Arnold Jacobs

Roger Bobo: The Chicago Symphony is not the first orchestra you have played in.

Arnold Jacobs: No. I started out at the Curtis Institute of Music around 1930. I was there for six or seven years, with Fritz Reiner as my conductor.

R. B.: Then you started very young at Curtis.

A. J.: I was 15, I believe. And then I went to Indianapolis for two seasons with Fabian Sevitsky, then five years with the Pittsburgh Symphony with Reiner, then I came to Chicago and I've been here 36 years.

R. B.: Did you ever have chances to go to other places while you were there?

A. J.: Practically every orchestra in the country. George Szell tried to get me to go to Cleveland...

R. B.: Tell a story about when you had such a big choice.

A. J.: Well, my last year in Pittsburgh I was offered the Boston Symphony. I had been offered the Boston Symphony when I was 18 years old. Koussevitzky wanted me to go, but he wouldn't give me a contract because of my youth. I had never played with an orchestra other than at Curtis, but he liked my playing. He said I was too young for a contract; he wanted me to start in the middle of the season, so that at the end of the season, if I made good, he would give me a contract.

Well, the orchestra was non-union at the time, and they offered me $90 a week to start, but I was working at a night club in Philadelphia making about $90 already, and I had heard how tough he was as a conductor and was afraid that if I didn't make good I would be fired and would be out of the union and out of the Boston Symphony — in other words, I would be out of business! So I turned it down.

And then I was offered the St. Louis Symphony and given a contract. This is an interesting story, because two weeks before I was to go to St. Louis, I got a telegram from the union saying they weren't going to accept my transfer because they had a good local tuba player (it was Johnny Bambridge, who was a good tuba player). And so I had quit my job in Philadelphia in the night club, and I had picked up a full dress suit, and I thought I had no place to go, so I went back to Curtis and was still a student there.

The reason St. Louis is so interesting is that, about ten years ago, when Makinalty went there, the head of the union called and wanted me to test a local tuba player because they didn't want an importation; and they described to me over the phone a situation in 1936 where they had a similar case and held a tuba player out because they had a good local player! They said it turned out very well. I didn't tell them I was the man they held out!

But anyway, I listened to the man they wanted me to test, and he couldn't play anything close to what was needed in a symphony orchestra. So I recommended that they hire Makinalty, and I never did tell them that I was the man they held out.