"Not Enough!"

For each of the 26 foreign cities on its eight-week grand tour, the Philadelphia Orchestra carried calling cards: presentation copies of the Declaration of Independence. And by last week the Philadelphians also carried a bale of rave notices. From London to Moscow, the pride of Philadelphia was the toast of Europe--an extraordinary experience even for a U.S. orchestra that has few peers anywhere in the world.

S.R.O. performances packed the concert halls in Britain and France, but the real fun began behind the Iron Curtain. At Bucharest's 1,000-seat Atheneum Hall, where temperatures hit 100DEG, the box office turned away 10,000 ticket seekers. Budapest-born Eugene Ormandy and his 104 players were cheered inside the packed hall for more than 15 minutes ("Never in my life have I heard such strings," glowed a Rumanian conductor), escaped outside only after police charged the cheering mobs in the streets. In Kiev, the reception was even bigger. Decked with Ukrainian flowers, the orchestra swept on to Moscow for five more concerts.

Spasibo. In the city's hottest May weather in 79 years, elite Muscovites peeled last week to shirtsleeves and sat entranced in the same hall in which Pianist Van Cliburn triumphed. Swaddled in white ties and tails, the visitors played "Incandescently," reported New York Times Critic Howard Taubman. The first-night audience stopped applauding only so that the orchestra could play another selection: an intense Strauss Don Juan, a powerful Beethoven Seventh Symphony, a rare performance in Russia of U.S. Composer Aaron Copland's Quiet City. And they went wild after the orchestra's richly sonorous playing of Mussorgsky-Ravel's Pictures from an Exhibition.

Onstage after the encore (Samuel Barber's Adagio for String Orchestra) marched three flower-bearing Soviet musicians: Composer Aram Khachaturian, Pianist Emil Gilels, Conductor Alexander Gauk. Khachaturian spoke Russia's praise for the orchestra. "Bolshoye, bolshoye spasibo [Great, great thanks]," returned Conductor Ormandy amid thunderous applause. And even after the players filed out, hundreds of spectators stayed in their seats, still applauding and crying, "Not enough! Not enough!"

Something Special. One Russian asked if he could examine the instruments, as if there might be something special about them. The Russians were swept away by the Philadelphia's sheer lush quality, while the Americans, who scheduled twelve jumbo-sized concerts in 13 days, were nearly swept away by the effort of putting them on night after night. Ahead lay four more performances in Leningrad before the Philadelphia moved on to Scandinavia, Poland and Western Europe, winding up its 14-nation tour next month at the Brussels World's Fair.

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