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Show STRICTLY BUSINESS r hu LAP1EfSaf m -1 r want to report a fresh clerk l" Gl vlNG OUR W ORLD THE Once Over By Dick Morrison A Man Of The People Arturo Toscanini died in his sleep, in New York, on Wednesdty, January Jan-uary 16, at the age of 89. His passing pass-ing brought the end to the career of one of the greatest men of music the world has ever known. - His life work was important and creative, creat-ive, not only to the world of professional pro-fessional musicians, but also to the world of laymen who came to know good .music as they might never had known it but for him. And though I have at hand only the sketchiest kind of data concerning him, there are a few things I want to say in;.tribute-to him, for which I can draw partly on memory. Like many another, I knew him Xrom the recordings he machi. His career was long and fruitful. Born, in Italy, in March, 1867, he was a contemporary of the great figures of the latter ' part of the nineteenth century, as well as' of the first half of the twentieth., The breadth of his career is apparent in the fact that he participated in some notable "firsts" . during the past century, and then participated In 50th anniversery commemorations commemora-tions of those same events during the present one. He conducted the first performance of La Boheme, in Turin, Italy, in 1896; then lived to conduct the 50th anniversary performance per-formance by the NBC Symphony in 1946. Similarly, he conducted Bee-thovan's Bee-thovan's 9th Symphony at La Scala Opera House, Milan, Italy, on April 20, 1902, almost exactly fifty years before he conducted his renowned recording of it at Carnegie Hall March 31 and Ap.il 1, 1952. Of course his 1902 performance was not the first for the 9th Symphony, for this was an older work, which had first been played May 7, 1824, in Vienna. Aaron Copeland, in his book. What To Listen For In Music, wrote of him, "The Italian conductor is a classicist by nature. A certain detachment is an essential part of the classicist's make-up. One's first impression is a curious one Toscanini Tos-canini seems to e doing nothing at all to the music. Yet all the time it is music, the most passionate passion-ate of all the arts. The emphasis with Toscanini is always on the line, on the structure as a whole never on detail or on the separate measure. The music moves and lives for. Us own sake. k ." Copeland Tated him, along with Serge Kous-sevltsky, Kous-sevltsky, as one of the two outstanding out-standing interpreters of our day. Itis "emphasis on the structure as a whole", rather than on detail, seems to me to have been illustrated illust-rated in his approval of his own recording of Beethoven's 5th, some fifteen years ago, regardless of the fact that the sound ofl someone coughing in the audience was caught on the reeord. His ear for the music found the work musically per ;,msiun by the emissaries of David Samnif, of RCA, at an age, approaching 70, when most men would have retire I. Living In Italy, he bad intend;! to retire. Yet the invitation to c xiduet the new NBC orchestra, being organized as a public-service project by RCA, to be made up of the top musicians obtainable anywhere, won him over. This was about twenty years ago, and the ensuing years saw the rise of radio to its highest peak, before TV commenced to displace it; they saw the virtual perfection of recording techniques in the new art of High Fidelity; and they sawj the love for and acceptance of j classical music transmitted, thanks to these new arts, to the multi-' J tudes, so that today when you hear someone humming absent-mindedly, he is as likely to be humming a theme of Tachaikowsky or Brahms as any popular tune. Toscanini's part in the progress of good music in-these years was tremendous. His years with the NBC Orchestra, though, while the most significant in carrying music to the millions, were not his first appearances in America. He first conducted at the Met on April 13, 1913, and appeared in this country at intervals thereafter. there-after. Between 1902 and 1952, he conducted Beethoven's 9th some , fifty times; his 1952 recording of it is still rated the best. Of course be was a world figure in music before be-fore he came to America in his later years. He first appeared as a conductor in Rio de Janeiro, at the age of 19. Though his work in the pre-radlo-phonograph years may have been, necessarily, of interest chiefly to the limited numbers of music-lovers of those days, his last big