Finnish Fiddler

In Philadelphia last fortnight a 13-year-old Finn, looking too tall for his bare knees and short pants, listened to Eugene Ormandy rehearsing the Philadelphia Orchestra in Jean Sibelius' surging Finlandia. Much moved, Finn Heimo Haitto (pronounced hay-moe high-toe) sat down and wrote his good friend Sibelius all about it. Last week the boy had more to tell the old composer. Again bare-kneed, and sailorcollared, Heimo Haitto tucked a Guarnerius fiddle under his beardless chin, made his bigtime U. S. debut with Ormandy and the orchestra in the plushy Academy of Music. Critics liked his easy, self-assured playing, could well believe that Sibelius had said of him: "This youngster will carry on the tradition of Finnish music."

Heimo Haitto was born in Viipuri (since last month Viborg, Russia), began fiddling at four. When he was nine his parents put him in the Viipuri Conservatory, later let him be adopted by the Conservatory's founder, Boris Sirpo. Last year Heimo made his debut with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Professor Sirpo conducting. In London, as the youngest entrant in an international competition of the British Council of Music, he won hands down.

Soon Finland was at war. Back in Viipuri, Violinist Haitto was walking to school one day when he heard an air-raid alarm. He rushed home, grabbed what he thought was his Guarnerius, headed for shelter. When the raid was over, the Sirpo home and the Conservatory were wrecked, and Heimo Haitto discovered that, in his excitement, he had saved a cheap violin. The Sirpos and their foster child headed for Sweden and Norway, where Heimo fiddled at benefit concerts for the Finnish Red Cross. Then they sailed for the U. S., where they arrived last February.

Playing on a borrowed Guarnerius at small concerts, Violinist Haitto has raised some $12,000 for the Finnish Relief Fund, has engagements through mid-May. He has learned some English, likes U. S. oranges, Mickey Rooney, skating in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center rink.

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