Roger Hecht wrote:

>Thomas W Warren wrote:
>
>>...  Any other major conductor not use a baton?
>
>Memory's tricky, but I seem to remember Stokowski didn't use one.
>
>Others might not have either.  I only saw Szell conduct forty years ago.
>I don't know if he had one either.  What about Furtwangler? Funny: it's
>not the thing I noticed, either in the audience or in the orchestra.  So
>take all this under advisement.

Furtwaengler did indeed carry a baton.  It was very important for him and
not only from a musician's point of view.  I quote from George Clare's
*Before the Wall Berlin Days 1946-1948*:

   "The concert, given [on April 23, 1935] in support of Winter Aid,
   the Nazi's favorite charity began with Beethoven's *Egmont* Overture.
   This was followed by his *Pastorale* and Fifth symphonies.  When the
   last chord of its coda had died away, there was stunned silence.
   Then the audience went wild.  A sheer endless standing ovation,
   growing in intensity till it seemed more a demonstration than just
   applause, celebrated the maestro's reappearance.  Seventeen times
   Furtwaengler was called back to the podium and not once, to everybody's
   amazement, did he raise his arm in the Nazi salute, obligatory at
   any function Hitler personally attended.  To avoid it, Furtwaengler
   kept his baton in his right hand.  "Heil Hitlering" with the little
   white stick stabbing the air would have looked ridiculous."

Walter Meyer