POLAND'S TOSCANINI

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23661, 21 May 1940, Page 5

POLAND'S TOSCANINI

CONDUCTING. IN LONDON TRAGIC WAR HISTORY WIFE KILLED AND HOME LOST [FROM A SPECIAL CORKKSrONDKNT] LONDON, April 27 Mr. Gregor Fitelberg, most famous of contemporary Polish conductors—he is known as the Toscanini of his country—arrived in London this week to conduct a concert by the London Philharmonic. Orchestra. Before the war ho was director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. When the first German bombs fell on Warsaw, Mr. Fitelberg and his orchestra were in the middle of giving a concert. His 27-year-old wife was one of those who listened.

Before the day was ended, his own home and most of the city was in ruins, his young wife in hospital and fatally hurt. But Fitelberg and his orchestra kept on playing; their one hope to hearten the music-loving populace, their only interruption the Burgomaster's proclamations calling upon Warsaw to hold out against the enemy. Every day through the next three nightmare weeks they played; stirring, invigorating music with a'popular ap-peal-r-Elgar's ; "Polonia," . Chopin's beautiful. "Polonaise Symphony," national songs and hymns, and there was a full house every time. At the end of those three weeks his wife died. The Opera House was set on fire by incendiary bombs. Mr. Fitelberg, his orchestra scattered and dispersed, found shelter with friends in a neutral country. Some of his musicians were killed. Most of them and the stars of the opera are now working as newsvendors, cafe waiters, and doorkeepers in restaurants and hotels where German officers are staying.