Leopold Stokowski
(Photo: George Grantham Bain)
William
Levi Dawson: Negro
Folk Symphony; American
Symphony Orchestra; Leopold Stokowski. Conductor (Cover of original
LP: American Decca DL 10077)
Dominique-René de Lerma:
Leopold Stokowski; Mystique and Civil Rights from the Podium
He really was born as Leopold Anthony Stokowski in 1882, on 18 April.
His father's name was not Stokes or Stock, but Kopernik Jozef
Bolesławicz Stokowski (1862-1924), a Scottish-Polish cabinet maker born
in London, and his mother, from Ireland, was Annie-Marion (Moore)
Stokowski. True, he had a Polish heritage and was even named for his
paternal grandfather Leopold, was had been born in Poland in 1821,
moved to England by the early 1850s, and died in the English county of
Surrey on 13 January 1879. The family roots seem to go back to
Lithuania, where the name had been Stokauskas. In his mid-career rumors
existed that his given name was Leonard or Lionel, but this is
disproved by his birth certificate and those of his father and younger
brother Percy James (1890-1978) and sister, Lydia Stokowski Fanshawe
(1883-1911), as well as the records of the Royal College of Music,
Royal College of Organists, The Queen's College, St. Marylebone Church,
St. James's Church, and St. Bartholomew's. He was not born in Kraków
or Pomerania, as he sometimes claimed, but in London, as indicated on
his birth certificate, at 13 Upper Marylebone Street in All Souls
Parish.
On 6 January
1896, age 13, he entered the Royal College of Music where he was a
classmate of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Gustav Holst
(1874-1934) -- just missing the chance to meet Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor. About 1898 he was chorister with brother Percy at
St. Marylebone Paris Church, and became assistant organist to Walford
Davies (1859-1941) at the Temple Church. When 16, he was elected to
join the Royal College of Organists (25 June 1898).
He
organized the choir at St. Mary's Church on Charing Cross Road in 1900,
training the boys' chorus and playing organ. Stokowski was engaged to
be organist and choir director at St. James's Church Piccadilly in 1902.
The same year he also entered Queen's College, Oxford. His part-time
study was arranged by Sir Hubert Parry, the director of the Royal
College of Music and a full professor of music at Oxford. Stokowski
received his Bachelor of Music degree on 19 November 1903.
In
1905 he was offered the job of organist and choir master at St.
Bartholomew's Church, 44th and Madison Avenue, in New York City. The
church's rector, the Reverend Leighton Parks, had travelled
to England in search of an organist for his church. Stokowski, still
young and unknown, inaugurated a series of organ recitals at St.
Bartholomew's and was popular with the choir and congregation By 1907 he
began recitals of works by Byrd and Palestrina, as well as organ
reductions of the symphonies of Chaikovskiĭ and portions of Wagner
operas. He began to attract the notice of the parishioners, including
J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family. Through Maria Dehon, one of the
sopranos in the church choir who often held musical parties in her home,
Stokowski was introduced to the pianist Olga Samaroff (née Lucy Mary
Olga Hickenlooper) who was already making a name for herself in New
York's musical world. She had made her debut with Walter Damrosch and
the New York Symphony in Carnegie Hall in January 1905 and later that
year she performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Fritz
Sheel. Sometimes found himself in conflict with the rector and, eager
to conduct, resigned his position at on 30 August 1908 and sailed to
Europe with Olga.
While studying
conducting in Paris, he heard that Cincinnati had a vacancy for its
conductor. In 1908, he wrote to Mrs. Christian R. Holmes (née Bettie
Fleischmann), director of the board of the Cincinnati Orchestra
Association, who had known Olga from her Cincinnati performances and
family connections (not yet verified). Olga also knew Charles Phelps
Taft I (1843-1929), whose wife, Anna Sinton Taft, was a major force in
Cincinnati's art life, and whose brother was president of the United
States from 1909-1913. The conductor of the Orchestre Colonne (very
probably the founder, Édouard Colonne, who died in 1910) was to conduct
Olga in the first piano concerto of Chaikovskiĭ on 12 May 1909, but had
fallen ill. Following Olga's recommendation, Stokowski made his debut
as conductor for the concert, without a fee. Attending the event was
Lucien Wulsin (1845-1912). When Dwight Hamilton Baldwin died in 1899,
Wulsin became the company's president, but he also was a board member of
the Cincinnati Orchestr, and he added his support for Stokowski's
engagement. The next week, 18 May, Stokowski appeared at Queen's Hall,
London, with the New Symphony Orchestra. The previous day, the
Cincinnati press announced that Stokowski had been engaged as
conductor.
Cincinnati's orchestra
had been established in 1895, consisting of soldiers stationed at Fort
Washington, although previous instrumental and choral events had taken
place, certainly including the visit of Theodore Thomas, touring with
his orchestra. The first concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,
with 48 members, was conducted by Frank Van der Stucken on 17 January
1895. The next season there were 60 instrumentalists. In these early
years, Richard Strauß and Edward MacDowell had appeared as guests, and
Mahler's fifth symphony received its American première, but financial
problems prevented further growth in 1907. Mrs. Anna Sinton Taft was
the prime force behind a fund drive that revived the orchestra.
Leopold Stokowski was engaged to conduct a group of 77 handpicked
players, following an interview on 22 April 1909, giving his first
concert on 26 November 1909. He had met Rachmaninoff in 1910, then on
his first American tour, and engaged him to perform his second piano
concerto (21, 22 January) with the Cincinnati Orchestra. During his
three years, he initiated a series of pop concerts and established a
pattern followed in the rest career, performing works by contemporaries
and with major soloists:
Aulin, Tor. Concerto, violin, no. 3, C minor (Maud Powell) -- 1909
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Concerto, piano, no,. 4, G major, 58 (Wilhelm Bachaus) -- 1912
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Concerto, piano, no. 5, E-flat major (Ferruccio Busoni) -- 1911
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Concerto, violin, op.61 (Fritz Kreisler) -- 1910
Chaikovskiĭ, Pytor. Concerto, piano, no. 1, B-flat minor (Olga Samaroff) -- 1911
Charpentier, Gustave. Louise: Depuis le jour (Frances Alda) -- 1912
Debussy, Claude. Nocturnes, orchestra, nos. 1, 2 -- 1910
Debussy, Claude. Prélude à l'apès-midi d'un faune -- 1912
Elgar, Edward. Enigma variations -- 1912
Elgar, Edward. Symphony, no. 2, E-flat major, op. 63 -- 1911
Glazunov, Alexander. Concerto, violin, op. 82, A minor (Efrem Zimbalist) -- 1912
Liszt, Franz. Concerto, piano, no. 1, E-flat (Ferruccio Busoni) -- 1910
MacDowell, Edward -- A maid sings light (Louise Kirkby) -- 1910
MacDowell, Edward -- Suite, orchestra, no. 2, op. 48 -- 1910
Puccini, Giacomo. Madama Butterfly: Un bel dì (Frances Alda) -- 1912
Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Der Toteninsel, op. 29 -- 1911
Rubinstein, Anton. Concerto, piano, no. 4, D minor, op. 70 (Olga Samaroff) -- 1911
Saint-Saëns, Camille -- Samson et Dalilah: Printemps qui commence (Ernestine Schumann-Heink) --1910
Saint-Saëns, Camille. Concerto, piano, no. 2, G minor, op,. 22 (Ernest Hutchenson) -- 1912
Sanford, Charles. Symphony, no. 3, F minor -- 1912
Schwarenka, Xaver. Concerto, piano, no. 4, F minor (Xaver Schwarenka) -- 1911
Sgambati, Giovanni. Symphony, op,. 16, D major -- 1911
Sibelius, Jean -- The swan of Tuonela -- 1910
Sibelius, Jean. Symphony, no. 1, E minor, op,. 39 -- 1910
Sibelius, Jean. Symphony, no. 2, D major, op,. 43 -- 1912
Sinigaglia, Leone. Le baruffe chiazzotte overture, op.22 -- 1911
Strauß, Richard. Don Juan, op. 20 -- 1911
Strauß, Richard. Feuersnot: Love scene -- 1910
Strauß, Richard. Salome: Dance of the seven veils -- 1910, 1911
Strauß, Richard. Serenade, winds, op. 7, E-flat major -- 1911
Strauß, Richard. Tod und Verklärung -- 1910
After announcing their engagement on 8 April 1911, Stokowski and Olga
Samaroff were married quietly on 24 April in St. Louis. Conflicts with
the Board of Directors, however, led to his resignation in March 1912:
They did not approve of his plans for a tour to New York or an expanded
season. He left Cincinnati on 12 April 1912 for Munich and was followed
in Cincinnati by Ernst Kunwald, former conductor of the Berlin
Philharmoniker.
This was a time when
America assumed good musicians were all European. Mme Samaroff had
actually been born in Texas in 1880 as Lucy Mary Olga Agnes
Hickenlooper. She had studied in Paris with Antoine François Mamontel
as the first woman to enter the Paris Conservatory, and in Berlin with
Ernst Lediczka, but had failed to secure sufficient bookings on her
return to the United States. On the advice of her manager she adopted
the new name. In 1905 she became the first woman to appear at Carnegie
Hall, where she hired Walter Damrosch to conduct her in Chaikovskiĭ's
first piano concerto. (Following a fall in 1925, she turned her
attention to teaching (becoming the first American-born faculty member
at Juilliard), numbering among her students Bruce Hungerford, William
Kapell, Raymond Lewenthal, Eugene List, Thomas Schippers, Rosalyn Turek,
Alexis Weissenberg, and Natalie Hinderas (née Henderson, the name
change recommended by Samaroff). She had already noticed Stokowski
from his days at St. Bartholomew's and advocated his Philadelphia
engagement. With her encouragement, Stokowski adopted the accent he
retained for the rest of his life, one that consistently confounded
linguists. They were divorced in 1923, following his infidelity. Sonya
(later Mrs. Willem Thorbecke and mother of Noel, Johan, Leif and
Christine) had been born two years earlier. Among her circle of
friends were George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Parker, Thomas
Edison, and Cary Grant. They spent the pre-war summers in a Munich
villa, as related by Donna Staley Kline in An American virtuoso on the world stage (reprinted by the Texas A & M University Press in 2012).
