Excerpts from SHOOT THE CONDUCTOR,
by Anshel Brusilow and Robin Underdahl
Introduction
Anshel Brusilow, a violinist and conductor, was assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and, later, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.
Here are excerpts from Shoot The Conductor, which Brusilow wrote with Robin Underdahl. Excerpts in Part I cover his tenure as assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. Part II follows Brusilow to Philadelphia. These excerpts reveal the inner workings of two great orchestras and provide an inside look at the brilliant and difficult personalities of Maestros Szell and Ormandy.
Anshel Brusilow was born in Philadelphia in 1928, to parents who had emigrated from Ukraine in 1922. Anshel’s father played violin, his mother, piano, neither with any formal training. They made their way to Philadelphia where an uncle took them into his furrier business.
Brusilow proved to be a child prodigy on the violin. He studied with the noted violinist Ephrem Zimbalist and was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music. He also studied conducting, and spent several summers at the prestigious conducting class of Pierre Monteux in Maine.
Brusilow’s conducting teachers encouraged him to enter contests. As a second prize winner in one, he was invited to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra in a children’s concert by Music Director Eugene Ormandy.
Meanwhile, Brusilow’s reputation as a violinist continued to grow, and he built a career as concerto soloist with many orchestras in the U.S. In 1954 he became concertmaster of the New Orleans Philharmonic, a position which included the title of Assistant Conductor. From there he went to Cleveland and then to Philadelphia.
Excerpts from SHOOT THE CONDUCTOR, by Anshel Brusilow and Robin Underdahl, University of North Texas Press, 2015, Elizabeth Whitby, Marketing Director: https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Conductor-Monteux-Literary-Nonfiction/dp/1574416464)
Part 1, Episode 1 – with the Cleveland Orchestra
In the spring of 1955, George Szell, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, telephoned me in search of a new assistant concertmaster. “Thank you. But since I’m concertmaster here in New Orleans, I don’t think I’ll audition.”
“This is a major orchestra. With a lot more prestige.”
Dr. Szell did have an enormous reputation. In fact, my initial dismissal of his invitation could be called sassy.
“And a longer season,” he added. That was a material point. It meant more money.“So come to Cleveland and play for me. I’d love to hear you.”
“Right now I’m so busy I don’t know right from left.”
A week later he called again. And I’d been thinking—much more sensibly.
“We’ll pay all your expenses. Josef Gingold wants to hear you too.” That was his concertmaster, whose assistant I would be.
A month later I had two days between concerts and squeezed in a trip to Cleveland. I rushed to Severance Hall where Szell and Joe Gingold were waiting. Szell was most cordial; he always did have manners available when he wanted them. His face alternated between a polite smile and a distant, impassive look, as if music were playing in his head. It was, most likely.
Joe Gingold’s face was equally impassive whenever it was in Szell’s line of vision. Otherwise, it could be anything—amused, uncomfortable, eyes rolling in sarcasm, disgusted, friendly.
We walked out onto the stage, the only lit part of the dark hall.
“Would you like to warm up?” This was gracious of Szell, and Joe looked surprised and pleased.
“No, I don’t need to.”
Joe shook his head. They went out to sit in the auditorium, and I began the Sibelius Violin Concerto.
“Wonderful,” Szell said after a page. “How about some Bach?” I began the Chaconne but stopped after four notes. Szell was startled. “What’s wrong?” “You weren’t listening. I’ll wait till you’re ready.”
Joe closed his eyes. I had the impression he was trying to unhear what he had heard me say. Szell shrugged and they came up on stage. He started leafing through a huge portfolio and stopped when he came to Don Juan by Richard Strauss.
“Keep turning,” I said. “Everyone plays that at auditions.” Behind Szell, Joe mouthed No! No!“He’s right,” Szell said. “Everyone knows that.”I was quite relieved since I’d never played it.
Joe’s face now wore a hopeless look. For some reason, he was already on my side and disappointed that I would have no chance.
Next came Wagner’s Lohengrin, and Szell turned to a specific page. “I use two solo violins here instead of the entire string section. Play the bottom line for me, please.”
“I don’t play the bottom line.” Joe was looking sick, and I was beginning to have fun.
“Please,” Szell said. “Joe plays the top line. I want you to play the bottom line.”
I cooperated, and a few minutes later he made me an offer. “Yes” was the right answer, and after a few weeks I gave it.I told Hilsberg (Conductor in New Orleans where I was concertmaster before a concert. After it, he and the manager locked me in the office.“You have to stay! Sign that contract.”It is hard on an orchestra to switch concertmasters frequently, and I was sad to leave such a fine conductor and amiable man after only one year. Of course he understood that Cleveland was an opportunity of a whole new magnitude.
