That busy summer and fall set a pattern for succeeding years [...]
Walter's extensive preparation involved hearing and criticizing his
previous recordings, marking the scores page by page with his dynamics
and bowings, correcting from his mind’s ear the contours and balances of
how many performances. These markings were then transferred into the
orchestral parts by a copyist, saving us untold time and trouble at the
sessions. Back in New York, I underwent a similar though less intense
process of familiarization, dividing each symphony into fragments of
fifteen or twenty minutes, the most we planned to attempt in one day.
We all came nervously to the first session in January [...]
Dr. Walter looked smaller and older now in his old black rehearsal jacket,
and I felt misgivings; but as we entered the hall to a standing ovation,
his step became sure, the years dropped away like husks, and he almost
sprang onto the podium.
“So, gentlemen, thank you. It seems we will be seeing a lot of each
other this winter and I hope we become a good working family.
Today we begin with [...]”
All under control. Three hours later we were veterans with all our fears
unrealized. Dr. Walter was enthusiastic about the hall and the orchestra.
A few seating changes and we were on the way [...]
Bruno Walter’s rehearsals were an education and a joy.
In the four years of our association, I seldom heard his voice raised
in impatience, and never in anger. The men came to the sessions as if to
a master class. After rapping their music stands in tribute at the
conductor’s entrance, their tangibly receptive silence would be broken
only by his exhortations or by music. Tension was minimal; concentration
was absolute. Walter was an eminently articulate man, and his guidance -
now spoken, now sung in that firm eighty-year- old voice was colorful,
warm, hortatory, and unfailingly pertinent.
“Come, my friends,” he would say, “once more: trumpets a little less,
violins more singing, you know? It’s much better but I do it again.”
Although his patience was rarely tried by this responsive orchestra,
he knew, from sixty- three years of conducting experience, just how each
measure should sound, and there was no getting around him.
I remember recording on four separate occasions the first four bars of
the Academic Festival Overture because the accents weren’t just the way
he wanted them.
Humor was always present at the sessions too, though never in the
Beechamesque form of stories or jokes. During almost every recording
something would happen to touch his funny hone, and a quiet remark would
send the orchestra into ripples of laughter - leaving the control-room
contingent feeling much deprived.
（未完）
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