U. S. Conductor

Top-rank jobs in U. S. conducting all go to foreigners. Few U. S.-born conductors have had a chance to boss around even a third-class orchestra. But in the past four or five years a few U. S. maestros have bobbed up to the surface of the musical swim and managed to keep afloat. Among them: Kansas City's Karl Krueger, Chicago's Izler Solomon (TIME, March 27).

Latest U. S. maestro to show his head above water is a sprawling, sandy-haired

Coloradan named Edwin McArthur. Last week in Baltimore, at the head of Washington's National Symphony, Maestro McArthur made his first appearance in the East. Behind him was a record of big-time symphony and opera conducting in Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago. A mere sprig of 32, he had already conducted more Wagnerian opera than many a veteran, had even been mentioned as a candidate for Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, where no U. S.-born maestro has ever held a job. Baltimore critics liked his version of Wagner, his lacy, intricate French scores by Ravel and Debussy, declared him the "most imagina tive" they had heard "in a long time," prophesied a brilliant future.

Son of a Denver Congregationalist minister, Edwin McArthur left a job as runner in a Denver bank to go to Manhattan, where the Juilliard Foundation had given him a scholarship to study the piano. To pay his living expenses he played accompaniments in Manhattan vocal studios. Because he was such a good accompanist, famous singers like Richard Crooks, Merle Alcock, Gladys Swarthout, John Charles Thomas hired him for concerts. Says he: "If I couldn't be a musician and a respectable citizen -- by that I mean earn my own living -- at the same time, I'd give up music."

McArthur's first big chance came in 1935, when Diva Kirsten Flagstad was looking around for an accompanist. He wrote her a letter, got an audition, was soon touring the world playing at her concerts. Meanwhile he had taken another bee into his bonnet. Between concerts he was hard at work in his hotel rooms studying scores, practicing how to beat time. Two years ago in Sydney, Australia, McArthur persuaded Flagstad to let him try his hand at conducting while she sang. He carried out the job like a veteran, and the Sydney critics gave him top marks. After that Flagstad swore by him, insisted that he conduct whenever she sang. Last month she got herself into a row with Manhattan's Met because it refused to engage him for her Tristans and Goetterdaemmerungs (TIME, Jan. 29). At the San Francisco and Chicago Operas she got her way, and McArthur was soon making himself a place among leading U. S. Wagnerian conductors. Today, Conductor McArthur gives all the credit for his success to Soprano Flagstad. Says she: "I wouldn't do this if I didn't think Edwin could deliver the goods."

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