I put the question to a European conductor not long ago.

A distinguished roster of European conductors have taken charge of the festival, which still concentrates on choral music.

A very central European conductor wisely conducted as little as possible, turning the music over to players who have its qualities in their genes.

As a result, the training system through which generations of European operatic conductors have progressed has no equivalent in the United States.

He was writing 150 letters a year, mainly to European conductors and to radio orchestras.

Most American orchestras are in the hands of European conductors who know nothing about nor care about American composers.

But when American orchestras tour Europe with their European conductors, their programs are made up of old war horses.

The new hall will have a pipe organ, the dream, it seems, of every European conductor and many others.

He professes not to mind the social and fund-raising demands on an American music director, which have driven other European conductors around the bend.

This is an old trick of European conductors, not much seen nowadays, whose purported intent is to show how well their orchestras can run without guidance.