Concertmaster

Concernmaster During most of the season Richard Burgin, 64, sits unobtrusively at the violin section's first desk of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as he has for the past 36 years. At the end of a performance the conductor or guest soloist will shake his hand; if the guest happens to be someone as impulsive as Leonard Bernstein, he may even kiss his cheeks. For the rest, the concertmaster's job is done out of the public view, preparing the violins for the effects the conductor wants, marking the bowings, in general setting the tone of the orchestra.

But unlike most other concertmasters in the U.S., Polish-born Richard Burgin gets two or three weeks a year on the podium. Last week he led the Boston Symphony at Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, in a concert of Vaughan Williams, Beethoven and Shostakovich, which he delivered with craftsmanship and no melodrama whatever. "I know what I want, I know how to tell them what I want, and they give it to me," he said, adding as an afterthought: "just as they give it to any other conductor, only maybe to me a little quicker."

The first violinist did not always play second fiddle to the conductor. In the small 18th century ensembles, the other musicians often took their lead from the first violin, but growing orchestras, complex scores and the public's demand for a good show have made the conductor virtually irreplaceable. Still, the concertmaster has far more to do with running the orchestra than meets the eye.

Under Conductor Charles Munch, who used to be a concertmaster himself, Concertmaster Burgin's job moves along well-established grooves, but it was different under the late Serge Koussevitzky, whose famous, poetic perorations had to be translated into technical terms, e.g., how to make the violins sound like first love or the flutes like ice breaking.

lthough Burgin is forgetful in his private life (once he even left his Stradivarius on his commuter train), he has a legendary memory for music. And many times he has saved the situation when a conductor lost his place--by simply playing on until the maestro found himself again. In the words of the late Felix Weingartner, Burgin says: "As long as even one piccolo is playing, we don't give up."

Many concertmasters are tempted by a virtuoso's career. But Burgin says: "I know many virtuosos and I do not envy them. They tell me what it's like to play the same few pieces over and over and know they have to go here and then be there. Not for me. I like the orchestra."

Next week, after his spell in the limelight, Concertmaster Burgin will be back at his accustomed chair in Boston. He will mark the bowings efficiently, play his passages beautifully, and go home to Brookline on his usual commuter train, where trainmen have instructions to see that he does not lose his Stradivarius.

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