Week after week the members of our orchestra gave up mote lucrative engagements to play with us for straight union scale. Even the more calloused and blases among them were touched with awe, crowding into our control room to hear the playbacks and to observe the Maestro’s every reaction. The problem of finding enough space for the eager auditors was just as acute the last year as the first. They realized that once this spring ceased its flow, a whole world of tradition would vanish with it. As with many great musicians, Bruno Walter’s nervous system was virtually helpless against musical magnetic fields. It was impossible for him to listen to a playback with quiet bands and feet. Heavily charged music would bring great slashing breaths and gestures from him at crucial downbeats. More than once I prudently relieved him of his glass of orange juice when I heard a climax approaching. “Isn’t that enorm? Isn’t that really some THING.” [...] Walter’s speech was animated and “sung” with the vocal notes rising and falling. Even his mispronunciations (disease he pronounced dissease, in line with its archaic meaning) were based on an extensive knowledge of English word roots. He liked to use American slang and seldom had to resort to German for linguistic precision. In our endless discussion of music and musicians he did not make derogatory remarks about colleagues; only about a certain few he was silent. Toscanini, in the world’s eye his greatest rival, was a household deity, and I once created a brief frost by making a negative remark about him. In the music world of ego rampant, this is indeed “some THING.” [...] （未完） --

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