even if we spoke the truth.

M.A. ADELMAN

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Mass.

Best Practical Technology

Sir / The need for Congress to reconsider the federal law that sets the standards for auto-exhaust emissions [April 23] has been persuasively described by a committee of the National Academy of Science. We endorse that recommendation.

Because of the complexities of the issues, we believe Congress should impose upon the Environmental Protection Agency responsibility for requiring the application of the "best practical" technology as a sound approach to air-quality improvement, and meanwhile back away from involving itself in numbers setting.

The first step toward a more reasoned approach to emission control was taken when the EPA granted a one-year extension of the compliance deadline. However, the administrator was obliged by the act to impose stringent interim standards which may still require the use of wastefully expensive catalyst technology.

H. ROBERT SHARBAUGH

President Sun Oil Co. St. Davids, Pa.

Professional Courtesy

Sir / Your article, "All in the Family" [May 7], gets me where it hurts most!

Ironically, medical professional courtesy is extended mainly to those who can best afford to pay the full fare: physicians and their families.

It has occurred to me that the doctor-related recipients of a doctor's good care should consider "reimbursing"' him by donating a sum equivalent to the customary fee to the doctor's favorite charity.

I trust that my husband, the doctor, will not be too surprised to find that the signature below is that of his wife!

(MRS.) SUSANNE LONDON

Burlington, Vt.

Sir / If a doctor doctors another doctor, does the doctor who doctors the doctor doctor the doctor the way the doctor he is doctoring doctors? Or does the doctor doctor the doctor the way the doctor who doctors doctors doctors?

ROBERT J. LERER, M.D.

New Haven, Conn.

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