Word: szell
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...demands on musicians are still deadly. While rehearsing the Berlin Philharmonic for a recording some time ago, he worked the players so hard that their manager said: "Come, come, Szell, you're going at this as if it were a matter of life and death." Szell looked stunned. "Don't you see?" he said...
Sculptor's Hand. On the podium, Szell is formal and correct-his beat firm, his style understated. His baton moves stolidly. but his left hand-often called the most graceful in music-is a sculptor's hand, shaping and molding each sound, grasping the fortissimos, summoning the dominant voices and, for excited counterrhythms and violent colors, fluttering like a bird caught in a storm. "Between conductor and orchestra," Szell says, "a great deal must occur below the conscious level. There must be an understanding that is mystical and even occult. The freshness of the eyes, the mood-each...
...door may open on the maestro smiling absurdly from inside an apron that says "Whoopee" across the front. And there is the grand piano, the small treasury of art, the cabinet of great wines, the well-set table. Helene, his wife, is dauntlessly affable, but, try though he will, Szell in company seems to be listening to the interior music that he likes better...
...Szell has built his orchestra from 94 to 105 players, extended its season from 20 to 26 weeks, signed a brisk recording contract with Epic Records, and won a large new audience for his yearly tours. Associate Conductor Robert Shaw's Cleveland Orchestra Chorus has been increased to 201 members, and it is now nearly the peer of his Chorale. The orchestra's women's committee now has 1,500 members, busies itself with sternly taught courses in music appreciation, then goes out to round up contributions to fill in the orchestra's immense deficit...
Almost Aristotelian. Content that he at last has the glorious instrument he has heard in his inner ear all his life. Szell still works tirelessly, training young conductors, learning new scores. His pedagoguery is perfectly undiminished: he gives golf lessons to golfers who play better, teaches tailors how to cut his tails so that the coat will not flap while he conducts: tight armholes, ballooning sleeves...