Anshel Bruslow, Assistant Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell.
PART I Episode 4 – An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse
After a morning rehearsal in Cleveland, on a dreary January day in 1958, I came home and began fixing lunch. The phone rang and I heard Marilyn, my wife, chatting with someone. She came to get me.
“It’s Eugene Ormandy.”
“It can’t be.”
“Anshel?” the voice said. It was his. I just didn’t expect it to come through my own phone.
“How would you like to be concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra?”
I closed my eyes and I was a little boy. I was in the dining room of our apartment.
“I’m ready,” I told Ormandy in 1958. What I wouldn’t have given to let the words stand unmodified. “But I signed a three-year contract. I've got two more years to serve in Cleveland.”
My current position with a world-class orchestra under the illustrious George Szell came out sounding like a prison sentence. Which is how it felt.
The silence of Ormandy's disappointment stretched on. I let my breath out and sucked in more.
"You'll have to ask out,” he said.
As if one could simply ask out from the dominion of Szell. I thought of how, even behind those enormous glasses, his glacial blue eyes bulged out at us during rehearsals: Dr. Cyclops.
"Now that I think of it," I said to Ormandy, “Dr. Szell did say he would never keep me from something better."
I went early the next morning and knocked at Szell's office.
The door flew open and his large, deeply lined face jutted out above mine. The lenses of his glasses reflected the ceiling lights. "You're not going anywhere! You'll stay right here for the next two years!"
Then the door slammed shut. I seemed to be in Oz, the wizard's projected face still hanging in the air above me. He was all-knowing. Or else he had my phone bugged.
The dust of reality settled back over my life. Of course things that good didn't happen to me. I called Ormandy back with the gloomy news, knowing that he would now call the next violinist on his list, and that would be that.
"I've got a better idea,” he said. “Krachmalnik is leaving. He's not even finishing the season.” Jacob Krachmalnik was his concertmaster. “But my assistant concertmaster can function as the acting through next year. I'll hold the position for you, and you can just wiggle out of the last year of your contract."
I had never heard of any conductor of a major orchestra holding his concertmaster position in abeyance for a whole year. Such a move would require changes of programming to keep all the solo violin parts within reach of the assistant concertmaster. Ormandy confirmed the offer in a letter. I could not possibly refuse.
This time I arranged the meeting with Szell in advance.
The door opened slowly enough. A. Beverly Barksdale, Cleveland Orchestra manager, faced me. Lanky and weak-chinned, he was less intimidating than Szell. I felt quite at ease and strode in to find Szell seated in a chair next to his desk. Standing at my full 5'10” and with the confidence of Ormandy's insistence, I was ready for this.
Several chairs were ranged about the room as well as a chaise lounge. But Szell stood, ever the conductor, and motioned 'me to take his own chair. I did, although it placed me far below him.
"Do you realize, Anshel, how vital you are to this orchestra? And to Joe?” He was hitting a nerve. He knew concertmaster Joe Gingold and I were close friends.
"That means a lot to me.” My voice came out at the level of Szell's gray pants.
"You're also vital to me." "Dr. Szell, I am honored."
“Good.” All six-foot-one of him towered over me and waited for the apology he would graciously accept. The brown linoleum floor reflected the morning sun in glaring patches.
"I grew up hearing the Philadelphia Orchestra,” I said.
Across the room, Mr. Barksdale's eyes widened in fear. A comparison of Szell’s orchestra with another was not a welcome subject. The superlative status of Cleveland was taken for granted.
I continued. "Everyone considers Philadelphia one of the greatest in the world."
Szell looked stunned, and Mr. Barksdale stiffened and stared at his knotted hands.
"I want to leave at the end of my fourth year, in 1959.” It seemed reasonable to me, each of us giving in partially.
"No chance!" Szell snapped. “You signed the contract. You will fulfill it—both years!"
Now I jumped to my feet and took a step toward him. "Concertmaster! It's an opportunity to be concertmaster!”
Szell hopped back and grabbed a wooden chair to hold in front of his chest.
"Gentlemen!" Mr. Barksdale begged from his safe haven across the room. “We should discuss it calmly."
“Do you think I'm going to punch you?" I asked Szell. He set the chair down but scooted behind the chaise lounge.
His action worked on me, and I took another step toward him. "I never wanted to sign that contract.”
"Well, your name is on it, and no one cares what you were feeling at the time.”
"Please!" Mr. Barksdale said. “Let's all sit down!" He set the example by shrinking further into his own chair.
"You said you'd never keep me from a better position.”
"That's a worse position!” Szell spit the words at the floor as if the members of the Philadelphia Orchestra lay there.
"Calmly, gentlemen!" "Mr. Ormandy says he will hold the position for me for one year.”
The words were like an electric current, startling both men. They could not fail to recognize it as a dramatic move on Ormandy's part.
Now I spoke to Beverly Barksdale. “I'll stay one more year. I want to be released from my last year here."
Mr. Barksdale looked at Szell, who still stood behind the chaise lounge.
After a tense pause…Szell nodded agreement.
I regret having been the cause of a permanent rupture in the friendship between those two great conductors, Szell and Ormandy. They never spoke again.
Ormandy asked me to keep my new position under my hat until he made it public himself. Not telling Joe Gingold, the Cleveland concertmaster and my dear friend, was a kind of torture. And I constantly wondered what on earth was going on in Philadelphia.
Szell was kind to me at the end of my tenure with him. He shook my hand and said he would miss me. Parting with so many friends was hard, but leaving Joe was the worst. I loved him and would do anything for him.
Well, almost anything. The only time I refused to do something he asked of me was when I said, “No. You’re his concertmaster. You tell Szell to zip up his fly.”
To Follow: Part II – With Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra