"So Sensitive!"

At Bologna three months ago, Conductor Arturo Toscanini was set upon and buffeted by a Fascist mob because he would not play their anthem (Giovinezza) at a concert he was conducting in memory of his dead friend, Composer Giuseppe Martucci (TIME, June 22). At that time Leopold Stokowski of the Philadelphia Orchestra said in Berlin: "The Fascists will kill that man yet. He is so sensitive that he will never be able to stand the shock."

Aside from a good scaring, Conductor Toscanini suffered no after-ill from the Bologna beating, but last week at Bayreuth, where he was rehearsing for a concert of the Wagnerian festival, it became evident he is still sensitive. While conducting the first portion of the Faust overture, he suddenly became so irritated with the Bayreuth Orchestra that he snapped his baton to bits, threw the bits to the floor, stamped off the podium. He did not appear at the concert that night. The overture had to be scratched off the program.

It took Frau Winifred Wagner--widow of Son Siegfried Wagner and last of the family to run things at Bayreuth--to cajole the Maestro out of his tantrum, persuade him to conduct the next evening's Taennhduser. It also took some coddling to persuade the disgruntled musicians to play for the Maestro.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.