Stokowski sailed back to London for two concerts at Queen's Hall,
conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. On 22 May 1912 he presented a
program with soprano Lillian Nordica that he repeated 60 years later
and, on 14 June, he offered an all-Wagner concert.
The Stokowskis spent summers of 1912 though 1914 in the a suburb of
Munich. It was here he made his first Bach arrangements, with the
pastorale from the Christmas oratorio (BWV 246) and the chorus, Wachet auf
from the 140th cantata. No one would ever suggest these and the many
others that followed were historically informed, but the sheer glory of
orchestral color, possibly a sonoric counterpart of the organ,
demonstrated an understanding of the orchestra equal to that of any
contemporary. His performances were usually over-dramatic, no matter
how modest the original, but have nonetheless survived the disdain of
the purists and have come back to the halls and recording studios as
important artifacts. Stokowski was asked, late in his life, what Bach
might have thought about his arrangements. He replied "He might kill
me, you know, or he might be pleased…we shall never know until I meet
him in heaven, or wherever it is conductors go afterwards!.”
The
summer sojurns in Munich ended abruptly following the assassination on
28 June 1914 of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand, followed in two
weeks by World War I. Stokowski, still a British citizen, could have
been arrested as an alien enemy. He escaped, taking gold with him and
the score of Mahler's eighth symphony, sailing from Rotterdam on the SS Noordam on 15 August, arriving in New York ten days later. In 1915 he became an American citizen.
Conductor Carl Pohlig left the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912,
dismissed when it was learned of his affair with his secretary, but also
he had become the subject of poor reviews (Olga Samaroff found him to
be "uninspiring"). Stokowski was free to accept an offer to conduct the
Philadelphia Orchestra beginning in the fall of 1912. It was announced
in October that he had accepted the appointment and, following four
rehearsal days, made his debut concert on 12 October 1912. The
orchestra was then only a dozen years old.
Stokowski quickly showed his flair for the dramatic and experimental,
with lighting that cast shadows of his head, but especially in various
orchestral seating. This rather much ended with the second violins
exchanging places with the cellos replaced by the cellos, which has
become customary in American orchestras, or with the winds to his
right. He encouraged free breathing for his brasses and woodwinds, and
free bowing for the strings, resulting in a distinctively seamless
legato. He achieved new effects and balance in orchestral sound and was
alert to acoustical differences in the halls.
Stokowski's
years as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1912 to 1936
transformed this ensemble into one of the greatest in the world, noted
for its precision, sonority, brilliance, and a particularly distinctive
string tone. He did not hesitate lecturing the audience on late
arrivals (“A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint
their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the
silence”) and for a time spelled his name Stokofski, seeking correct
pronunciation.
He
achieved international recognition on 2 March 1916 in the Academy of
Music with the first American performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony no. 8,
then only six years old, performed with a thousand singers and an
orchestra of 110 players. The nine performances in Philadelphia and one
in New York were sold out to enthusiastic crowds. This obligated
raising the equivalent of $360,000 to cover the costs of the 1,200
performers needed, but it shot the orchestral into national notice,
requiring additional performances, with two private trains transporting
the massive ensemble to New York for a performance at the Metropolitan
Opera House. Some ticket scalpers resold tickets for $2,100.
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra made their first recordings on
24 October 1917 in the Camden NJ studio of the Victor Talking Machine
Company (later the Radio Corporation of America) of the Brahms fifth and
sixth Hungarian dances, arranged by Albert Parlow (1824-1888), issued
on 78rpm Victor 797, Victor 64753, RCA Victor RVC 1522 and on LP LSS LS
3. Earlier recordings had been made by Nikish and Beecham, but with a
reduced orchestra. The 1917 recordings by Stokowski and by Karl Muck
with Boston were the first made with a full orchestra. Their first
electrical recordings were made in 1925. With Dr. Harvey Fletcher of
Bell Laboratories, Stokowski helped develop a binaural recording scheme.
He was interested in the architectural design and acoustics of
orchestra halls and was eager to contribute to plans to build a new hall
for the Philadelphia Orchestra in the 1920s, to be called the "Temple
of Music." He established a relationship with Edward W. Bok, managing
editor at the Curtis Publishing Company, publishers of the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal,
who helped create an endowment for the orchestra resulting in the
equivalent of $1,000,000 by 1919. In March of 1922 Leopold Stokowski
was the first recipient of the $10,000 "Philadelphia Award" created by
Bok and awarded to the individual who rendered the most valuable service
to the city in the preceding year.
As a Christmas gift in 1925, Stokowski gave the Boks what might be the
only recording he made as an organist: Bach's Passacaglia and fugue in C
minor, issued on a Deo-Art roll, now held within his materials at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Of even greater significance was his encouragement of Mrs. Bok (née
Mary Louise Curtis), heiress of the Curtis Publishing Company, to
establish the Curtis Institute of Music in 1924, for especially talented
music students who had developed beyond the training that was given
them at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia. Stokowski served
as an advisor to the Board of Directors and conductor of the Curtis
Student Orchestra during the school's younger days.
Curtis
consistently produced major figures in performance (many of whom were
engaged by the Philadelphia Orchestra) and composition. The facilities
were developed from three mansions on Rittenhouse Square. The enrolment
has been limited to fewer than 200 students, with the lowest acceptance
rate of any American educational institution. Among the major Black
graduates were Gwendolyn Bradley, Vinson Cole, Anthony McGill, Nokuthla
Ngwenyama, Eric Owens, Louise Parker, André Raphael, Muriel Smith, Kevin
Short, and George Walker (Nina Simone, who was not accepted, obviously
erred when claiming prejudice). (On a personal note, when I was a
Curtis student in 1949, I remember Mrs. Bok's arriving in her limousine
every week -- a very short drive from her Rittenhouse mansion -- to
serve tea in the Common Room to the students. I never attended the
ceremonies, which conflicted with my class schedule - not to anyone's
discomfort -- although I might just as well have: The class was taught
by a personal friend of Mrs. Bok who had not the slightest idea of the
subject (music history) in which my late arriving tea-drinking
classmates at the time had little interest. The same could be said for
those who attended the lectures on Dante, taught by the head of Romance
languages at the University of Pennsylvania (talk about overkill!). In
later meetings with my former classmates I had expected them to remain
concerned with their performance, but I was struck by their innocence
when it came to liberal-arts matters. All I remember about French class
was when one student asked Mme Louise Tabuteau if the English word for
mattress was derived from the French "maitresse." The solfège class,
taught by Anne-Marie Soffray, was excellent -- it had previously been
taught by Mme Renée Longy, who became a very close friend when we were
both engaged for the faculty at the University of Miami three years
later. As for my lessons with Marcel Tabuteau, this obligates coverage
elsewhere.)
Earlier American higher-level institutions for the study of music (by current names):
1819 -- University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory
1857 -- Peabody Conservatory of Music, Johns Hopkins University
1867 -- Boston Conservatory
1867 -- Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University
1867 -- New England Conservatory of Music
1875 -- Shenandoah University
1880 -- University of Michigan School of Music
1884 -- University of Southern California School of Music
1895 -- Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University
1901 -- Florida State University College of Music
1905 -- The Juilliard School
1912 -- Rice University
1914 -- Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music, University of Texas
1915 -- Longy School of Music, Bard College
1916 -- Mannes College New School for Music
1917 -- Manhattan School of Music
1917 -- San Francisco Conservatory of Music
1920 -- Cleveland Institute of Music. Case Western Reserve University
1920 -- The Hartt School, University of Hartford
1921 -- Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
1921 -- Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University
In 1921, Stokowski returned to the U.S. after a summer in Europe,
leaving his wife in London where on 24 December she gave birth to Sonya
Maria Noel Stokowski (later an actress, she married Willem Thorbecke by
whom she had four children: Noel, Johan, Leif and Christine). They
separated in January 1923 and were divorced on 30 June.
On 18 May 1924 the first concert by The Philadelphia Band was held at
the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. This group of 120 men was
organized and trained by Stokowski for Philadelphia's Music Week 1924.
Known popularly as Stokowski's "Band of Gold" it was conceived as the
largest and most highly trained military band in the United States.
In January 1926 Stokowski married Evangeline Love Brewster Johnson
(1897-1990), daughter of the late Robert Wood Johnson, founder of the
Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company. They were married at the
bride's home on Park Avenue in New York City after a courtship lasting
only a few weeks (they were shared a common birth date -- 18 April).
There had two children, daughters Gloria Luba, born 2 January 1927, and
Andrea Sadja, born 26 October 1930. The marriage ended in 1937. She
later married Prince Alexis Zalstern-Zalessky (d. 1965).
Marian Anderson, who had won a competition to perform with the New York
Philharmonic in 1925, gave her first Carnegie Hall recital in 1928.
Stokowski wrote to her manager-pianist, Billy King, in 1928 about the
possibility of her performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra and
expressed interested in seeing copies of the Black music in her
repertoire (Marian Anderson Papers, University of Pennsylvania
Library). When she was refused use of Constitution Hall in 1937, the
NAACP contacted a list of musicians to register their protest to the
Daughters of the American Revolution, including Stokowski, Lawrence
Tibbett, Giovanni Martinelli, Lily Pons, Elisabeth Rethberg, Nelson
Eddy, Geraldine Farrar, Kirstin Flagstad, Sigrid Onegin, Arturo
Toscanini, Walter Damrosch, and José Iturbi.
Stokowski's
concern for minority causes is evidenced in a letter he sent to Alabama
governor Benjamin Meek Miller on 22 March 1933, asking for the freedom
of the Scottsboro boys -- nine Black teenagers who had been falsely
accused of raping two Anglo women in the internationally infamous 1931
case involving both anti-Black and anti-Jewish bigotry and a landmark
decision in 1935 from the Supreme Court that outlawed the exclusion of
Black jurors (Norris v. Alabama 254 U.S. 587).v. Alabama 254 U. S. 587
Despite the Board's hesitation, in 1930 Stokowski scheduled Schönberg's Die gluckliche Hand and a full ballet performance of Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps, with Martha Graham dancing (1930/IV/11, 12, 14), which was performed to sold-out houses in Philadelphia and New York.