But it was a long hour before he let me out of the office.
ON AN OCTOBER DAY IN THE FALL OF 1955, I drove to Severance Hall for my first rehearsal with the Cleveland Orchestra. I parked in the lot, fetched my violin from the passenger seat, and strolled to the door, enjoying the pleasant weather. My mind was open to whatever came through, possibly that back in New Orleans the air was still hot and muggy and we were lucky to be out of it.
That carefree crossing of the parking lot was a moment I would remember with nostalgia. The players in the Cleveland Orchestra quickly shared the common store of warnings with newcomers.
“His office overlooks the parking lot,” someone said.
“Always carry some music out with you,” another musician said. “He’ll think you don’t practice and single you out, if he sees you walking to your car without a folder.”
So the sense of his power began not on the stage—though his entrance did inspire dead silence—but actually as you turned from the street into the parking lot. His eye was on you as you got out of your car. No wonder he was called Dr. Cyclops.
Still, it was marvelous that I, the boy who was always climbing to third floors in Philadelphia to learn to play the violin, should actually be in the orchestra of George Szell, one of the world’s great conductors. I couldn’t remember when I had learned his name, as if it had always been in my head.
Szell had the ultimate classical music pedigree: born in Hungary, the cradle of musicians, and raised in Vienna, their legendary training ground. From age eleven, he performed throughout Europe as a pianist and composer. But when he lifted the conductor’s baton, he found his form. Richard Strauss took the teenaged Szell on as assistant conductor and imparted to him an impeccable conducting technique. Later, Strauss said he could die happy since Szell was there to do justice to his compositions.
In the 1940s, Szell took over the Cleveland Orchestra. He helped it to recover from World War II, to grow in size, and to become one of the finest American orchestras. Of course such a rapid rise in quality usually requires liberal usage of sharp pruning shears. Many decent musicians lost their jobs while superb ones were hired. Szell immediately replaced the concertmaster, and then replaced him again after only a year, by attracting Josef Gingold away from the Detroit Symphony. Few could play the violin like Joe, and somehow Szell seemed to realize that a warm, kind concertmaster was going to be needed. Joe was the man.
I expected to work harder than in New Orleans, and I did. Instead of one concert a week, we played two or three. Our season was several weeks longer, which of course kept food on the table.
It should be thrilling to work under celebrated wielders of the baton. But in the Cleveland Orchestra, we sweated our shirts out daily under George Szell. Every note had to meet his exact specification for duration and volume as if he were playing the instruments for us. If anything ever pleased Dr. Szell, he made sure no musician in his orchestra knew.
It was like this: We’re playing along, every player knows the music, every note is right. We’re all watching the baton and producing a sound that would make most conductors relax and smile. But annoyance crosses his face like a mosquito. He glares at the principal flutist. “Too short!”
The flutist nods anxiously and we take the measure again, the flutist extending the note by one 128th.
Now the tympanist has not rumbled long enough. He gets the glare and the furious whipping of the baton in his direction. And then a cellist will be too loud and a trumpet too soft. Each musician is tense, knowing the baton may prick him next.
One day during rehearsal, Szell heard some sounds. Universities have soundproof practice rooms, but orchestra halls don’t. Mostly we practiced down in the dressing rooms and tuned each other out.
That was far enough away from the stage not to be heard. But if you were excused from a portion of rehearsal, you had to be nearby so you could trot back in when called, wagging your tail.
What Szell heard was our oldest player, a violist. As this man’s technique had slipped, he also slipped back a few chairs in the section. We were playing something that called for a smaller orchestra, I think a Mozart symphony, and the violist was among those excused. Being nervous about a piece we were to begin working on soon, he had decided to start learning it. In hearing distance of the stage. It was a poor decision, though not that unusual.
His viola let out sounds that were not particularly musical. The orchestra’s big sound easily overcame the distant noise, and we all thought nothing of it.
“Who’s doing that?” Szell jerked his head in the direction of the squeaking.
Any string player could have named the culprit, but we were reluctant to. He seemed more to be pitied than strung up. Joe and I sat there hoping no one else would speak up. No one did.
Szell glowered at us all. In each of his temples, a vein meandered from above his ear to above his eyebrow. This was one of those moments when the two veins pulsed.
“I want to know who it is! Somebody go tell him this is not the place!”
We were astonished at this statement. Severance Hall not for music?
No one moved. We knew Szell would not wait long, but fortunately the noise ceased. “Whoever it is, I’m firing him!”
Protected by our conspiracy of silence, the violist survived until he chose to retire.