practicable, or if he demands something that cannot be done, the concert-master must be ready, after the rehearsal, to explain to the bewildered or derisive player that he is not to understand thus and so exactly as he thought, but rather this and that, which was what the conductor really meant; and likewise adroitly to intimate to the mistaken autocrat that some slight modification of his desires would be advisable. In case of direst need, should conductor and orchestra lose touch with each other in a public performance, the concert-master must divine the cause of the trouble, and, through his intimacy with the men and his knowledge of the conductor’s wishes as well as of the score, bring them together again with the sound of his instrument, at a critical moment more potent than the conductor's stick. Or, should a soloist miss a cue or make a false entrance, he must, if possible, give such a hint or catch up such a missing strand as shall set the unlucky one right. In short, his office is of an importance to the prosperity of the orchestra only less than that of the conductor himself. It may easily be seen how valuable a man of force and tact, of accomplished musicianship and fertile resource, may be in such a place, or how futile one must be who has not these qualities. It is only needful to say that Mr. Kneisel, during the eighteen years he was concert-master, was the very ideal of what a concert-master should be; and that, without services such as his, the Boston Symphony Orchestra could scarcely have attained the perfection it has. The orchestra has at present, in Professor Willy Hess, a player of style, authority, and technical accomplishment, and a man of the vigorous and commanding personality needed for its concert-master—one who is carrying on the best traditions of his office in the economy of the orchestra.
Drawn by S. Ivanowski
The Box-circle
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is the creature of Mr. Higginson’s will, and never has been anything else; and if he should choose to-morrow to disband it, it would cease to exist. He has made it what he
