HAYDN ON RECORDS The triple l if e of .. . Dr. Hermann Scherchen MODERNS IN CONCERT by Robert Charles Marsh

E LEC T R O ACO UST ICS IN

THE EUROPEAN concert -goer is likely to think of sort of thing happen again, and since he had little use for Hermann Scherchen primarily as the sponsor of new music, the Nazis he left in 1932 and assumed direction recalling the many contemporary scores he has introduced of broadcast music for the Swiss radio. and the manner in which his programs are frequently built Scherchen's rehearsals are models of efficiency and quiet about an enthusiastic performance of one or more fine mastery of the situation. He is invariably polite nowadays: works of this century. ( "Would you gentlemen have the kindness ro play that The American record collector, on the other hand, may note louder? Ir must be heard. The music makes no sense regard him as the guiding hand behind some of the finer if it is not heard."); he knows the score thoroughly and is disks of the older classics in the catalogues. For him, Scher- absolutely certain of what he wants ( "Would you have the chen may suggest Handel, Haydn, and Beethoven more than kindness ro take the E string of the violin down to D, as is Prokofiev, Ravel, and Berg. required by Stravinsky? Please, all the time this is not I first encountered Scherchen in the role of the champion done, and it is necessary. You hear? That way it sounds of the contemporary composer. "Selbstverrtdndlich können different. "); although when required he can be forceful: Sie meinen Probers beiwohnen," he had written me.* The ( "Why do you make a crescendo there? A crescendo there concert he was preparing with the London Symphony con- makes no sense! Always it must be pianissimo nor creeping tained the first performance here of Humphrey Searle's up to mezzo- forte. "). The Riverrun, a lyric, atmospheric work set to the final He was not always so polite. Indeed, for many years he pages of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, in which Miss was considered one of the hardest conductors in Europe to Jean Sr. Clair delivered with a fine brogue the monologue get along with. His reformation seems to have been a of the river Liffey as it merged with the sea. The score in- family affair. Not long after the birch of the youngest cludes a thunder machine which the percussionist played Scherchen, his wife, Pia, was bathing the baby. The child with gusto and sound fanciers might well find irresistible. splashed her. Pia laughed. Hermann (who would have British orchestra players are friendly, matey types, accus- blown his cop) asked why she didn't get annoyed. Because tomed to sight- reading and under -rehearsed concerts, and the little girl didn't know what she was doing, explained generally equal to whatever comes along. Several members smiling Pia. The lesson percolated. A couple of days later, of the ISO had toured the United States with Sir Thomas at orchestra rehearsal, only three horn- players showed up. Beecham as members of the Royal Philharmonic. (There Nothing from Scherchen. Midway in movement one, in is a constant interchange of players among the five sym- tiptoed Horn No. 4, and sat down. At the first break, phony orchestras in London.) In the tea breaks I heard all Scherchen said to him: "I'm sorry you were detained." about it. "Do you know the Carnegie Hall bar? We had Nothing more. The orchestra didn't understand, but Scher- some jolly times in the Carnegie Hall bar. I'd like to go chen had it all worked our. If the man weren't stupid he'd back, I would." know he had co be there on rime, and would have made Like Hindemith, Scherchen is largely self- taught. His arrangements to get there. Since he didn't-why make fresh appearance and apparently unlimited vitality suggest him miserable because he was stupid? Scherchen has held a man many years younger than sixty-four. After rehearsing to this moderation ever since, with impressive results. the LSO six hours, until it was blue and puffing, he was Although nor one of those conductors who lectures to his equal to prolonged and vigorous conversation, and then men, Scherchen talks to them a great deal. Some of his re- went off to dinner with his wife with a smile and a sense marks are quite illuminating. "Let Ellis be, gentlemen, for of undiminished energy, as if the day had been spent quietly one time entirely right," he said as they began work on reading scores. He learned the very best way, Stravinsky's 1919 suite (he does not like the 1945 version as a string player in the Philharmonic, and was as well) from the Firebird. "This is so often played, and launched on his career before the 1914 -18 war: indeed, he yet so often not right. It should be fresh, like the first day was director of the Symphony Orchestra in 1914 at it was played .... " Again he returned to the point. "This the age of Twenty -three and spent the war interned in Rus- must not be so heavy. It must be light and fine, like cham- sia as an enemy alien. He took no chances of having that ber music." The contrabass solo in the second parr of Pro -

*As e matter of course you may attend my rehearsals. kofiev's Lieutenant Kije brought a laugh at first. Scherchen

34 HIGH FIDELITY MAGAZINE

www.americanradiohistory.com