job, with RCA and the NBC Symphony was the one which did so much to spread the love of good music, by means of radio and records, among the multitudes, during the last twenty years of his life. That is why he is entitled to be called a man of the people. His body is to be taken back to Milan, Italy, for burial. Mormons Are Peculiar Merchants There are two items at hand and that is not the title of either one of them, though it contains portions of both. One is called Mormon Merchants, in the Wall Street Journal of last December 20; the other is Mormon's Are Peculiar People, a book by G. T. Harrison, of Helper, Utah. If you read the Tribune's Forum last Sunday, you should have seen a letter in it by Mr. Harrison. Whatever the Mormons may be called, and whether they are peculiar, pecu-liar, or merchants, or what, there is no denying the fact that they are an interesting group of people. They are interesting to themselves, and to those who know them. They are interesting whether one accepts their religious belief or not. And they are important, too, because 1. GIVE TO THE MARCH OF DIMES V . 2. GET VACCINATED YOURSELF W f 7 equally stlix- mu.it. v. s non-Morm- MILLARD COUNTY CHRONICLE -ons will take it. For myself, I like 'Delta, Utah. Thur. Jan. 24, 1957. lo think I urn Intelligent enough! . . to retid such books as this, as well' A new grandchild for Joseph D. as books presenting the Church's Mercer is the baby boy born Jan. l.iit.i and then make up my own ,17 to Jim and Alice Mercer Jones, .m:ui wh.eh is right. It is part of nt Nepl.i. The young fellow weigh, llie exercise of religious fret;'. am. led 7 lbs. 4 oz.. so his grandfather For the most part, I shall b-.u-ns. end be has four older coiient here only to call attention! bij.hers and a sister . to trie book, u. T. H.uiis.m is a I Mormon npistate. Ho has held nu- ;"" I nerous positions in the Church. co'oble two-story farmhouse of Served a mission in England in'laiUn lla"'is- IIO'-CG: on his return "waged a! The Wal1 Street Journal article, Icrtmpnign" which resulted in estab- ' w'' ,en in a lone of admiration for I'shing the Church welfare program. 'Jiis acumen shown by .lie I: n milroad nan of thirty-live Chjrcn' Naders, and the Harrison x'.".rj ei.-p'oyment ; has been a 1 buok. written in criticism of Church .t.n.r. (i:.;,nu-,ier lo: the Utah Kail- ut'lu'1' Doln fleal wltn ,he t-hurcn Ills perfect, in spite of that extraneous detail, so he OK'd it! He was a i they comprise a very large segment perfectionist to the point of being 1 of our community. extremely exacting of the record ing technicians. It has been said that if the turntable revolved at 33 4!5 rpm instead of the prescribed prescrib-ed 33 13, his ear could detect the difference. A turntable, off speed, not only raises or lowers the pitch of the music, but also puts it very slightly out of tune with itself. In a way, Toscanini's years, late in life,.-with the NBC Symphony were the crowning glory of his career. He accepted this assign- To do a little reviewing, first, of the article in the Wall Street Jour nal. This does not go into the religi ous aspects of Mormonism at all, even though the Church is clearly a religious organization above all else. It does give a most interest ing insight into the business activil ties of the Mormon Church. The Journal, of course is a business newspaper, not a religious one. The article, by Ronal i J. Ostrow, opens up with: "Trying to get to c be disturbed bv a neon sign flash ing through your window the message mess-age of Beneficial Life Insurance Co. If vou climb out of bed and stroll around Temple Square, you can see the looming cnik of the ZCM1 department store, the headquarters of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Co., the Temple Square Hotel, and Zion's Savines Bank and Trust Co, They're owned. In part or completely, by the Church of Jesus umsi or metier Day Saints". Explaining the vast and wealthy business enterprises owned by the Mormon Church, the author reviews a little early Utah history; When the Mormons entered Salt Lake Vallev. he savs. they came in quest of religious freedom; and their religion emphasized industrious-ness, industrious-ness, for which they even had their own word, "Deseret", meaning honey-bee. ' But certain enterprises required capital which only the Church could provide. Some of these have developed devel-oped into Important sources of Church revenue in the intervening years. Among the IDS Church business busi-ness enterprises, In which the Church holds a significant