A couple weeks ago I happened across "Shoot the Conductor" by Anshel Brusilow. I bought it and found it a very enjoyable read, warm and funny. Mr. Brusilow was concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra up until the mid-1960s, and thereafter turned to conducting.
He relates a hilarious story about how he and his wife were driving to NYC with Mr. and Mrs. Ormandy for a concert. "The Pines of Rome" came on the radio. Ormandy declared it the worst performance of it he'd ever heard, and demanded that Anshel pull off the highway and call the radio station to identify the perpetrators. Anshel persuaded him that he couldn't just pull off the New Jersey Turnpike, and after the "Pines" ended, the announcer ID'd it as Ormandy's own recording from Minneapolis. So they blamed it on the car radio.