Stokowski
inaugurated a series of Youth Concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra
in 1932, designed to attract young people from ages thirteen to
twenty-five with low ticket prices. The concerts were enormously
popular, with many people unable to secure admission. A Youth Concert
Committee was formed to help administer the concerts, the young people
chose the music on the program, and a representative of this committee
attended meetings of the Orchestra Board of Directors. From this
beginning a Youth Movement was started, including a Youth Orchestra
conducted by Sylvan Levin (1903-1996), a Youth Chorus conducted by Harl
MacDonald (1899-1955), and informal groups meeting to play or study
music. A drama group was formed as well, and in 1935 a magazine titled
Youth was published documenting the activities of these various groups.
In November 1934 Stokowski premiered William Levi Dawson's Negro folk symphony
with the Philadelphia Orchestra; it was the first performance by a
major U. S. symphony orchestra of the work of a Black composer, but for
the Rochester première of William Grant Still's Afro-American symphony
in 1931. Given his willingness to modify the scores of Chaikovskiĭ,
Wagner, and Beethoven, and with an awareness that Dawson, although a
trombonist, had little experience in orchestration, it is quite likely
that Stokowski made some modifications, with Dawson's approval. The
recorded version follows the revisions Dawson made after his 1952
sabbatical in Africa and was the first work Stokowski recorded with the
American Symphony Orchestra. The conductor stated "Dawson has succeeded
in portraying the aspect of American life which is both vital and
personal. I believe this work to be a distinct achievement in American
music."
About 1935, Stokowski visited
the Cotton Club, selecting a seat near the stage. Shortly before the
show began, his presence was noted by Duke Ellington, who introduced
himself. When the show was over, they met again, and Stokowski invited
Ellington to the following night's performance at Carnegie Hall.
In 1927 he complained of neuritis and often switched hands with the
baton -- some believed this was to develop dexterity (so also why he
rehearsed with this right arm in a sling that vanished for the concert)
-- and he had also been a passenger in a New York taxi that had a
accident. He finally took a leave, touring Europe and Asia with his
wife from November 1927 to their return to New York on the SS Orinoco
on 7 September 1928. When he was back on the podium, he began
conducting with his hands, rather than a baton. Several personnel
changes were made, with nine players thought "too old, stale":
clarinettist Paul Alemann, hornist Otto Henneberg, violinist Marius
Thor, and oboist Edward Raho. Also departing on the next few years,
perhaps not voluntarily in every instance, were clarinettist Daniel
Bonade, harpist Vincent Fanelli, trombonist Gardell Simons, bassist
Fabien Sevitzky, violinists Max Pollikoff and Herman Weinberg, violist
Sheppard Lehnhoff, cellist Milton Prinz, and English hornist Joseph
Wolfe. New to the orchestra were Curtis students, some even before
graduation: trumpeter Melvin Headman, clarinettist Robert McGinnis, and
English hornist Robert Bloom.
STOKOWSKI'S PRINCIPAL INSTRUMENTALISTS IN PHILADLPHIA
[Larry
Huffman has developed a detailed register on Philadelphia's players at
http://www.stokowski.org/Philadelphia_Orchestra_Musicians_List.html, on
which the following is based.]
Concertmaster:
Thaddeus Rich (1885-1969) 1906-1926; Michel Gustikoff (1893-1978)
1926-1927; Mischa Mischakoff (1895-1981), 1927-1929; the chair rotated
alphabetically from 1929 to 1935; Alexander Hilsberg (1900-1961),
1935-1951.
Viola: Wilhelm A. Diestel
(1869-1926), 1908-1915; Henry Joseph Michaud (1882-?), 1915-1917;
Alfred Lorenz (1878-?) 1917-1918; Émil Auguste Férir (1873-1949),
1918-1919; Samuel Belov (1884-1954), 1919-1920; Romain Joseph
Verney (1878-1967) 1920-1925; Samuel Lifschey (), 1925-1955.
Violoncello:
Herman Sandby (1883-1966), 1908-1916; Hans Kindler (1892-1949),
1916-1920; Michel Penha (1888-1982) 1920-1925; Hanns Pick
(1883-1957), 1925- 1926; Willem Van den Burg (1901-1992)
1926-1935; Isadore Gusikoff (1901-1962), 1935-1939; Benar Heifetz
(1899-1974) 1939-1943.
Double bass: Antonio Torel1ò i Ros (1854-1959), 1914-1948.
Flute:
Daniel Maquarre (1881-+1930), 1910-1918; André Maquarre (1875-1933),
1918-1921; William Kincaid (1895-1967), 1921-1960.
Oboe: Attillio Marchetti (1883-1965), 1913-1915; Marcel Tabuteau (1887-1966), 1915-1954.
Oboe d'amore: Adrian Siegel ?-?) 1937-1953.
English
horn: Peter Lamburtus Henkelman (1874-1949), 1901-1925; Victor
Leoncavallo 1898-1981), 1926-1928 [fired mid-season]; Marcel Joseph
Dandois (1890-1970), 1928-1929; Joseph Wolfe (?-?), 1929;
Max Weinstein (?-?) 1913-1932; Robert Bloom (1908-1994, 1932-1936; John
H. Minsker (1921-2007), 1936-1959.
Clarinet:
Fred J. Van Amburgh (1883-?) 1912-1913; Robert Lindemann
(1884-1977), 1913-1917; Georges Grisez (1884-1946), 1922-1923; Rufus
Arey (1887-1966), 1923-1924; Daniel Louis Bonade (1894-1976),
1917-1922, 1924-1930; Louis de Santis (1880-before 1960) 1930-1931;
Robert E. McGinnis (1910-1976), 1931- 1940.
Bass
clarinet: Edmond Roelofsma (1875-1943), 1902-1920 [sic]; Paul Ernest
Rudolph Alemann (1877-+1946), 1904-1930 [fired]; Lucien Caillet
(1897-1985), 1916-1938; Leon Lester (1910-2003),
1938-1966.
Contrabass clarinet: Frédéric Paul Palme (1872-?), 1925-1927.
Bassoon:
Benjamin Kohon (1990-1964), 1912-1915; Julius Walter Guetter
(1895-1937), 1922-1937; Sol Schoenbach (1915-?), 1937-1957.
Contrabassoon: Ferdinand del Negro (1921-1954).
Saxophone:
Albert Aloysius Knecht (1884-1954) and George Henry Koehler (1879-?)
1917 and Walter Centennial Schrader (1876-?) 1917-1920.
Horn:
Anton Horner (1870-1971), co- 1929-1931; Arthur Isadore Berv
(1906-1992, co- 1930-1935, 1935-1936; Clarence Mayer (1879-+1943), co-
1931-1935, 1939- 1941; Mason Jones (1939-2009), co- 1939-1941.
Trumpet:
Henri C. Le Barbier (1873-+1940), 1909-1914; Harry Glantz
(1896-1982), 1915-1917; Ernest S. Williams (1881-1947) 1917; Saul
Caston (1901-1970), 1918- 1945.
Trombone:
Otto Richard Elst (1878-+1947), 1906-1916; Gardell Howard Simons
(`878-1945), 1917-1930; Simone Belgiorno (1888-+1931); 1930-1931
[fired mid- season]; Charles Gusikoff (1897-1966),
1931-1959.
Bass trombone: Paul P. Lotz (1870-1945) 1909-1922; Charles Edward Gerhard (1877-1953), 1922-1946.
Tuba:
Charles Stanley Mackey (1907-1922) 1907-1915; Andreas Thomae
(1856-1931) 1915-1921; Andrew Thomas Philip A. Donatelli (1885-1954,
1923-1948.
Harp: Edna Phillips (1907-2003) 1930-1941, 1942-1946; Marjorie Tyre (1912-1981) 1938-1945.
Timpani: William Oscar Schwar (1875-1946), 1903-1946.
Percussion: Henry Mayer, Jr. (1873-1963), 1908-1909; Gustav Mayer (1879-+1943), 1916-1923.
WOMEN IN THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
[It
has been customary that harpists have almost always been women. The
first non-harpist woman in American orchestras was cellist Dorothy
Passmore in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, 1925 (see Women making
music, by Jane M. Bowers and Judith Tick, Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1987). The presence of a woman tubist or percussionist
is particularly noteworthy.]
1930 -- Edna Phillips, harp
1935 -- Elsa Hilger, violoncello
1936 -- Lois P. Pulitz, violin
1938 -- Marjorie Tyre, harp
1943 -- Veda Ruth Reynolds, violin
1945 -- Marilyn Costello, harp
1952 -- Marcella de Cray, harp
1963 -- Barbara J. Sorlien, violin
1963 -- Margarita Csonka Montaro, harp
1964 -- Julia Grayson-Stanley, violin
1964 -- Winifred Schaefer Winograd Mayes, violoncello
1966 -- Barbara Haffner, violoncello
1967 -- Cathleen C. O'Connor Dalschaert, violin
1974 -- Martha L. Glaze-Zook, horn
1977 -- Gloria de Pasquale, violoncello
1979 -- Kathryn Annette Picht Read, violoncello
1979 -- Patricia Weimer Hess, violoncello
1980 -- Cynthia Williams Martindale, violin
1981 -- Kazuo Tokito, piccolo
1982 -- Barbara S. Rodescu Govatos, violin
1982 -- Holly Blake, contrabassoon
1983 -- Nancy R. Bean, violin
1984 -- Yumi Ninomiya Scott, violin
1988 -- Kiyoko Takeuti, keyboard
1989 -- Cynthia Louise Kolendo de Almeida, oboe
1990 -- Hirono Oka, violin
1992 -- Anna Marie Ahn Petersen, viola
1992 -- Kathleen A. White-Vigilante, bassoon
1994 -- Elizabeth S. Hainen, harp
1995 -- Elizabth Starr Masoundia, English horn
1997 -- Angela Anderson, bassoon
1998 -- Shelley A. Showers, horn
1999 -- Angela Zador Nelson, timpani
2001 -- Jennifer C. Haas, violin
2001 -- Lisa-Beth L. Lambert, violin
2002 -- Carrie Dennis, vola
2002 -- Elina Kalendareva, violin
2002 -- Miyo Kono Curnow, violin
2004 -- Rachel Ku, violin
2005 -- Juliette Kang, violin
2006 -- Carol Jantch, tuba
2006 -- Hai-Ye Ni, violoncello
2007 -- Dara Morales, violin
2007 -- Karri C. Ryan, viola'
2008 -- Amy Oshira Morales, violin
2008 -- Jennifer Montone, horn
2014 -- Yiying Julia Li, violin
PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA'S LATINO-BORN INSTUMENTALISTS
1914 -- Spain (Catalunia), Antonio Torelló i Ros, double bass
1917 -- Spain, Emilio Martin Meriz, violin
1922 -- Mexico, Genaro Martinez-Nava, viola
1923 -- Spain, Santiago Coratella, double bass
1996 -- Chile, Roberto Diaz, viola
2000 -- Argentina, Daniel Matsukawa, bassoon
2003 -- Puerto Rico, Ricardo Morales, clarinet
BLACK INSTRUMENTALISTS IN THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
[Stokowski
fought openly against racial discrimination in music but, during his
Philadelphia years, the board would never have considered the engagement
of any Black players, furthermore there were not any with the
orchestral experience prerequisite even for audition by a major
orchestra.]
