At Home Abroad

One evening last week, a towering, bushy-haired young man strode across the stage of Chicago's Orchestra Hall, took his place on the conductor's stand. The applause was cordially perfunctory. But by the time he had led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through the bouncing overture to Bedrich Smetana's Bartered Bride, Mozart's Symphony No. 38 (Prague) and Leos Janacek's bone-rattling Taras Bulba, Chicagoans were clapping hard. Thirty-five-year-old Conductor Rafael Kubelik, son of the late great Czech Violinist Jan Kubelik, they decided, was a credit to his father.

When Rafael was bora in 1914, Jan Kubelik was one of the world's best in an age of great violinists (Kreisler, Ysaye, Auer, Zimbalist), had made himself a millionaire by his world-circling concert tours. Rafael began his musical training at five, picked out his first composition at eight on one of the Kubelik household's six pianos. At 14, he was enrolled at the Prague Conservatory, and in 1934, when Rafael was 20, his father considered him accomplished enough to go along on a world tour as his accompanist and conductor. Purpose of the tour: to rebuild the ruined Kubelik fortunes, help pay off a $125,000 debt.

The tour over and the debt paid, 22-year-old Rafael was appointed resident conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1942, two years after his father's death, he was promoted to permanent conductor. Since then, young Kubelik has built the Czech orchestra from 85 to 120 pieces, raised its critical rating from fair to excellent.

Last year, after conducting at Scotland's Edinburgh festival, Rafael Kubelik sent word to Prague (where members of his family still live) that he was not returning to open the 1948-49 season; he would play Czech music, but play it elsewhere. Since then, he and his wife and three-year-old son Martin have made their headquarters in London.

When he completes his three weeks of concerts in Chicago (where besides music by fellow Czechs Smetana and Janacek he will conduct Countryman Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony), Rafael will set out again. After an engagement as guest conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he will head back to Europe for orchestra dates in Britain, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Next summer he plans a tour of South America. By that time, if he decided to settle down, he could be sure of some offers. One job Kubelik admirers in Britain would like to see him take: that of resident conductor of the BBC Symphony, replacing retiring Director Sir Adrian Boult.

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