From left: Zádor; Charles Wakefield Cadman; Nat Finston, Head of Music; Lionel Barrymore, at the head of the table; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, on Barrymore’s left; Daniele Amfitheatrof
Translation:
Thank you again for your visit, which afforded me a welcome acquaintance with your Joseph composition.
I am charmed by this character and poetry-filled piece of music, which preserves so well the spirit of my biblical hero, and which expresses his story in an economical but powerful way. You have succeeded in doing with musical tone that which I attempted to do with words, namely to unite primitive, oriental sound with modern sensibility and understanding. It is a real satisfaction to me to know that my story has inspired a master in the art which has ever been dear to me, to create a work of such beauty and so full of the promise of permanency.
From left: The British consul; Maria Steiner; Eugene Zádor; the composer’s niece, Erika Zádor; conductor Ernst Ansermet
From left: Composers George Antheil, Eugene Zádor, Arthur Bergh, Italo Montemezzi, Miklós Rósza, Richard Hageman, William Grant Still, Igor Stravinsky, Ernst Toch, Louis Gruenberg, Erich Wolfgang Korngold
From left: Hugo Friedhofer; Zádor, third from left; John Green, at the head of the table; Andre Previn, far right
Quotation from A Double Life, Miklós Rózsa’s autobiography:
The MGM Music Department gave me a farewell lunch on the eve of my departure for Rome. Among those visible are John Green (on my immediate right); cartoon composer Scott Bradley (second from Green’s right); David Raksin, composer of Laura (foot of right-hand table); producer Saul Chaplin (on Raksin’s right); Andre Previn (on Raksin’s left); Conrad Salinger, orchestrator/arranger extraordinaire (on Previn’s left); (moving now from Salinger upwards) orchestrator Robert Franklyn; composer Eugene Zádor; composer Bronislaw Kaper; musical director Adolph Deutch; (top of table) orchestrator Paul Marquandt
Zádor and Ormandy became friends in Hungary when they were very young. Ormandy conducted many of Zádor’s compositions, beginning with Variations on a Hungarian Folksong in 1932 with the Minneapolis Orchestra, and including four world premieres with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