1969 -- Renard E. Edwards (ca. 1950-) viola
1971 -- Booker Rowe (1940-) violin
1993-1999 -- André Raphael Smith (ca. 1961-) assistant conductor
2010 -- Joseph H. Conyers (1981-) double bass
STOKOWSKI'S BLACK REPERTOIRE AND SOLOISTS:
Allen, Betty.
Mahler, Gustav. Symphony, no. 2, C minor. 1965/IV/3 (New York,
Carnegie Hall, rehearsal). Helen Boatwright; American Symphony
Orchestra.
Anderson, Marian.
Gruber, Franz. Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht. [perhaps also Come all ye faithful, Jingle bells, Ave Maria, and Hark the herald angels sing]
1944. Unidentified harp; Westminster Choir; New York City Symphony
Orchestra. Film, 16mm. CD available from Patrick.Kittel@gmx.de.
Arroyo, Martina. Betty Allen. Shirley Verrett, Louise Parker.
Wagner, Richard. Die Walkürie: Ride of the Valkyries.
1961/IV/20, 21. Carlotta Ordassy, Doris Yarick, Doris Okerson, Regina
Safarty; Symphony of the Air. LP: RCA LM 1336, RCA LSC 2555,
RCA LM 2555, Victor VSC 7077, RCA RB 16279, RCA VICS 1301 (US), RCA SB
2148 (UK), RCA SRA 2168, RCA AGL1-5007, RCA LSC 5007, RCA RGC 1047,
RCA RCL 1520. CD: RCA BVCF 37015, RCA BVCC 38083.
Arroyo, Martina. Parker, Louise.
Wagner, Richard. Das Rheingold: Entry of the gods. 1961/IV/20, 21.
Symphony of the Air. LP: Victor LM 1336, Victor LSC 2555, RCA LM 2555,
Victor VCS 7077, RCA RB 16279, RCA SB 2148, RCA VICS 1301. CD:
RCA 09026 62597 2 (in 09026 68443 2), RCA BVCC 38004.
Arroyo, Martina.
Weber, Carl Maria von. Der Freischütz: Leise, leise. 1967/XII/13. American Symphony Orchestra.
Cordova, A.
Menotti, Gian Carlo Amahl and the night visitors. 1953/V (Florence). Giuletta Simonato; Orchestra del Maggio Musicale.
Dawson, William.
Negro folk symphony. 1934/XI/14, 16, 17.
Dawson, William.
Negro folk symphony.
1963/VI/2, 4. American Symphony Orchestra. LP: Decca 710077, Decca DL
10077, Decca SKA 4520l, Decca AXA 4520, Varese Sarbande VC
81056, King SDL 15040. CD: MCA MCAD2-9826A, DG 477 650-2, Chandos 9226
(1993).
Deep river . 1935/XII/5.
(arr. by Norman Luboff). 1961/VII/ 19, 20. Lubuff Choir; New Symphony
Orchestra of London. LP: RCA LSC 2593, RCA LM 2593, RCA SHP 2123,
RCA RA 2061, Quintessence 7019. CD: RCA 09026 62599 2 (in 09026 68443
2), RCA BVCC 38015.
Duncan, Todd.
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Symphony, no. 9, opus 125, D minor: IV.
1947/IV/12 (New York). Charlotte Boerner; Nan Merriman; Donald Dame;
Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York. LP: LSSS 0019.
el-Dabh, Halim.
Fantasia-tahneel.
1958/XII/3 (New York, Metropolitan Museum, Rogers Auditorium). Halim
el-Dabh; Percussion Ensemble of the Manhattan School of Music;
Contemporary Music Society. CD: The Stokowski Concert
Collection.
Floyd, Alpha.
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Symphony, no. 9, op. 125, D minor.
1970/V3 (New York,. Carnegie Hall). Westminster Choir; David
Clatworthy, Dan Marek, Elaine Bonazzi; American Symphony Orchestra.
Handy, William Christopher.
St. Louis blues. 1936. Philadelphia Orchestra.
Hayes, Roland.
Unidentified spirituals. 1925/XII/26, 28. Philadelphia Orchestra.
Howard University Chorus.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Ave verum corpus, K. 618. Missa brevis, K. 65: Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei. Kyrie, K. 341. 1955/XII/17 (Washington, Library of Congress). Sylvia Meyer, harp; National Symphony Orchestra.
Jones, Elayne.
Rogers, Bernard. Fantasy for horn, timpani & strings. 1972III/25 (rehearsal). Anthony Miranda, American Symphony Orchestra. 1972/III/26 (New York, Carnegie Hall).
Kay, Ulysses.
Brief elegy.
Kay, Ulysses.
Suite for strings. 1952/X/26 (New York, Museum of Modern Art). Contemporary Music Society.
Mathis, Joyce.
Kodály, Zoltán. Te Deum of Buda Castle.
1968/V/9. Ivanka Myhal, Arthur Williams, Alan Ord; American Youth
Orchestra. LP: Audio Recording EC 68006, CD: Music & Arts
CD-771.
Matthews, Inez. Matthews,
Edward. Holland, Charles. David Bethea. Robinson, Randolph. Hines,
Altonell. Greene, Ruby. Robinson-Wayne, Beatrice. Dorsey, Abner.
Thomson, Virgil, Four saints in three acts (abridged). Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra. 1947/VI/25. CD: RCA Victor Gold Seal 68163.
Parker, Louise.
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Symphony, no. 9, op. 125, D minor. 1971/IV/30 (New York, Trinity Church). Phyllis Curtin, Douglas Hill; Trinity Church Choir; American Symphony Orchestra.
Parker, Louise.
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Symphony, no. 9, op. 125, D minor: IV.
1972/IV/23, New York, Carnegie Hall. Helen Boatwright, Richard
Shadley, Douglas Hill; Yale Glee Club; American Symphony
Orchestra.
Parker, Louise.
Mahler, Gustav. Symphony, no,. 2, C minor. 1971/IV/6 (New York, Philharmonic Hall). Janette Moody; Westminster Choir; American Symphony Orchestra.
Still, William Grant.
Afro-American symphony: III, Scherzo. 1940/XI/13, Matrix XCO 29250. 78rpm: Columbia 11992-D (1994). LP: LSSA 6. Also performed on tour 1938.
Still, William Grant.
Ebon chronicle. 1936. Philadelphia Orchestra.
Still, William Grant.
Plainchant for America. 1942/III. James Pease, baritone; Philadelphia Orchestra.
Still, William Grant.
Symphony, no. 2, G minor. 1937/XII/10, 11, 14. Philadelphia Orchestra.
Still, William Grant.
Fanfare for the 99th Fighter Squadron. 1945/VII/25 (Hollywood Bowl). Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Tyler, Veronica.
Mahler, Gustav. Symphony, no. 2, C minor.
1967/XI/3. Philadelphia Orchestra; Maria Lucia Godoy; Singing City
Choirs. CD: Memories 4495/97, Arkadia CDG1 749, LSCD 26.
Tyler, Veronica.
Bach, Johann Sebastian. Magnificat, S. 243: Et exultavit spiritus meus. Quia respexit humilitatem. Mahler, Gustav. Symphony, no. 2, C minor.
1967/XII/3 (Philadelphia, Academy of Music). Maria Lucia Godoy;
Singing City Chorus; Philadelphia Orchestra. CD: Memories HR 4495/97,
Arkadia CDG1 749.1, JLSS LSCD 26.
Verrett, Shirley.
Falla y Matheu, Manuel de. El amor brujo.
1960/II/12 (Philadelphia, Academy of Music). Philadelphia Orchestra.
LP: JLSS 0001/2, Longanesi/I grandi concerti GCL 61, Columbia
MS 6147, Columbia Y 32368, CBS (UK) 61288, Columbia 5479, CBS SOCO 108,
CBS 30AC330/1, Columbia OS 158, Columbia RL 171, RR 309, CD:
CBS MPK 46449, CBS SBK 89291, Sony 64340.
Watts, André.
MacDowell, Edward. Concerto, piano, no. 1, op. 23, D minor. 1966/XI/20 (New York, Carnegie Hall).
Williams, Camilla.
Mahler, Gustav. Symphony, no. 8.
1950/IV/4 or 9 (New York, Carnegie Hall). Carlos Alexander, Louise
Bernhardt, Eugene Conley, Frances Yeend, Martha Lipton, George
London, Uta Graf; Boys Choir from P.S. no. 12; Westminster Choir; Schola
Cantorum; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York. LP: OTA
SAT 6, JLSS 0006/8, Penzance PR 19. CD: Music & Arts
CD-280 [date error 1950/IV/6], Arkadia CDG1 761.1, NYP 9801/12, Arkadia
78586, Archipel ARPCD 0108, Quadromania 222124-444,
Music & Arts CD-1130.
