Help Wanted

"We badly need a subsidy," New York Philharmonic-Symphony Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos told the National Music Council last week. With subscriptions off and endowments shrinking "because the rich people are disappearing," the Philharmonic, like many another symphony society, seemed to be righting a losing battle against growing deficits.*

The answer, thought Conductor Mitropoulos, was aid by state and local governments, rather than by the Federal Government. Washington could help, too, by forgoing the 20% admissions tax on symphony tickets. But before anything much could happen, said Mitropoulos, Americans in general would have to get over their notion that serious music is "sissy stuff," accept it as a real factor in national morale and prestige. "It's not a crime to hate Brahms or Beethoven," added Mitropoulos, "but it is a crime to ignore them."

* Last year's deficit: $81,500.

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