stock interest if not full ownership, he mentions: The Hotel Utah, the Temple Square Hotel, Z.C.M.I., Beneficial Life, Utah-Idaho Sugar, Zion's Sav-!ngs Sav-!ngs Bank & Trust Co., the Deseret News, "most of the property in the town of Laie, Hawaii", Cooperative Security Corp., which raises peanuts in Texas, ventures in Arizona, Wyo ming, California and New Jersey; the Orlando Livestock Co. of Flor-ida, Flor-ida, of which Henry D. Moyle once owned a 40 Interest most of which has since been transferred to the Church, according to the ment only after long and tactful sleep'in the Hotel Utah, you might I Old Fashioned STRAIGHT WHISKY III, pl B J f J, -. i,t:;r.Ss, M Ail. IPwiiii iii lift y w Opssrr Jl-tlL ill J ' 1x,-'1t''" l P., Til I i i i ' ' MELROSE on a label means "the very best" MELROSE DELUXE STRAIGHT WHISKY. 90 PROOF. 7 YEARS OLD. MELROSE DISTILLERS CO, N.Y article; and numerous oUier activities. activi-ties. The above all appear purely commercial, and on balance are highly profitable; others are wel-' fare enterprises of what might be' called a charitable nature. i A "guesstimate" is given that the Church is the third largest holding company in Utah, the biggest being be-ing Kennecott Copper, the second, Geneva Steel. It holds at least 51 of the stock of three banks which have $166 million in assets, There are wheels within wheels in the Church business. For instance, in-stance, the Hotel Utah, 75 owned by the Church, leases land for its underground garage and new motor lodge from the Zions Securities Corp., which In turn is largely If not wholly owned by the Church. Two things are made clear: in dealing with each other, the Church dominated enterprises "deal at arm's length" that is, they give each other no favors and protect minority stockholders. Also, they do not ask exemption of taxes on the ground of Ving Church owned, They pay full business taxes as a matter of policy, even though theyj might successfully claim exemption. exemp-tion. After reading the article, I would guess the business activities of the ' Church are in the Billion Dollar, class. This is only my guess. I Then to turn to the second item aforementioned, G. T. Harrison's book. This purports to "debunk Joseph Smith's claim to be a pro-, pnet oi uoa ana analyzes me iau-ure iau-ure of his revelations". i You can, of course, take this book or leave it. I am sure numerous numer-ous Mormons will pass it by, and I do not urge it upon them. I am way r.n:l the U..ion Pacific opening; words: "When Joseph Smith, the Mormon Morm-on founder nnd prophet was born in Shn-on. Vermont, on December 2 1S05 tfross itviorance and super-! stit'on prevailed in almost every bouseho'd including his own.... When Joseph Smith was a boy, no one had ever seen an asphalted street, or a large pane of glass, or a paved sidewalk, or a building six stories high, or a elevator, a gas jet, or an electrls light.,.. Diseases were thought to be caused by evil spirits, and the people's philosophy of life and their belief in religion and God were on the same low scale of understanding". That, and more, of the general lvel of enlightment in Joseph Smith's day. Now, as I have said, you can take it or leave it, and if you read It you can accept It or reject It. But to me it proved more than ordinar ily interesting because I and my family spent a little time last May looking around Palmyra, New Yorkj, where we saw the very nature spots and buildings of this early Church history. We spent a night, very pleasantly, in the upstairs bedrooms of the Martin Harris house paid the customary $2.00 per person plus $3.00 gratuity to the caretakers, totaling $15.00. We visi ted the Joseph Smith farm, and even sounded his old square piano; climbed tha Hill Cumorah, and en joyed the serene atmosphere of the Sacred Grove on a misty, lightly raining morning. My reel of movie shots brins pleasant memories of this. I even toyed with the Idea of making un a caption for the picture of the Martin Harris house with the words, "Morrisons slept here", but I thought better of It. Now either Mormon belief holds 'he truth nboul what went on at these delightful places during the vn-'h of Joseph Smith; or G. T. IIniriso-'s book holds It; or the trut'i l'es somewhere else. But I know what 1 think; no doubt you Know what you think about It; and lo me the book holds extraordinary interest because I did see the places and spend a night In the from their respective viewpoints In a strictly materialistic manner. 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