Conductor's Portrait

If at the end of this season the Chicago Symphony does the unlikely thing it has threatened to do, passes out of existence (TIME, March 14), its history will be described largely by the efforts of two hard-working Germans: Conductor Theodore Thomas and Conductor Frederick Stock. Theodore Thomas, the Orchestra's founder, is commemorated by a tablet in Grant Park across the street from Orchestra Hall. Conductor Stock, Thomas' successor, presented A Musical Self-Portrait last week on what may prove to have been the Orchestra's next-to-last program.

Conductor Stock likes to describe his latest composition as "a musical taking stock" of himself. It places him rightly as a kindly, scholarly person more of the 19th Century than of the 20th. But Chicagoans who expected it to be an obvious revelation of a life story or of superficial traits were disappointed. It was abstract, idealistic music, touched only here & there with humor sounded by piccolos and the xylophone. Large, amiable Mrs. Stock once gave a homely word-portrait of the Stock who likes to build furniture, tinker with electricity. After a particularly strenuous piece of conducting, when he was effusively mopping his brow, she leaned over to the next box, said: "Oh, my poor Frederick, he sweats so."

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