Music: Is There a Maestro in the Wings?
AND THAT LEAVES. . .no one to replace Maestro Eugene Ormandy before 1977-78. The board, agonizing between the continuity of an old conductor and the unknown quantity of a new conductor, chose to ignore the fact that a problem exists at all. After all, Ormandy is presently in excellent health and anxious to continue indefinitely. On the other hand, as one board member expressed it: "These new, hot-shot, jet-setting conductors don’t want to tie themselves down to just one post. They want to hold multiple posts on different continents, and won’t take on the responsibilities of programming, auditioning, and working with women’s committees and the like. We’re looking for someone who would view the Philadelphia Orchestra as his first and only responsibility, and frankly, I don’t know of anyone who would be willing to work on those terms." Another board member thinks that "Eugene Ormandy is the last of a dying breed of conductors — the one-orchestra conductor. We are looking for someone like Stokowski or Ormandy, who will grow with the Orchestra, but it may be a hopeless search. In the end, we may have to share." The irony of the situation is that when the post was secretly discussed with two conductors a few years ago on those conditions, both men were reported to have agreed to cut all their other commitments.
No one is talking about Eugene Ormandy’s contract, but educated guesses are that it runs for three years and is renewed like clockwork. (Another theory is that it is open-ended, with a two-year cancellation clause by either party.) If this is so, and since he signed a contract at the time of the strike in 1966, Ormandy’s contract is due to expire this month, and nothing short of an earthquake will keep it from being offered and signed in one fell swoop. And that should keep the search for a new conductor from intensifying until at least 1977.
Happy birthday, Philadelphia Orchestra. May you live to be a thousand. Happy birthday, Eugene Ormandy. May you live to be a hundred. You’ll have to, because we really don’t have any other choice.