Winters [Whinsonant], Lawrence. Anne Brown.
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Symphony, no. 9, op. 125, D minor.
1941.XI/11 (New York, Cosmopolitan Opera). William Horne, Winifred
Heidt, Westminster Choir; NBC Symphony
Orchestra.
Winters [Whinsonant], Lawrence. Louise Burge. Eva Jessye Choir.
Still, William Grant. And they lynched him on a tree.
1942/IV/14 (New York, NBC Studio 8-H, broadcast [Rodzinski had been
hesitant to program the work, as NBC was in broadcasting it] ).
Collegiate Choir.
NOTABLE PREMIÈRES AND REPERTOIRE
[He conducted an estimated 2,000 works not previously performed. Works by Dawson, Key, and Still are listed above.]
Beach, Amy. Gaelic symphony (1915/III/12,13)
Beach, Amy. Symphony, E minor (1919/I/7)
Berg, Alban. Wozzeck (1931/XI/24)
Berg, Alban. Wozzeck [excerpts] (1920/XI/7, 8)
Chávez, Carlos. Horsepower (1932/III/31)
Cowell, Henry. Synchrony (1932/IV/1, 2)
Garcia Caturla, Alejando. 2 Cuban dances (1932/I/1, 2)
Gramatte, Sonia. Elegy, Danse moracaine, and Konzertstuck (1929/XI/1, 2)
Howe, Mary. Sand (1934)
Ives, Charles. Symphony, no. 4 (1965)
Levidis, Dimitros. Poem for electrical instrument [martenot] (1920/XII/19, 20)
McColin, Frances. Adagio (1933)
Milhaud, Darius. Concerto, percussion. (1931/I/1, 2)
Mosslov, Alexandr. Iron foundry, op. 19 (1931/X/31)
Mussorgskiĭ, Modest. Boris Godunov (1929)
Pickhardt, Ione. Mountains (1933)
Powell, John [not a Black composer]. Negro rhapsody (1923/III)
Powell, John. 3 Virginia country dances (1932/IV/1, 2)
Prokofiev, Serge. Pas d'acier (1931)
Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini (1934)
Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Symphony, no. 3 (1936)
Rachmaninoff. Sergei. Concerto, piano, no. 4 (1934)
Schönberg, Arnold. Concerto, piano (1944)
Schönberg, Arnold. Concerto, violin (1940)
Schönberg, Arnold. Die glückliche Hand (1930)
Schönberg, Arnold. Guerrelieder (1932./IV/8, 9, 20)
Schönberg, Arnold. Pierrot lunaire (1932)
Shilkret, Nathaniel. Concerto, trombone (1945, Tommy Dorsey, trombone)
Sibelius, Jean. Symphony, no. 4 (1932)
Sibelius, Jean. Symphony, no. 5 (1921)
Sibelius, Jean. Symphony, no. 6 (1926)
Sibelius, Jean. Symphony, no. 7 (1926)
Stravinky, Igor. Le sacre du rpintemps (1922); as ballet with Martha Graham (1930)
Stravinsky, Igor. Oedpius rex (1931)
Varèse, Edgard. Ameriques (1926)
Varèse, Edgard. Arcanes (1927/IV/8, 9)
Varèse, Edgard. Hyperprism (1924/XI/7, 8)
Villa-Lobos, Heitor. African dances (1928/XI/23, 24)
Webern, Anton. Passacaglia (1927/III/4, 5)
Webern, Anton. Symphony, no. 1 (1931/X/31)
Because of disputes with management, aired in the press for two years,
and despite its yielding to all of his requests, Stokowski began giving
more of the podium to his assistant, Eugene Ormandy from 1936 to 1941,
who was still under contract in Minneapolis. Stokowski announced his
resignation on 2 January 1938, but had been granted permission to take
the orchestra on a 35-day tour in 1938, financed by RCA Victor, to 33
concerts in 27 cities, from Boston to Toronto, from Holdredge NE to San
Francisco, and he agreed to give 20 concerts as co-conductor. Since
1932 he had rented a studio and apartment from the Philadelphia Art
Alliance at 1716 Rittenhouse Street, but moved to Hollywood in 1936,
living then in Beverly Hills, at 9330 Beverly Crest Drive (which sold in
2006 for $7,450,000).
In December of
1937, Evangeline Johnson filed suit for divorce from Stokowski,
desiring a more stable home life for their daughters. Stokowski denied
the charge of "extreme cruelty" but did not contest the suit. His
name had linked romantically to Greta Garbo [1905-1990, née Greta
Lovisa Gustafsson] and several cryptic telegrams in the Stokowski
Papers allude to her career, quite apart from their vacation time
together on Capri in March 1938.
His cinema career began in 1937 when he appeared in The big broadcast of 1937 [https://vimeo.com/1008B02411; conducting Ein' feste Burg at 1:44:25, followed immediately by the "little" G minor fugue, 1:09:00 to 1:12:09, both arranged by Stokowski], and in One hundred men and a girl
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfcFMv8DWAc; Chaikovskiĭ, Symphony,
no. 5, extract of fourth movement, and Libiamo from La traviata
(arranged), with Deanna Durbin, soprano, to 8:42].
Meetings
regarding plans for an animated feature with a classical music score
took place in Walt Disney's studio in 1938. On 25 January 1939 Stokowski
enthusiastically signed a contract (originally without a fee) with Walt
Disney for Fantasia, appearing in and conducting for what would
become Walt Disney's Fantasia, a largely animated concert that at first
was to have been limited to Paul Dukas' L'apprenti et les sorcier
-- an effort to regain Mickey Mouse's popularity -- but was enlarged to
become a full-length feature film. The music was recorded with the
Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on
3-7April 1939 (but for the Dukas, recorded at the Culver Studios) and
the film opened on 11 or 13 November 1940 at New York's Broadway Theater
(proceeds went to the British War Relief), running for 109 weeks, and
Pittsburgh's Fulton Theater, Boston's Majestic, San Francisco's Geary,
Cleveland's Hanna, Chicago's Apollo, and halls in Philadelphia, Detroit,
Minneapolis, Washington, Buffalo, and Baltimore), all of which had to
be fitted for stereophony. It was originally not financially successful
because the war eliminated European markets, but has since been
reissued several times, in different formats, and even with a new sound
track. Before the final repertoire was selected, consideration was given
to Stravinsky's L'oiseau de feu, Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor and Troika, Paganini's Moto perpetuo, Debussy's La mer, Mussorgsky's Song of the flea (sung by Lawrence Tibbett) and Pictures at an exhibition, Carpenter's Adventures in a peramulator, Don Quixote by Strauß, Debussy's Clair de lune, and the opening of the third act of Die Walküre by Wagner .
1) Narration by Deems Taylor
2) Toccata and fugue, BWV 565, G minor (Bach, arr. by Stokowski)
3) Nutcracker (Chaikovskiĭ, extracts)
4) L'apprenti et le sorcier (Dukas, after Die Zauberlehrling
by Goethe, 1797) [A sampling appears 7:29-7:55 on The best soundtracks
in film, at
http://www.musicme.com/#/The-Philadelphia-Orchestra-Leopold-Stokowski/Videos/7.html?res=vidweb,
the 85-piece orchestra was selected by Stokowski from Hollywood
instrumentalists.
5) Le sacre du printemps (Stravinsky; abridged) [The composer subsequently objected to its use].
6) Intermission
7) Symphony, no. 6, op. 68 (Beethoven, abridged to 22 minutes)
8) Danza delle ore (from La gioconda, by Ponchielli)
9) Nuit sur le Mont Chauve (Mussorgskiĭ, arr. by Stokowski)
10) Ave Maria (Schubert, arr. by Stokowski)
Other films in which Stokowski appeared include Carnegie Hall
(1947), with Walter Damrorch, Jascha Heifetz, Harry James, Vaughn
Monroe, Jan Peerce, Gregor Piatigorsky, Lily Pons, Fritz Reiner, Artur
Rodzinaki, Artur Rubinstein, Risë Stevens, and Bruno Walter (on VHS
cassette from Bel Canto Society and on DVD [K 199] from Kino Video), a
concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1962 with his
arrangement of the Toccata and fugue in G minor of Bach, Brahms' Haydn variations and the Capriccio espagnole of Rimsky-Korsakov (VHS VAI 69603), and within The art of conducting (BBC/IMG Artists Production VHS 4509-95038-3 and Telearc DVD 0927 42667 2).
Stokowski organized a concert in 1939 to benefit the Hollywood
Committee for Polish Relief. In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia
Committee for Polish Relief was chaired by Stokowski's friend, Mary
Louise Curtis Bok ( Evening Bulletin, 6 Dec. 1939).
Already
in 1920, music by Black composers began to appear on Stokowski's
programs, in this instance Listen to the lambs by R. Nathaniel Dett
(1882-1943), performed 25 March 1920 at the national meeting in
Philadelphia of the Music Supervisors Conference, although conducted by
Peter Lukin, then music dean at Northwestern University. On either side
of Christmas 1925, he engaged Roland Hayes to perform unidentified
spirituals with the Philadelphia Orchestra, assuring the tenor that he
sought to provide performances of works by Black composers. Stokowski's
first performance of a work by a Black composer was in 1937, with
Still's second symphony (Stokowski and the Stills had met each other
before 1942, when their daughter, Judith Anne Still, had been born and
when Still wrote Those who wait, for Stokowski). The performances of
Still's And they lynched him on a tree and Plain chant for America both
were performed in 1942 during World War II, very possibly in an effort
to unite Americans. The performance of Plainchant for America was
broadcast on 14 and 20 March 1942 (In a similar gesture, less than a
month before Pearl Harbor, he engaged Anne Brown -- fresh from the
première of Porgy and Bess -- and Lawrence Wisonant -- not yet known as
Winters -- to be soloists in the Beethoven ninth with the NBC Symphony
Orchestra). The baritone soloist in Plainchant was James Pease
(1916-1967), whose diction Carl Van Vcchten found to be "very poor" in a
letter to Verna Arvey, 29 March 1943 (CVV013,Duke University
Library). A soloist in the former work was Rosa Louise Burge
(1908-1986). In a letter to Alain Locke (SL026, Duke University
Library) of 19 November 1944, Still stated he disliked her musically and
personally and had not approved of her performance of And they lynched
him on a tree, further that at a meeting with him and Stokowski, she had
offended them both.
