Excerpts from SHOOT THE CONDUCTOR
by Anshel Brusilow and Robin Underdahl
Introduction to Part II
Anshel Brusilow, a violinist and conductor, was assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell. He later became concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.
I have published 4 excerpts in Part I from Shoot The Conductor, which Brusilow wrote with Robin Underdahl. Those excerpts cover Brusilow’s tenure as assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. You can find Part I in earlier blogs. Part II, with 4 episodes, will follow Brusilow as Ormandy’s concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Part II - Episode 1: Brusilow arrives as Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra
FINALLY, THE DAY CAME – my first rehearsal as the new concertmaster. Most of the musicians were onstage, and I certainly didn’t want to be last. But Ormandy stopped me.
“Don’t go out. I’ll introduce you.”
I was nervous. I followed him out, and the players continued chatting and fiddling with their instruments until they finally noticed that I was with their conductor.
And that surprised me. Here the players did not instinctively freeze in place when the conductor came through the stage door, as they had with Szell.
Ormandy introduced me and I was surrounded by friendly greetings. I asked principal oboist John de Lancie for his “A” and tuned the woodwinds and listened until they sounded good, and gave them my nod. But as I went on to tune the brass, and then the strings to the same note, I was thinking about Bill Kincaid, principal flutist. He hadn’t looked up once. While you tune a section as concertmaster, normally each player is looking at you because you are going to nod or else signal for raising or lowering. But Bill was not going to meet my eyes to get my approval.
I had offended him when, at sixteen, I won the conducting contest and conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Polovtsian Dances. I had asked Bill Kincaid to change his phrasing, to the delight of his rival, Marcel Tabuteau. Tabuteau had retired, but here was Bill Kincaid displaying ill will.
When Ormandy stepped onto the podium and asked the orchestra to please be quiet, I forgot all about that. He said please!
We haven’t got much time before the tour. Let’s start with the Overture to “Die Meistersinger.”
The orchestra played the opening chord, C Major. I lowered my violin and simply listened.
My assistant concertmaster Dave Madison said, “Are you okay?”
It was the sound. That sound like no other orchestra, the lush sound I had always known, now vibrated all around me. I was overwhelmed.
“Are you all right?” Ormandy asked.
“I’m fine.”
There I was concertmaster of one of the greatest orchestras in the world.
By this time, I had discovered the usefulness of buying the full score of whatever we were playing. The interest in hearing all the other instruments had expanded into a desire to see all the parts paralleled on the page. I liked knowing how the music I made fit into the larger picture. Then once I knew my own part, my orientation to the whole freed me to look at the conductor rather than my music.
The conductor’s preparation begins with working through a score and marking it with his preferences. The orchestra librarian copies the markings onto the music for each instrument as applicable. Ormandy encouraged me to change the bowings for the violins any way I wished, but suggested that I consider the skill levels of the whole section as I did so. In addition, I could call out instructions for the violins as they occurred to me at rehearsals.
At an early rehearsal, I turned to the section and said, “Slur the next two bars, and start up bow.”
“God damn it! What’s wrong with the way it is?” came from somewhere toward the back.
Many of the players had been in the orchestra back when Stokowski was conductor. Along came I, all of thirty-one years old, telling them how to play.
We came to another section where Ormandy made a change that I thought required a bowing adjustment.
“At number 370, start up bow and change four bars later.” Again I heard the discordant voice.
When my third change provoked a grumble, I stood and asked Ormandy for a moment’s break. Having placed the voice, I made my way to the back of the first violin section and leaned over Herman Weinberg’s white hair to whisper to him. Then I straightened and said, “Okay, Herman?”
He smiled and nodded in agreement, and I returned to my chair and thanked Ormandy. The rehearsal continued.
In my view, a conductor’s skill shows most in his ability to accompany a soloist. Ormandy was able to grant enormous flexibility to soloists, giving them full freedom to go wherever the music led, and still he could bring the orchestra alongside at every moment. During my first year in Philadelphia I marveled at him again and again, whether following Gary Graffman playing Tchaikovsky piano concertos or Hilde Gueden singing. I had experienced it before as a soloist, but I gained a different appreciation of his excellence in accompaniment as I participated in the orchestra.
The bond between Ormandy and me was very strong. No one would call him a humble man, but the real beauty of music brought out a humility in him, a profound respect for both the composer and the performer. It was a joy to play for someone who so thoroughly loved the music right along with you. Where beauty is perceived and expressed, love is not too strong a word to describe the response, and those who respond to beauty together, also feel bound to each other.
The Tiffany clock he gave Marilyn and me for Christmas in 1959 still sits in our living room. Taped to the box was an envelope so tiny it fits in the palm of my hand, containing a note saying that he loved me as a father. And I did feel that he treated me as a son. Of course, he and Gretel had no children.
I felt comfortable with Ormandy from the start. “Would you like me to pick you and Mrs. Ormandy up?” I offered for one of our early out-of-town concerts.
“Sure! That would be great.”
The Ormandys began to rely on my chauffeuring. We laughed a lot in the car. Whenever Mrs. Ormandy came along to New York, she would send a stagehand to the Carnegie Deli to get us corned beef sandwiches for the drive home.
“What did you get for sweets?” was always Ormandy’s question.
At the end of my first concert with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Ormandy bowed and left the stage. As usual, continuing applause called him back for a second bow, and a third. When he left the stage the third time, it seemed to me that the audience had stopped applauding.
Here again, protocol dictates the concertmaster’s moves. When the applause for the conductor stops, the concertmaster stands and exits, and then the members of the orchestra follow. Since the audience had quieted down, I started to make my way toward the side. But then the applause resurged. Offstage, Ormandy heard this and began to return, so that we encountered each other on stage.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“The applause stopped.” “No, it didn’t,” he said.
I continued off stage, and he continued on. Who knows what the audience made of that?
When it was time to leave, I brought my car around to the stage door for the Ormandys. He was already talking as he climbed into the front seat. “Why on earth did you walk off while they were still clapping for me?”
Mrs. Ormandy rescued me: “Gene, the applause did stop for a short time.” “I have too many friends in the audience to have the applause stop!” he informed us both.