Word: monod
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Jacques Monod is a young (29) French conductor who believes that U.S. musical society is awash in stagnation, apathy and confusion. He sees major orchestras playing programs they could have played (and sometimes did) a century before, their musicians bored and cynical, their conductors hamstrung by bosses who are afraid to venture new things and new directions. As a result. Monod complains, contemporary music is almost a secret, played by enthusiasts for themselves, and in programs selected by squabbling committees who try to satisfy factions rather than present balanced music. Lots of people in the music world have complained about...
Conductor Monod achieved his successful musical evening by a combination of stubborn determination and truculence...
...solid months burrowing through the brain-creasing mysteries of some of the most complex music ever written, finally organized the program to his satisfaction. Then he spent five hours a day for a week whipping, coaxing and teasing 56 musicians into condition to play it. The result should establish Monod as a conductor of stature...
Worse in Paris. Jacques Monod is a conductor almost against his will. Born near Paris, he was propelled to the piano by his pianist mother; he gave his first concert at nine, and he has hated the piano ever since ("I don't even own one now"). Monod is a dour man. impatient with what he calls "musical politics." and with the mechanics of earning a living. His one steady job, at $150 a month, is as organist in a Roman Catholic church. But if the musical situation is bad in New York, Monod thinks it is even worse...
Suddenly, Paris-born Conductor Monod, at 28 a standout interpreter of contemporary music, dropped his arms, and the orchestra stopped; but instead of silence, a frightful, apocalyptic roar came from one of the two loudspeaker units. At first it seemed to have no connection with the preceding part, but then it began to come clear through the clangorous fog: many of the rhythms were regurgitations of foregoing rhythms. Twice more the taped sounds interrupted the orchestra, each time became more drastic, until the effect was of actual terror, as machine-gun bursts alternated with animal wails, with monstrously loud cricket...