Do conductors make a difference? Do these highly paid wielders of the baton really change the sound of the orchestras they lead? Two concerts I heard in New York in the last week of February suggested an answer to these questions. In the first concert, at Fisher Hall on February 25, I heard the New York Philharmonic, conducted by its new music director, Kurt Masur; in the second concert, at Carnegie Hall on February 28, I heard the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by its frequent guest conductor, Lorin Maazel. The result of my concert-going was proof, hardly necessary but nevertheless somewhat surprising, that conductors do make a difference.

To demonstrate the truth of this old adage, I should begin by telling the reader something of my history of hearing these orchestras in these halls in recent years. Over the past decade and more, I have heard the Philharmonic, in Fisher Hall, conducted most often by (in alphabetical order) Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Erich Leinsdorf, and, of course, Zubin Mehta; I have also heard the Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, with Vladimir Horowitz as the aging but still heroic piano soloist. Not surprisingly, I have attended the Vienna less. But about 1988 I did hear a Vienna rehearsal in Carnegie Hall, conducted by Claudio Abbado; in 1989 I heard the orchestra in Carnegie conducted by Herbert von Karajan in his last appearances in New York; in 1990 I heard the orchestra, again in Carnegie, conducted by Leonard