THE TOP U.S. ORCHESTRAS

"THE five major American orchestras are by general consent the Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland and Chicago. They share some important characteristics--excellence, prestige and money troubles. Each loses money every season: the New York and Philadelphia, with budgets of around $2,000,000 each, earn more than 80% of their costs, but the Cleveland, which spends $500,000 a year less, earns only 47%. All look very much the same, though the Cleveland's violas sit where the New York has its cellos, and Szell uses one more trombone and one less horn than Erich Leinsdorf does in Boston. The Boston has the greatest number of foreign-born musicians with 33, the Philadelphia the fewest with 15. Other distinctions:

The New York Philharmonic is the oldest American orchestra, and by far the most famous. Its concerts have been broadcast on radio for 33 years, and it has 15,000 regular subscribers most of whom never attend a concert but pay $5 or more each year for program notes to accompany the broadcasts. Its tours have taken it abroad more often than any other orchestra, and its appearances on television (with Leonard Bernstein the lucid, chatty narrator) have won it a wide audience of young people.

But for all its successes, its career has been scarred by long periods of turbulence. Seven seasons under the pleasant direction of Dimitri Mitropoulos dimmed its luster, with audience, musicians and critics all bickering over the orchestra's wayward course. When Bernstein took over in 1958, the Philharmonic began to recapture the audience that it had not had since its "Golden Era" under Toscanini in the '30s. As the only American-born conductor of a major U.S. orchestra, Bernstein brought the Philharmonic new esprit and quieted its cranky audience. But soon his St. Vitus conducting technique upset even his fans; to many of them, he seems to be much better at conducting the audience than the orchestra.

Bernstein has shown a great flexibility and responsiveness to new programming ideas, and under him the New York Philharmonic has achieved a mastery of modern music, though Bernstein's approach to the classics is sometimes willful and distorted. The brass section is peerless, and the whole orchestra plays with exhilaration and drive. "My objection to some of the big orchestras in this country,'' Bernstein says, "is that they always sound like the X or the Y orchestra. The point in giving concerts is not to present an orchestra's sound but a composer's sound."

The Philadelphia Orchestra has a sound all its own. though Conductor Eugene Ormandy is rankled by the idea of a "Philadelphia Sound"; it's the "Ormandy Sound," he says. In either case, the Philadelphia often seems like one great violin in the sky. Its lush sound persists deep into the driest classics, where Ormandy, a former violinist and a rhapsodic conductor, finds himself in occasional trouble. But in the immense music that is his specialty, Ormandy is without equal. In the 19th and 20th century showpieces that he likes to conduct, Ormandy joyfully exhibits the great virtuosity of Philadelphia's strings and winds.

Ormandy has led the Philadelphia for 27 years, a longer tenure than that of any other major conductor. He shares with Bernstein an unbounded confidence in his players (though none call him "Gene," as New York musicians call Bernstein "Lenny"); in rehearsals, he treats them with a firm but gentle hand. On the podium, he uses no baton and, with his right hand liberated, gives his deepest concentration to color and balance. Perhaps as a result, his tempos sometimes drift.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra was the supreme U.S. orchestra under Serge Koussevitsky from 1924 to 1949. Charles Munch, who led the orchestra from 1949 until last fall, allowed its standards to slip somewhat, sparing only the French repertory as Boston's private domain. Under Erich Leinsdorf, 51, one of the Metropolitan Opera's greatest conductors, the orchestra has already regained a degree of its lost precision of ensemble, and it retains its long reputation as the orchestra richest in virtuosos.

Leinsdorf uses no baton and conducts with a stiff and angular style. His dress coat reaches nearly to his ankles, and from the audience he looks like an aging seaman sending semaphore signals to some distant ship. The Boston has the longest season of all (50 weeks), including Tanglewood in the summer and--for the 92 members willing to play Viennese waltzes and champagne music--a stint with Arthur Fiedler's Boston Pops.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has begun a period of transition that could last another three or four years until things settle down. Before his resignation last spring, Fritz Reiner, 74, built the Chicago into one of the best-disciplined orchestras in the world. Chicago's new man, who will arrive next season, is Jean Martinon, 53, a composer and conductor and presently the General Music Director in Duesseldorf. Martinon, a Frenchman, will inherit the most Germanic orchestra outside Germany.

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