AN EDUCATION AND A JOY
by John T. McClure (excerpts)
My first meeting with Bruno Walter took place in the summer of 1957
amid the eerie moonscapes of Palm Springs where he had gone to recuperate
from a heart attack [...]
I found Dr. Walter seated near a tropical baroque rock garden, taking
the sun in the manner of an older European generation:
with topcoat, scarf, and cloth cap against the muscular desert heat.
His greeting was subdued and rather shy, perhaps that of an alien to
a native. The small stature he shared with many conductors was a surprise;
his courtly and gentle manner was not [...]
I asked him if he was disposed to begin a large recording project using
a new process called stereo. I explained that it was an advance in the
recording art, but also an eventual threat to already existing records.
He was unimpressed. Threats were for the young, he smiled.
But certainly he would welcome another chance to redeem the interpretative
sins of his past.
There were, however, some serious conditions attached.
First: save for the rescheduled concerts, he considered himself retired
from public life, and therefore all recordings would have to be made
without benefit of performance.
Second: his age and the misbehavior of his heart had earned him,
he felt, the right to live the rest of his days in the California climate
that he loved; we would have to come to him.
Third: so that he could work for longer periods, he would record only every
other day.
Fourth: since there was the possibility (smile) that these might
be his last musical statements, he would like a perfectly free hand
with both orchestra and repertoire.
All conditions I agreed to as uttered [...]
During the week following, I examined, notebook in hand, twenty-five
buildings, which our West Coast staff had selected as possible locales for
our project [...] Like a bad Hollywood script, the last hail on the list,
a large concrete structure built in the 1920s as a meeting place for the
American Legion, turned out to be ideal [...]
The job of distilling an orchestra our of the ample pool of fine musicians
in the area began. For this job we picked Philip Kahgan, retired first
violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who knew Walter and had performed
many times under him. Kahgan's work was so well done that the Maestro
replaced only a few men during the next four years [...]
（未完）
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