As late as about 1971, when he was guest conductor with the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra, he met T. J. Anderson, then composer-in-residence.
After examining some of Dr. Anderson's scores, he expressed an interest
in providing a performance of one but, he explained, his repertoire had
been fixed for the next five years. Stokowski was then 89 years old.
In 1938, William Grant Still wrote to Stokowski regarding his opera, just completed, Troubled island:
"This opera is the dream of my life, and no one but you thought it
worth hearing." It had been twice submitted to the Metropolitan Opera
for possible production. The response: "in advising you that, to our
regret, we do not see our way to accept this work, we should like to
point out that this conclusion should be in no way be taken as implying
any criticism as to the artistic merit of the work." The hope for
production of this opera seemed not to be in vain when the New York City
Symphony Orchestra was established at the City Center. It was in an
interest in establishing an orchestra for middle-class workers (in
contrast to the Philharmonic's more seasoned and often wealthier
audiences) New York Mayor Fiorello Enrico La Guardia (1882-1947) secured
Stokowski's aid in 1944 in forming the New York City Symphony
Orchestra. With admission at a modest cost, the concerts were so
successful that some were standing room only.
[La Guardia, of Italian-Jewish parentage, was in office from
1934-1945. Although a Republican, he strongly supported Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and had socialist inclinations (pro-labor and immigration,
e.g.) When his opponent accused La Guardia of being anti-Semitic, La
Guardia offered a public debate in Yiddish, and won the election. He
fought the gangsters who had defamed Italian-Americans and closed New
York's bawdy burlesque theaters. When an impoverished lady was fined
$10 for stealing a loaf of bread, La Guardia supposedly stated "I'm
fining everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a city where
a person has to steal bread in order to eat!," collecting $47,50. A
lover of music, he was a member of the music fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha.
An amateur conductor, he established the High School of Music and Art in
1936, now named for him.]
Stokowski was interested in the production of Troubled island.
A fund was established to support the presentation of this previously
unheard work, provided by La Guardia, Newbold Morris (president of the
New York City Council), Eleanor Roosevelt (honorary chair), and
others. Stokowski, to whom Troubled island was dedicated,
shared his enthusiasm with Laszlo Halasz (who conducted the work when
Stokowski moved to California) and producer Eugene Bryden was convinced
it would be exceptionally well received. The composer was confident of
the work's success and he anticipated a significant change in his life.
The sordid details regarding the fate of Troubled island is recounted
-- intrigue by the music critics before the production not to support
this work by a "colored boy" -- along with a rich panorama of the Harlem
Renaissance, in Just tell the story, by Judith Anne Still and Lisa M.
Headlee (Flagstaff: The Master-Player Library, 2006, ISBN 1-877873-02-0.
Stokowski and critic Howard Taubman both had become aware of the
critics' projected a priori reception and alerted the composer. The
words of the critics carried more weight in the end, unfortunately, than
the response of the audience, who called for 22 curtain calls at the
premère (see http://wikipedia.org/Troubled_Island). Carl Van Vechten
nevertheless wrote Still on 1 April 1949 [CVS016, Duke University
Library] that the libretto would have been "better served with a more
favorable direction."
It
was not to be conducted by Stokowski, but by Halasz. For a time there
was consideration of having Alexander Smallens conduct Troubled island, probably only on the basis that he had conducted Porgy and Bess,
but the implication disturbed Still, who saw no relationship between
his opera and that of Gershwin. When the board wished to reduce the
budget for the second season Stokowski objected and resigned, moving to
California where he founded the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra,
leaving behind plans to première Troubled island, which the
composer had dedicated to Stokowski. As for the New York City Symphony,
Stokowski was followed by 34-year old Leonard Bernstein
The Department of State distributed a recording for broadcast of the
dress rehearsal on the Voice of America, but this was judged technically
blemished. Plans for a tour were dropped and funds for the production
were returned to the donors. The opera was not heard again, but for its
60th anniversary at the Schomburg Center. The staging by South Shore
Opera Company of Chicago, despite lacking Still's distinct orchestral
colors, offered proof of the need for a major production. In1945
Stokowski stated that "Still is one of our greatest American
composers. He has made a real contribution to music" (Baltimore
Afro-American 1945./V/21). Still offered his appreciation for
Stokowski's interest in a letter of 27 November 1948, but asked that his
scores from prior to 1926, from his "growing period," not be
considered. He was pleased with Stokowski's performance of the Afro-American symphony
(Rudolph Dunbar this was the work Gershwin had wanted to write but
never did). Stokowski replied ": I think it would be good for the
public to realize how great is your achievement, and that while you are
in every way an American, you are of African origin and that your music
is a fusing of African ancestral power in you with your American birth
and environment ... How mysterious and yet how definite is this source.
It is strange how many people seem to be so far away from it and not to
have any contact with it." In 1952, Still wrote Stokowski, "I'm very
glad that I did not become discouraged over the many things that
happened after Troubled island was presented in 1949 -- since then I
have finished two new operas. One [Costaso] has a colorful Western
setting and is an expression of faith. The other [Mota] is set in
Africa, with native choruses, and so on ... I think I learned a great
deal from seeing Troubled island staged and hope that it (this new
knowledge) will be evident whenever the new operas are done." Neither
work has yet been produced.
Throughout
his career Stokowski showed a strong interest in young musicians, both
women and men. He auditioned thousands of them and kept his notated
comments. (A violinist who auditioned told me that after playing cited
passages from the Chaikovskiĭ fourth symphony, Stokowski closed the
music and ask the violinist in what key was the work. "I think it was
minor," was the reply. He was not called back).
It is also revealing to recall the rehearsal of the that same work in
Miami, 1955. Toward the end of the first movement, Stokowski held the
orchestra on the D-flat in the final statement of the initial theme
before moving directly into to the next measure. The first flutist,
seated immediately in from the Stokowski, was alone in stubbornly
holding on to the D-flat, and then asked, with pencil ready to mark his
part accordingly, "Maestro, are you not going to give the third beat?"
Stokowski leaned forward, asking "Are you a professor?"
In 1940, his contractual affiliation in Philadelphia now ended, he
founded the All-American Youth Orchestra, the 90 members were between
the ages of 18 and 25, one-fifth were women. This came about not only
to offer a contrast to current Nazi propaganda about Hitler's youth, but
in reaction to the refusal of RCA's David Sarnoff to sponsor a South
American tour conducted by Stokowski, yet funded one with Toscanini.
Stokowski then signed with William Paley of RCA's rival, Columbia, to
record works that RCA had wanted him to record with his new orchestra.
The 15,000 applicants went through a network of audition levels, ending
with an ensemble of about 100 instrumentalists (including a few from the
Philadelphia Orchestra). He commented "I would not exchange this
orchestra for any other orchestra in the world. These young people are
phenomenal. Technically they are the equals of any musicians. And they
have the enthusiasm of youth. They are so sensitive, so quick. With them
the playing of music is not just a job. They have a love for it."
Plans for a tour of Latin America had been formulated by February of
1940, when Stokowski wrote Eleanor Roosevelt for her blessings in the
venture. With at least some of the funding coming partly from
Stokowski, the orchestra visited Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de
Janeiro, Montevideo, July during the summer of 1940 just as Toscanini
and the NBC Orchestra had returned. In 1941 they toured fifty-four U.S.
cities, Canada, and Tijuana Mexico, finding time for several recording
sessions. With the U.S. entry into the Second World War the orchestra
was disbanded [a roster would identify many who later had major
careers].
Following are among available recordings of the orchestra:
Music & Arts CD 841
Dvořák: Symphony, no. 9, E minor
Sibelius: Symphony, no,. 7, op. 105
Ravel: Boléro
Music & Arts CD 845
Brahms: Symphony, no. 4, E minor, op. 98
Strauß: Tod und Verklärung
Music & Arts CD 857
Beethoven: Symphony, no. 5, C minor, op. 68
Brahms: Symphony, no. 1, op,. 68, C minor
Naxos Historical 8.112019
Bach-Stokowski: Transcriptions
Columbia LP: M-432, AM-432, MM-432, MM 432
Chaikovskii: Symphony, no. 6, B minor
Leopold Stokowski Society of America LSSA-6
Sibelius: Symphony, no. 7, op. 107, C major
Schumann-Stokowski: Kinderscenen, op. 15: Träumerei
Cowell: Tales of our countryside
Creston: Symphony, no. 1, op. 20: Scherzo
Gould: Latin-American symphonette, no. 4: Guaracha
Still: Symphony, no. 1: Scherzo
From 1941 to 1944, Stokowski was conductor of the NBC Symphony
Orchestra, an ensemble created for Arturo Toscanini (roster available at
http://www.oocities.org/vienna/strasse/1937/nbcplayers.html), whose
approach to music was very distanced from that of Stokowski. Whereas
the latter continued the 19th-century tradition of lushly sonorous and
individualistically creative conducting, Toscanini's intent was faithful
respect for the exact notations of the composer. There could hardly
have been a greater contrast on the podium. Toscanini stated there were
three great assassins: Hitler, Mussolini, and Stokowski. Toscanni's
leave was due to a management conflict, during which time he was guest
conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Whereas Toscanini's repertoire
was limited to a few composers, Stokowski led the NBC Orchestra into
new works by Prokofiev, Schönberg (much to Toscanini's disgust -- this
was after all his orchestra), Antheil, Hindemith, Stravinsky,
Holst, and Vaughan Williams. Stokowski's adventurous programming gave
far more emphasis to American-born composers, a political statement
balanced by Toscanini's facing the audience, leading them in singing The star spangled banner.
