Genius

Concerts by Manhattan's Philharmonic-Symphony have been dull this season. Conductor Willem Mengelberg seemed sleepy. The aging Walter Damrosch was uninspired. Then, because Sir Thomas Beecham was unable to come, because Toscanini was late, there followed a string of substitute conductors -- Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Fritz Reiner, Arthur Honegger, Hans Lange, Bernardino Molinari. The results were adequate but not memorable. Yet the houses were sold-out. Subscribers had bought in advance for the entire season so that they should by no sorry slip miss Toscanini.

For months they had awaited last week's concerts. It seemed only meet that Toscanini should realize it but he accepted his thunderous ovation a little impatiently. He turned his dapper back as soon as he decently could, tapped smartly on a cellist's music-rack and began the business of the evening.

Mozart's Haffner Symphony was first -- Haffner because it was written to oblige a wealthy burgomaster, so named, of Salzburg. Mozart wrote it in less than a fortnight, when he was 26. Toscanini himself lost 35 of his 61 years when he led it, gave it exceeding grace and innocence. Second was a manuscript performance of Respighi's Roman Festivals, music that would be perilously close to claptrap if done by any other. But Toscanini found something real and savage in all the din of the Circus Maximus episode. Lions roared. Christians sang their martyr songs. Part of it would make excellent accompaniment for a Griffith cinema with its bells and serenades and saltarellos, but Toscanini made it seem important for itself, almost a worthy companion to Debussy's Iberia, which followed; and to the Tannhauser overture which, for once, said all that Wagner intended.

Through it all, save for applause, the audience sat still as pins. Once, high in a box, a little dog barked until his mistress had to take him outside. He was not a common little dog, however. He was a little dog who has attended many a concert. His barking was certainly not laughter "to see such sport." He was really excited. His name is Picciu. His mistress is Madame Toscanini.