Word: munching
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...sport coat walked briskly across the stage to the podium. For a few silent moments his glance flickered over the musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his shale-blue eyes and handsome, melancholy face warm with affection. When his glance had embraced them all, Charles Munch picked up his baton, smiled and said: "Maintenant, relax." A moment later, Boston's 50-year-old Symphony Hall was rocking joyously with the rehearsal of Hector Berlioz' bounding overture, The Corsair...
Kindly, 58-year-old Alsatian-born Conductor Munch no longer really had to tell his musicians to relax. In eleven weeks as their first new conductor in 25 years, his musicians were freer of tension than they had been for years. In his first speech to them he had vowed, in his painful English, to do his best to maintain the high standards of the Boston. He also hoped "there will be joy." Forthwith, friendly "Charry" Munch (pronounced Moonsh) won their respect as a musician, and their love and obedience as a man. This week, as he rehearsed...
...Genius in the Pot? To most U.S. musicians and music lovers, the ascension of Charles Munch to the nation's most prestigious musical throne had come with the jolting surprise of one of Hector Berlioz' sudden bursts of brass...
...name of Munch was not big in U.S. music. He had visited for the first time in the 1946-47 season, to be guest conductor in Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles; in 1948 he had conducted the French National (Radio) Orchestra on its U.S. tour. Although he had won respectful notices from critics, his name had seldom appeared in the calculations of the pundits and prophets who wanted to call the tune on Boston's new conductor. From the time 75-year-old Conductor Serge Koussevitzky announced that he would abdicate...
...Flat Stomach. When Bostonians heard Munch conduct their orchestra on his 1946 visit, his music had shocked some. It seemed more violent and more rushed, particularly in the allegro movements of Beethoven symphonies. But one man was not at all surprised when Munch was asked to succeed Koussy. The New York Herald Tribune's Virgil Thomson had heard Munch conduct 15 years before in Paris and had prophesied that he would eventually lead the Boston. Why? Says Critic Thomson: "He was a natural Boston conductor, flat-stomached and grey-haired, and he created hysteria, particularly in the female over...