Toscanini in 1942 made reference to "that orrible man and dishonest
artist. I cannot look at his stupid face without shuddering."
Toscanini returned to the NBC orchestra in the spring of 1942 when
accepting an invitation from the U.S. to conduct a series of benefit
concerts for the war effort. This led to a bitter disagreement over
which conductor would give the American première of the seventh symphony
of Shostakovitch. When Toscanini was selected, Stokowski was incensed
and severed all relationships with the NBC orchestra.
Under Alfred Wallenstein's direction, the orchestra comprised of
members from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but while retaining some of
the key players, Stokowski auditioned younger instrumentalists from the
film studio orchestras. The 24th season began with 11,000 in the
audience. Seated in the front row were Stokowski's bride, Gloria
Vanderbilt, along with Lana Turner, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Chaplin, and
Mr. and Mrs. Edward G. Robinson. The repertoire for his two summers at
the Hollywood Bowl included notice of music by composers mostly active
for the cinema, the première of George Antheil's Heroes of today,
Nathaniel Shilkret's trombone concerto with Hoyt Bohannon as soloist
(Stokowski had previously given the première in New York with Tommy
Dorsey), and Virgil Thomson's film music, The plow that broke the plains.
In April of 1945 Stokowski married Gloria Vanderbilt (1924-) in
Mexacali, Mexico . She had just emerged from an abusive first marriage
to Pat di Cicco (1909-1978, film producer) The family had been aware of
Stokowski since his days as organist at St. Bartholomew's. They had two
sons, Leopold Stanislaus, born 22 August 1950 (who became a respected
landscape gardener) and Christopher, born 31 January 1952 (a recluse,
living under an assumed name since the 1970s). She was photographed with
their two sons while Stokowski was busy rehearsing the University of
Miami Symphony Orchestra. He took exception to this paparazzo invasion
of privacy and received a published apology. (Yet another contretemps
came when Stokowski heard the announcer prelude the broadcast of his
second Miami concert, saying the conductor was born in 1882 and that he
had an Irish mother. Stokowski denied both comments, interrupting the
announcer and terminating the projected broadcast.) This marriage too
ended in divorce after 10 years. People who knew Stokowski at this time,
including his biographer Oliver Daniel and secretary Wendy Hanson,
spoke of his strong attachment to his sons, his need to be involved in
their lives, and his desire for their well being during a difficult
divorce and custody suit (In 1967, Gloria Vanderbilt was to become the
mother of Anderson Hays Cooper, news reporter for CNN).
His
next appointment came in 1946 as principal guest conductor of the New
York Philharmonic, prompting the resignation of Artur Rodzinski. This
included conducting the orchestra's summer activities, then known as the
New York Stadium Symphony Orchestra, with still more additions to his
discography: Billy the kid (Copland), The white peacock
(Griffes), and works by Khachaturian, Messiaen, Ippolitov-Ivanov,
Sibelius, Schönberg, Vaughn Williams, Chaikovskiĭ, Mozart, and Wagner.
When the Philharmonic appointed Dimitri Mitropolous as its chief
conductor in 1950, Stokowski set out on a 20-year series of tour
engagements: the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (a 1951 tour of Britain on
the invitation of Sir Thomas Beecham), the Philharmonia, Berlin
Philharmoniker, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Netherlands' Radio
Filharmonisch Orkest (Hilversum), Orchestre National de France, Česká
Filharmonie, and yet other orchestras in Austria, Denmark, and
Portugal. In the winters, when he remained active in the United
States, he made his first stereo recordings in 1954 with the NBC
Symphony Orchestra and from 1947 to 1953 recorded with His Symphony
Orchestra, a unit consisting mainly of members of the NBC and
Philharmonic orchestras. He returned to the NBC Symphony Orchestra in
1954 now without NBC affiliation and known as the Symphony of the Air.
The Contemporary Music Society was founded in 1952 by John Coburn
Turner, Oliver Daniel, and Leopold Stokowski, among others. Stokowski
conducted a concert under its auspices on 22 February 1953 at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York performing Charles Ives' The unanswered question, Halsey Stevens' Suite No. 1, Henry Brant's Signs and alarms, Lou Harrison's Canticle No. 3, Peggy Glanville-Hicks' Letters from Morocco, and Jacob Avshalomov's Evocations.
Ima Hogg (1882-197), philanthropist and daughter of the Texas
governor, chaired the board of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. She
contacted Stokowski's manager at the time about his availability to
move to Houston in 1955. Schulhof urged Stokowski to accept the
position, following Efrem Kurz' dismissal. Announcing that he was
going to establish an orchestra in "Hooston," he ignored a history that
began in 1913. The citizens were uncomfortable when he expressed an
interest in meeting a "real" cowboy as they were attempting a more
sophisticated and cosmopolitan public image. The idea of building
another orchestra appealed to Stokowski and he hoped to be able to raise
his sons in Texas. As he had with earlier orchestras he refined the
sound, premiered contemporary works and recorded extensively with EMI
and Everest. The first racial problem arose almost immediately in 1956.
when the Board of Directors denied Stokowski's request to engage double
bassist Benjamin Patterson (b. 1934), a graduate of the University of
Michigan. Following Houston's refusal because of race, Patterson left
the United States to become principal bassist with the Halifax Symphony
Orchestra, then for two years with the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra,
stationed in Stuttgart, remaining in Germany following his discharge.
He resigned this post in 1961 with a second racial matter: The board
refused to engage Stokowski's selection, mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett
(1931-2010), as soloist. A graduate of Houston's HBCU Southern
University, she was to appear in Schönberg's Gurrelieder. Two White
choral groups refused to perform with her on the same stage. This took
place The event took place early in Verrett's career. Although she did
not make her debut with the Metropolitan Opera until 1968 (as Carmen), she had appeared with the New York City Opera in 1958 as Irina in Kurt Weill's Lost in the stars and in Cologne in 1959 in Nabokov's Rasputins Tod.
Stokowski was not fully informed of the matter at first, but he saw
to it that it was publicized nationally -- he openly labelled as racist
-- causing the orchestra substantial embarrassment as he offered his
resignation.
After
his 1958 tour of the Soviet Union, paying ten concerts with three
different Russian orchestra, he was invited by Eugene Ormandy to return
to Philadelphia on 12 February 1959 to guest conduct the Philadelphia
Orchestra at the Academy of Music. He took this occasion to make amends
with Verrett, who was engaged as soloist Falla's El amor brujo (reissued on Sony CD64340 in 2011 and CD 197115 in 2012). The remainder of the program consisted of Mozart's overture to Le nozze di Figaro, Respighi's I pini di Roma, and Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5.
The audience gave him an enthusiastic standing ovation, welcoming him
back after nearly twenty years absence. He was pleased, saying the
orchestra was the same as he had left it.
In 1960, Following the sudden death of Dimitri Mitropoulous in November
1960, Rudolf Bing of the Metropolitan Opera invited Leopold Stokowski
to conduct the Opera's upcoming performance of Puccini's Turandot, scheduled for 24 February 1961, cast with Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, and Anna Moffo.
A few days before the end of December, Stokowski fell and broke his hip
while playing with his sons. Although he was in pain during rehearsals
and used crutches to enter the orchestra pit, the performance was highly
praised by the critics, despite errors in the brass section entrances,
attributed to their inability to see the baton-less conducting. This
was one of his infrequent appearances in the opera house. A
performance at Philadelphia's Metropolitan Opera House followed on 22
March.
Stokowski opened the 1961 Edinburgh Festival in August with a performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union.
The next year, now 80, he founded the American Symphony Orchestra in
New York City in 1962. As he had done with the All-American Youth
Orchestra, Stokowski auditioned and hired young musicians, many of them
women and minorities, to play alongside a few seasoned hands. He
conducted this orchestra without pay and personally cared for some of
its deficits. With this orchestra and the Schola Cantorum of New York
and the Gregg Smith Singers in Carnegie Hall on 26 April 1965, at age
83, he gave the world première of the fourth symphony by Charles Ives, a
long-held desire (the finale, Largo maestoso is on the internet at
https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT3ksJ94QSU [duration: 8:24], filmed for
telecast). This involved two months of rehearsals, three conductors,
and special funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. The recording
followed shortly thereafter (Columbia LP MS 6775, CD reissue of 2007 on
Sony Masterworks MPK 46726). Cellist Janet Frank recalled experiences
from this time in "When maestros were maestros"
(https://theamericanscholar.org/when-maestros-weremaestros): Members of
the American Symphony Orchestra for Ives' Robert Browning overture met
at midnight at the Manhattan Studios (accommodating the various
schedules of students and freelancers, among whom were concertmaster
Murray Adler, violinist James Carter, cellists Barbara Reisman and
Charlotte Moorman (later arrested for performing bare-breasted),
clarinettist Joe Rabbai, hornist Tony Miranda, and timpanist Elaine
Jones. "Orchestras can be like military units," she comments, "but
Stokowski's approach was to invite, not command. He was more like a
mentor than a general." After one rehearsal he organized a softball
game in Central Park's Sheep Meadow, near the Tavern on the Green.
Stokowski, immaculately dressed as always, wore a" proper afternoon suit
with tie,"threw out the first ball and served as umpire. The women's
team were dubbed "Beethoven's Bunnies," and the men "Wolf's Gang." She
remembered he would arrive, chauffeur-driven from his Fifth Avenue
apartment, just south of the Guggenheim, in a 1920 or early 1930
Packard, always arriving a half-hour early and noting which of the
musicians were already practicing. At one point he temporarily
advocated the use of a "vertical viola," played like a cello. When the
American Symphony Orchestra performed the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an exhibition
at a children's concert (usually conducted by Joseph Egger or David
Katz), the music was accompanied by slides projected on Carnegie Hall's
wall (perhaps selected by Stokowski?). To illustrate the Ballet of
chicks in their shells, swimming sperm cells were projected, gales of
laughter were forthcoming from those from the Bronx School of Science,
all on the front row.
(Personal note: It was during this period I was a guest of Michael P.
