Salzburg Climax

One reason that many people went to the Salzburg Music Festival in Austria this year was to watch the excitement that would occur if the Festival had to be called off. Adolf Hitler, whose Bayreuth Festival was no great shakes, did everything he could to spoil Austria's show. He refused to let Richard Strauss, one of the Salzburg Festival founders, conduct a cycle of his operas, grudgingly allowed him to sit in the audience when Clemens Krauss led Elektra. He nearly ruined a performance of Tristan by yanking German Tenor Hans Grahl out of the cast at the last moment, He saw to it that Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, stayed away from his two scheduled Salzburg performances.

Most Germans, even if they paid the extortionate 1,000-mark fee for an Austrian visa, were held up on the Austro-German border on technicalities. But "My Leader's" efforts seemed to attract more visitors than they kept away. From France, Italy, the U. S.. Scandinavia, the crowds poured in. Willem Mengelberg arrived from Switzerland. Arturo Toscanini, who had snubbed Germany's invitation to conduct at Bayreuth, arrived from Italy. King Prajadhipok of Siam and his Queen were on hand. No Nazis could prevent German Bruno Walter from conducting because they had already exiled him. When the Reich's Chamber of Culture asked Charles Kullman, a U. S. tenor under contract to the Berlin Staatsoper, to decline his invitation to Salzburg, he angrily pointed to his U. S. citizenship, entrained for Austria anyhow.

Salzburg bridges the glacial waters of the Salzach. sees its morning and evening suns at the rims of the Alps. In 1842 Salzburg held its first memorial in honor of its most famed native son. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart--a requiem mass for the soth anniversary of his death. A Mozart Theatre for his operas and a Mozarteum for his concerts were built later. After the War, a group of musicians decided to enlarge the Mozart festivals to include the works of other composers, converted the old Winter Riding School into the Festspielhaus, to seat 1,400. From its opening month ago with Bruno Walter conducting the Eroica funeral march in honor of murdered Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, the Festival has sounded a steady crescendo of enthusiasm. The climax everyone wanted to hear arrived last week when Toscanini picked up his baton before the Vienna Philharmonic. In honor of Mozart, he opened his program with the D Major Symphony. Salzburg audiences this year have showered flowers on Mengelberg, applauded Felix Weingartner and Clemens Krauss, cheered themselves hoarse over Bruno Walter, but the roar they gave Toscanini sounded like nothing so much as a Yale Bowl demonstration. When he tried to direct the audience's enthusiasm to the orchestra, he discovered that the players to a man had put down their instruments, were standing and applauding him. To stop the ovation he had to disperse the orchestra, duck away to his dressing room.

Full houses are nothing new to Toscanini. Last year in Manhattan he had them for every Philharmonic concert. Bruno Walter and Hans Lange, the other two Philharmonic conductors, could never quite fill Carnegie Hall last season. Since Herr Walter has been in Austria, however, he has developed the trick of jam-packing concert halls like the Maestro himself. His performances of Weber's Oberon and Mozart's Don Giovanni left few doubts that he had run off with the opera honors, might well be considered the Festival's Hero No. 2.

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