Symphony in Suntans

Music-proud Salzburgers hardly knew what to expect. The conductor was a sergeant: most of the 65 players were youngsters, and all wore the suntans of the U.S.

Army. But the program was solid, symphonic fare, and as it progressed, the performance compared favorably with good European orchestras. When it was over the audience applauded long and loud.

The three-year-old Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra, the only full symphony orchestra in the *Army,-- had just won itself and the occupying forces some new friends. Their success was no surprise to orchestra members. "We are," says one, "the best lowest-paid orchestra in the world." No Army brass, and little of its rank and file, thought in the spring of 1952 that the occupation forces needed a symphony orchestra. But, according to the story now favored by the orchestra members, the Seventh Army's Lieut. General Manton S. Eddy got tired of being ribbed by his German friends about the cackle of hillbilly music that emanated daily from the Armed Forces Radio. When he heard that an energetic young corporal named Samuel Adler wanted to form an orchestra of musicians who were languishing in other Army jobs, General Eddy was enthusiastic, put his three-starred authority fully behind the venture. The following summer the outfit made a tour of Germany and even hired itself out as pit orchestra for a production of The Marriage of Figaro at the Passau festival.

Wornout Horn. Germans and Austrians began to eye Americans with new respect, but the orchestra played through some hard months: Conductor Adler got his discharge; so did half of the orchestra at about the same time. It limped along, periodically hit by transfers and discharges.

Two years and two conductors later, the symphony was in danger of collapse. It had played its repertory almost to death (the sound-effects man completely wore out his taxi horn on Gershwin's An American in Paris), and at some performances the concert hall all but emptied for good at intermission time. But the New York Philharmonic-Symphony's Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos got the ear of General William M. Hoge, Commander of U.S.

Army forces in Europe, and told him that with a little attention the Seventh Army's mediocre orchestra could be an excellent one. The result: 26 new men were transferred to fill out the orchestra, and last spring a new conductor, Sergeant Kenneth Schermerhorn, was chosen.

Last May the orchestra started on its 1954 tour of camps and civilian halls with its morale the highest and its playing the best ever.

Bird Sanctuary. The average age of the symphony's 65 players is 22. Conductor Schermerhorn himself is a fairly typical member of the orchestra: he is 24, comes from Schenectady, studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and Tanglewood, has played trumpet in Boston and Kansas City orchestras.

The orchestra generally tours for two weeks at a time, then returns to Stuttgart in its two buses and 6 by 6 truck "to take the dents out of our instruments." The players carry their own music racks and chairs wherever they go, pay for instrument repairs and similar incidentals out of their own pockets. "The hardest job is to convince people that we're a symphony orchestra and not a band," explains the orchestra's advance man, Sergeant Regis Cronauer. "At one post they wanted us to play in an abandoned hangar that had become a bird sanctuary." The men of the Seventh Army Symphony are required to perform no Army duties "except to wear the uniform properly," and except for their own tubas, trumpets and trombones they hear few commanding tones from the brass. In return, the experiment has more than paid off in prestige and honor for the U.S. occupation forces. "We're expected to produce good music," says Conductor Schermerhorn confidently, "and we do."

* The others in the U.S. armed forces: Air Force and Marine Symphonies in Washington.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.