Word: szell
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...this pep-rally atmosphere, no one is more devoutly convinced of Cleveland's orchestral supremacy than Szell himself, to whom all the excitement is a glowing reflection of his own musical genius. At 65, Szell (pronounced sell) has spent 50 years on the podium, a life cycle that began as Wunderkind in Richard Strauss's Germany, then progressed to enfant terrible in Szell's Cleveland. He arrived in Cleveland in 1946, pruned and rebuilt the orchestra, educated its audience, charmed its angels, and terrified everyone, until he reached a point of supreme control and superb accomplishment...
...several years in the same town give him a closeness to his orchestra that he develops into musical accomplishment - as Paul Paray did in ten years with Detroit, and as Robert Whitney is doing in Louisville, Izler Solomon in Indianapolis and Hans Schwieger in Kansas City. Occasionally, as with Szell in Cleveland, the orchestra's sponsors share the maestro's boundless aspirations, and stand back while he takes the orchestra as far from home as its excellence makes it welcome...
...class warfare of musician and conductor is as old as ego. But to Szell, the whole scrap is an empty one. "We are all in the service of music," he says, "and we must approach it with all the good will possible." Because he is the most authoritarian man now conducting, this means play it his way, or else...
...Szell harbors a hidden fondness for musicians, but he keeps it under perfect control. At work with his orchestra, he is so immaculately severe that a few players complain of his cruelty, hinting darkly that he has driven a musician or two into emergency mental care. Others feel that he is so coldly unresponsive to their feelings that he pushes them past the point of artistic aspiration, rehearsing so much that they pass their peak before concert time. "If you really want to hear how good we are, come to rehearsal," says a Cleveland violinist...
...Szell also offends players by being so devoutly musical that at times he is scantily human. When a violinist took a bone-jouncing spill down a long flight of stairs, Szell heard about it and asked in horror,' "Did he crush his fiddle?" When a visiting member of the Berlin Philharmonic expressed astonishment that Cleveland's musicians would put up with a man like Szell, a Szell man mused: "It's ironic. Over there, they have democracy. Here we have the Third Reich." To most of the players though, particularly the first-chair men. Szell...