RODZINSKI RESIGNS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 405, 28 March 1947, Page 10

RODZINSKI RESIGNS

Break with Management of Phitharmonic Symphony

land are fairly familiar now with the name of Artur Rodzinski, as’ conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. His work as a conductor has become known to us here through the recordings he made with that orchestra, and we will no doubt go on hearing him as conductor of that orchestra for some time to come. But New York is no longer hearing him in that capacity. listeners in New ZeaHe has walked out of the job. A February number of Time reports the incident, and what led up to it. Rodzinski sat down in front of the Philharmonic’s Executive Committee to hear them offer to renew his contract for a further three years. They asked if he had anything to say. He spoke for 80 minutes, a good deal abottt the state of the orchestra which he had rescued from the decay it fell into after the departure of Toscanini, and a good deal about Arthur Judson, the orchestra’s manager. Rodzinski said Judson was trying to hamstring the conductor and run the show himself. Judson was present, and heard all that was said. When he had finished, Rodzinski went home to think it over and consult his conscience (he is a Buchmanite, and gets Guidance in his decisions). The Philharmonic Board awaited his decision. He sent them a wire, and informed the press. He had left.

The story was all over New York’s front pages, and the Rodzinski household was full of reporters and friends, and telegrams of congratulation. One telegram was from the Board, saying that it would release Rodzinski at once instead of keeping him till the end ef the season. 3 Rodzinski was very happy. He had cut himself off from the biggest job in American music, and was leaving a topnotch orchestra to take over the run-down Chicago Symphony. He had taken over the Philharmonic when it was run down (in 1943, after Barbirolli left), and improved it out of all Tecognition, sacked the

aged, brought in younger ‘ men, and driven the team hard,

But, as Time says, after Rodzinski had got unity and concord into an organisation that had been split into factions, after he had got the orchestra playing together, there was not much more he could do. For he is not a great conductor. "He can get 100 men playing in harmony," Time says, "but not over their~- heads."

Perhaps the real reason for his decision was that he knew himself to be an orchestra-builder, (Toscanini had known this when he chose him as his deputy when he took over the Philharmonic, and used Rodzinski to do the driving ‘and slogging.) At all events, Rodzinski told the reporters: "God leads me. I don’t know how He does. Through so many little coincidences the Big Boss is working Garona me. He tells me so clearly, like a bell-this time it rang like Big Ben. Gosh, He is smart!" And the motive certainly was not money. Rodzinski would drop from earning about 85,000 dollars to less than 50,000 in Chicago. "New York Will Go Down" Apart from God, Arthur Judson probably had as much to do with it as anyone. Rodzinski said: "You cannot play -musid with one ear on the box-office," thus indicating the Judson trouble. Judson is the orchestra’s manager, has the confidence of the 30 governors of the orchestra’ (socialites, Wall Street financier amateurs of the arts, and a few musicians), and would not let Rodzinski run things his own way. The renewal contract the Board offered Rodzinski allowed: him first choice of what would be played, but no control over what guest conductors would play, or in the choice of guests and soloists. Obvously he could not operate any musical policy of his own without risk of it being upset by Judson. But Rodzinski had been visited by the Chicago Symphony’s chairman (with an invitation) while he was fuming over these conditions, and knew~he, had a way out. He only had "a handshake agreement," but then that was all Frederick Stock (Chicago’s late conductor) had had for 38 years. "Since 21 years," Rodzinski _ said, "Chicago is my goal. It is a healthy city, like a young colt, full of concentrated power ... New York will go down." / ,