by Dr. Frieder Weissmann

When I left Cuba, the famous symphony of Havana, which had 16 first violins, 16 second violins, and all the woodwinds and brasses one could ever dream of, was stil going strong. That same year, however the excellent first viola, Granat* (who is now with the Philadelphia orchestra) and the equally famous first cellist, Odnoposoff (who is now in Mexico) had both already left…. Why I too left such a splendid orchestra, readers will surely understand that I cannot discuss here and now!

It had been one of my dreams, since 1949, to conduct that very orchestra and I had succeeded in realizing it. It was a glorious; exciting, and happy time for four years. But alas, during 1953, general conditions deteriorated and although the conductor always received his full pay, quite often the men did not get theirs.

Anyway, in 1954 I left, and have not chosen to return since, although I had been announced with – amongst others- Erich Kleiber (whose assistant I once was at the Berlin State Opera at the start of my career). I was hoping and waiting for a more favorable turn of events to call me back, but that turn of course never came.

Igor Markevitch came to Havana for a short while, but the shadows which had fallen over everything quickly deepened, and the checkered career of the orchestra – as always in the wake of any political upheaval- ran its course.** By now the main first instrumentalists had left, some for the US, some for Latin America. Today they have in Havana the Orquesta Simfonica Nacional, which is in the hands of the conductor Mandici***, who was already a devout communist when he was conducting at C.M.Q., the famous Havana radio station. I have heard that there is a full season, but it does not seem to amount to anything of musical value. That beautiful, ambitious and -especially in the strings- fantastically sensuous sounding orchestra went the way everything went in Cuba. How can such things happen?

Since I left I have been mostly in Europe and -after some guest conducting in Berlin with the Philharmonic (an old friend) – at the Munich Festivals and also in Belgium and Holland. I chose to live most of the year in Italy where, from Milan to Sicily via Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, I have found the orchestras which come closest to that marvelous sound of the Havana orchestra. A sound which I can not get out of my ears! And indeed there must be something to it, since all the famous conductors of the United States chose to return again and again to Havana : men like Koussevitsky, Stokowski, Ormandy, Monteux, and also for years Herbert von Karajan…they all came, and they loved it.

But the Italian orchestras too are superior ones, playing together as they do, the whole year. They have also – as I have just said- that mysterious uplift, that full vibrant sound, that incredible way of “going along” with a conductor, even if he conducts practically only with his eyes…just as the Havana orchestra had!

And so, longing still for Havana – for the recreation of past musical beauty my activity for the moment is guest-conducting…and that I do all over the map.

Notes

*J. Wolfgang Granat (1918–1998) 

** DIRECTORS of the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana (1924-1958)

Guest conductors

*** spelling error of Weissmann, correct name is Enrique González Mántici (1912-1974)