Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 129

a small hotel quite apart from the others. Just steps away from Water Tower Place and the Magnificent Mile's finest shops. "IJ y. I J' VW I I I HIIMUJ 4 1 Jlf Sll PARK HYATT ON WATER TOWER SQUARE, CHICAGO 312 280 2222 'Per couple, per night. Ta not included Subject to availability Station president Ray Nordstrand: WFMT's commercial integrity comes at a high cost.

Edward CyntrneHarns Mrs Simpson Edward Fox Emmy Award-winning Sent Chicago's WFMT turns 30 and rates' a sound salute By Alan G. Artner Art critic nrlin et atinn WPMT.FM i on voarc nlH tnfav flnri rillrintf that tinw- It snnmvh tn "fina i iv arts" broadcasting has fostered a loyalty be-i-Jyond reason. J) VI Consider: I recently was going through the house in search of a replacement radio. No state-of-the-art system was needed. Anything that could pick up an FM signal would do.

The set I found was last used in 1966 when its frequency selector was broken. But as long as I could reach inside and tune one station everything was fine. The dial now is locked on 98.7, as it voluntarily was since I began to listen 21 years ago. Back then, several stations were broadcasting "serious" fare, but none seemed quite as serious as WFMT. That, to me, was a help.

My childhood was artless in both the good and bad sense; so there were no guidelines on how one should approach music or any other artistic endeavor. If one went through the Chicago public schools and still sensed a world beyond Elvis, there had to be somewhere else to go. WFMT provided that place. Its announcers spoke That was no accident. Many stations use jingles and other prerecorded material, albeit more discretely.

WFMT does not. All commercials except paid political announcements are rewritten by the station and delivered live, without music. The cost? Ray Nordstrand, president of WFMT once said a airline might have spent $25,000 a year for a decade if only its jingles had been aired. Take that into account, guess at the number of advertisers excluded by limiting commercials to an average of four minutes per hour, and you begin to get an idea of the high cost of. WFMT quality.

As for programming, a few well-chosen examples will have to suffice. Years before Mahler became a "household" composer, his most demanding works were being broadcast. Some were in revelatory concert performances led by the great Jascha Horen-stein, thanks to WFMT's long-standing association with the British Broadcasting Corporation. Others were from commercial discs. I recall with particular pleasure a 1963 show oh which program director Norman Pellegrini made detailed comparisons of all the stereo recordings of Mahler's First Symphony.

A few weeks later came all the Beethoven Ninths, and somewhere along the line, all the versions of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Those programs, above all others, taught me how to listen critically. Pellegrini's intelligence continues to be reflected in countless decisions, and his thoroughness is not to be challenged. I once said to a mutual acquaintance that after years of collecting WFMT Guides the booklet listing programs before the station acquired Chicago magazine I had noticed a few time periods filled by the same records played in the same order. My comment was no doubt embellished with a purpose to wound, but it was I who was sheepish when Pellegrini thought the matter grave enough to discuss.

His" dedication registered even on a 18-year-old. And it was well that it should. The Nordstrand-Pellegrini team had just negotiated the first series of Chicago Symphony broadcasts, thereby airing four of the "Big Five" orchestras. Concerts, recitals, and operas from European festivals were on the increase. Full-length plays, and poetry readings, again from BBC or commercial recordings, also had weekly slots.

The long-running series devoted to historical material came later when WFMT had the wisdom to engage discophile Don Tait. In my hearing no one has ever presented artists of the past as Informatively, not only week-by-week on his "Collector's Item" program, but in comprehensive surveys. One cannot easily forget the undertakings on behalf of Serge Koussevitzky, Pierre Monteux and Leopold Stokowski. Who else would have attempted to play every one of Stokowski's 700 recordings? What's more, what tta- tion would have allotted the time? WFMT's sense of time is. so unusual that it was Continued on page 14 Episode Five: Pie Dectsjon Couldn't be King with her wouldn't be without her.

The Love Affair Mobil MasterpieceTheatre thatAlmost Divided a Nation Tonight at 9 Channel II PBS Mobil grammatical English. Its "commercial messages' were few, low-key, and pleasingly short Little was tlown out of proportion, least of all news. And the station's entire effort seemed to say, "What we do here is important, but it is hardly the last word." Growing up with this tone of civilized formality, one did not consider how difficult it was to achieve. Toe days of Bernard and Rita Jacobs working from a West Side hotel, the discouragingly few sponsors, the appeal that rescued a month-old station with more than $11,000 in donations these were, in I960, things of the past But today, years after Bernie Jacobs became terminally ill and was forced to sell the station, one wonders how many listeners are aware that the singular tone of WFMT has been preserved by apparently self-defeating decisions. This writer was reminded of one in a most dramatic way.

While living in Los Angeles, I taped a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra that was circulated through a transcription trust The L.A. station was trying to copy WFMT right down to the format of its program guide. But on-the-air advertising included commercial jingles, and a rhapsody on milk was Find restoring, remodeling, and redecorating ideas for the look you want. From our HOE to yours every Sunday in the Chicago Tribune inserted immediately following the second movement of a symphony. Section' 6 Page 13 CHICAUU IHlDUNt ATIS BOOKS uecemuw 40, itoi.