Having a Wonderful Time

Right from the start of the NBC Symphony's first transcontinental tour, the maestro had seemed different. Instead of the usual dignified and photographer-shy Toscanini peeping out from under a rolled-brim black fedora, newsreels showed the warm, shining face and cheery handwaves of a man who looked almost as if he were out after the corn-belt vote. There was no letdown in his musicmaking, as sell-out audiences found, everywhere he conducted his orchestra. But by last week many a spot in the U.S. was getting a treat that most New Yorkers never get: the warming spectacle of famed 83-year-old Arturo Toscanini having a wonderful time.

In Williamsburg, Va. he strolled the streets hatless, admiring the colonial architecture while other tourists and townspeople admired him. In New Orleans he asked his chauffeur to stop the car so he could hear the jazz throbbing out of the bistros. In Austin, Tex. even his musicians got a surprise. Their usually dapper maestro, for the first time within memory, rehearsed them in shirtsleeves.

Last week, after heart-warming welcomes up the Pacific Coast from Pasadena to Seattle, the little maestro took to the outdoors. At Sun Valley, he lolled on the grass, watched his grandson, Yale Sophomore Walfredo Toscanini, play tennis, then sat himself in a ski-lift chair for a trip part way up 9,200-ft. Baldy Mountain. Was he scared? Not a bit, scoffed Toscanini. He had been a mountain climber in his youth--which was a good 60 years ago. Up & down the lift, he gaily applauded members of his orchestra as they passed, crying "Bellissimo," with the enthusiasm of a small Italian boy.

After a noon barbecue, members of the orchestra and some of the crew of his special train banded themselves into a "Sad Symphony" of toy ukuleles, kazoos and slide whistles to play satiric take-offs on Wagner, Kabalevsky and Sousa. A waiter sang Ol' Man River and a porters' quartet turned to on Down by the Old Mill Stream, Finally, at his musicians' urging, the 83-year-old little perfectionist stood up to conduct them himself in shirtsleeves and beret. "That was a little out of tune, Maestro," grinned a trumpeter, afterward. Toscanini beamed happily: "Well, a little, but it was good."

This week, as he headed back east, Arturo Toscanini's only regret seemed to be that he didn't have time for more.

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