Bruno Walter is here in New York to conduct the series of concerts of the New York. Philharmonic-Orchestra which has opened its current season at Carnegie Hall. The reception tendered by a demonstrative audience at his first public appearance Thursday night removed whatever doubts possibly remained in Mr. Walter’s mind regarding his status in world opinion since his banishment from the Reich.
Mr. Walter translated into music the emotions of a man exiled by his own countrymen at the concert Thursday night. From Beethoven’s Coriolanus overture the distinguished conductor wrested a theme significant of the stress of Shakespeare’s hero, and of the troubles which came to him as a result of his own expulsion from his homeland.
The interpretation was generally acceded to be a personal revaluation of the Shakespearian theme of human sorrow, betrayal and recovery. The audience is known to have felt the parallelism between the story of Coriolanus, who was deceived by his people and forced from Rome only to return later its hero, and the story of Herr Walter who was recently hailed at the Salzburg festival as one of the greatest of living musicians in spite of the fact of his condemnation by the Hitler government.
One writer for the metropolitan press described Herr Walter’s Thursday night performance as a “wonder of sheer music.” His welcome. said the writer, “was the warmer and more emphatic in its recognition of his gifts and its rejection of barbaric doctrine.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