Hammond (1932-2002), then dean of the State University of New
York-Purchase (1968-1977), then president to 1980, dean of Rice
University's Shepherd School of Music (1981-2001), unanimously appointed
head of the National Endowments (he died at the end of his first week
in Washington). A long drive down a tree-lined street ended with
arrival at a large informal residence. On entering, I noted the door
mat that read "The Stokowskis" -- Michael had been associate conductor
to Stokowski of the American Symphony Orchestra and, after Stokie
returned to England in May 1972, Michael moved into the home. Our paths
would cross again in 2001 when I was on the search and screen committee
to find a replacement for Robert Dodson, who had moved to Oberlin. I
had the pleasure of welcoming Michael back to his undergraduate alma
mater, but he left Rice for the National Endowments. The replacement
for Dean Dobson was an enormously gross administrative blunder (not
noticed as much by the students as by the faculty), whose total
ineptness was finally corrected with the appointment of Dean Brian
Pertl, former ethnomusicologist for Microsoft).
On
1 May 1972, a few weeks after Stokowski had celebrated his 90th
birthday, he submitted his resignation to the Board of Directors of the
American Symphony Orchestra. He was moving back to England where he had
contacts in the recording industry at London-Decca and where he could
continue to guest conduct the London Symphony Orchestra.
Some members of these early groups followed Stokowski throughout his
career. Among these were Natalie Myra Bender, who worked as Stokowski's
assistant and sometime copyist for many years, and Natalie's friend Faye
Chabrow, particularly after 1955. She and his Jack Baumgarten took care
of his household and assisted with his affairs until the time of his
death. In an interview Oliver Daniel conducted with Bender (5 June 1979)
she discusses Stokowski's response to the murder of Martin Luther King,
Jr. and the anti-war demonstrators at Ken State University.
He bought an old farmhouse in Nether Wallop in central Hampshire and
made plans for its renovations, but in 1975 he was in the process of
building a house near St. Paul de Vence on the Riviera in France, which
Stokowski named Con Brio. There he met Marc Chagall and admired
Matisse's chapel. The house was completed in 1976 and Stokowski spent
time in France whenever he was not working on recordings in England..
In August 1973, he was invited by the International
Festival of Youth Orchestras to conduct the International Festival
Orchestra, numbering 140 of the world's finest young musicians, in a
performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall,
London. He gave his last première in 1973 when, at the age of 91, he
conducted Havergal Brian's
28th Symphony in a BBC radio broadcast with the New Philharmonia
Orchestra. This last appearance in England was with that orchestra at
the Royal Albert Hall on 14 May 1974 when he conducted a memorial
tribute to conductor Otto Klemperer (1885-1973).
His very last public appearance took place during the 1975 Vence Music
Festival in southern France, when, on 22 July 1975, he conducted the
Rouen Chamber Orchestra in several of his Bach transcriptions.
Stokowski continued to make recordings even after he had retired from
the concert platform, mainly with the National Philharmonic, another 'ad
hoc' orchestra made up of first-desk players chosen from the main
London orchestras. In 1976, he signed a recording contract with CBS
Records that would have kept him active until he was 100 years old (he
made 20 recordings during his last five years). He was preparing to
record the second symphony of Rachmaninoff with the National
Philharmonic when, on 13 September 1977, he died of a heart attack in Nether Wallop, Hampshire.
He was buried in a private ceremony. at in the Marylebone Cemetery in
London, the eulogy delivered by his friend, former Prime Minister Edward
Heath. His materials are held by the University of Pennsylvania and are
particularly reveal Stokowski's interest in electric instruments and
his plans to start an electric orchestra in California in 1938 and 1939.
Included in Stokowski's notes on this project are lists of
instrumentation, programs, repertoire, and budgets for the orchestra,
which he hoped would be able to rehearse and perform at the University
of California-Berkeley. He was also intensely interested in the
relationship between color and sound and his correspondence with his
attorney in Philadelphia, Joseph Sharfsin, includes a drawing for a
trademark "COLORHYTHM" with Stokowski's instructions to register the
trademark.
Although Stokowski's
collection of scores and transcriptions (University of Pennsylvania's
Kislak Collection of Rare Books and Manuscrits Ms. Coll. 350 and Ms.
Coll. 351) was safely preserved, some of his personal papers and effects
were reportedly lost from the deck of a ship while being sent from
England to the United States. The papers in the Pennsylvania collection
come from four sources: 1) correspondence and notes laid into
Stokowski's scores plus a few other items, including awards and
memorabilia; 2) donations from individuals with whom he corresponded,
notably Sylvan Levin, Edna Phillips, and Boris Koutzen; 3) Stokowskiana
collected by The Curtis Institute of Music, added in 1997 and 1999; and
4) materials discovered in a trap door to the side of the firebox in the
living room of the home Stokowski built in 1937 at 9330 Beverly Crest
Drive, Beverly Hills, California. This last group of papers, donated
to the University of Pennsylvania in July 1999 by the owner of the
house, Stephan Simon, comprises incoming correspondence; carbon copies
of Stokowski's outgoing correspondence; a few photographs; his notes on
plans to form an electric orchestra; notes on housekeeping, employees,
and gardening; bank statements; royalty statements; insurance records;
and contracts. These date from ca. 1937-1946, (although some of the
contracts are as early as 1925), including recording contracts with the
Victor Talking Machine Company (1929, 1930) and RCA Victor (1935,
1937-1940). His executor, Herman Muller, sought to place the collection
of Stokowski's music in an institution where it would be accessible to
students and scholars. The Curtis Institute of Music received the
collection on 8 May 1979. Shortly afterwards, in the fall of 1980,
Curtis accepted the donation of Robert L. Gatewood's collection of
Stokowski recordings and Gatewood's work on a comprehensive Stokowski
discography (cataloged separately as Ms. Coll. 383). Other individuals
made smaller donations of letters, memorabilia, photographs, and
paintings of Stokowski to the Stokowski Collection at the Curtis
Institute. In 1997 the Trustees of the Curtis Institute of Music decided
to donate these scores and papers to the University of Pennsylvania,
which holds the scores and papers of Philadelphia Orchestra conductor
Eugene Ormandy and the scores and papers of contralto Marian Anderson.
Since their arrival there, they have been augmented by additional
donations including the Oliver Daniel Research Collection on Leopold
Stokowski comprised of research materials for Daniel's 1982 biography
(Ms. Coll. 382). Although the amount of original correspondence the
Leopold Stokowski Papers is small, some of it is of great interest.
Included is a typed letter to Curtis Bok dated 29 July 1941 following
Stokowski's final break with the Philadelphia Orchestra in which
Stokowski is supportive of the Orchestra, and therefore keeping his
silence about the politics surrounding it. Stokowski, always forward
looking, writes excitedly about his new venture, the All-American Youth
Orchestra. The letter is signed "Prince," Stokowski's nickname in the
Bok family. Stokowski wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt in February 1940 to
gain her support and interest in the South American tour he was planning
with the All-American Youth Orchestra. The most extensive
correspondence in the collection are Stokowski's letters to his
assistant conductor, Sylvan Levin, from 1929-1953, comprising over 100
items discussing details of management and rehearsals for the
Philadelphia Orchestra; the preparation for Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex;
and notes on singers and instrumentalists. Stowkowski's letters to
Robert Gordon Sproul, president of the University of California,
Berkeley, detail his plans to form an Electric Symphony Orchestra and
his plans to rehearse and perform on the Berkeley campus in 1938. There
is an autograph letter from Eugene Ormandy, dated 1 June 1937 regarding
Stokowski's plans to conduct in Budapest that summer. There are also a
few personal letters, including five letters from Stokowski to his
daughter Sonya, dated 1937 to 1939 expressing his interest in her plans
and his concern that her activities not be publicized for fear that she
might be kidnapped (in the aftermath of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping).
Among the most interesting items is Stokowski's audition book, used
during his years with the American Symphony Orchestra. Several hundred
photographs are arranged chronologically. Awards and memorabilia
include the parchment scroll designed and executed by Violet Oakley
which forms part of the Philadelphia Award given to Stokowski in 1922 by
Edward W. Bok. The Bok family donated the Duo-Art Aeolian roll, with
Stokowski performing the Bach Passacaglia, a Christmas gift from 1925.
The Leopold Stokowski Society of America was founded by Robert M.
Stumpf II in 1983, issuing remastered recordings of previously
unavailable performances and publishing a journal, Maestrino. The
society was later known as The Leopold Stokowski Club until 2000, after
which Mr. Stumpf continued the publishing of his documentation on the
internet. Of particular value his massive chronological repertoire
registers for 1909 through 1940.
Stokowski's
stand on racial matters was always in focus. He felt, as did Dvoŀák,
that the heart of American music rested in Black roots, which the
composer should emulate, and he had boundless admiration for the jazz
improvisations of Black artists, matters which are discussed by James L.
Conyers, Jr. in American jazz and rap; Social and philosophical examinations of Black behavior (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2000) and Primitive modernism; Black culture and the origins of Transatlantic modernism (by Sieglinde Lemke, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
AWARDS, held within the University of Pennsylvania Library
1922 -- Philadelphia Award
1954 -- Academy of Musical Recorded Arts and Sciences honorary membership
1959 -- Philadelphia Orchestra Pension Foundation honorary life membership
1963 -- George Frideric Handel Award
1966 -- American Council for Nationalities Service. Golden Door Award
1966 -- Antonin Dvořák medal
1966 -- Philadelphia Orchestra, silver plaque
1967 -- Anton Weber medal
1967 -- National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
1967 -- National Federation of Music Clubs citation
1969 -- Veterans Administration Voluntary Service certificate
1972 -- National Music Council citation
|
1972 -- American Composers Alliance Laurel Leaf Award
1972 -- Silhouettes in Courage certificate
1978 -- Claude Debussy medal
1978 -- National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Hall of Fame Award
1979 -- National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Hall of Fame Award
n.d -- Philadelphia Music Foundation Award
n.d. -- Album of the Year-Classical. The World of Charles Ives
n.d. -- Heitor Villa-Lobos medal
n.d. -- Help Hospitalized Veterans certificate
n.d. -- International Association of Concert Managers certificate
n.d. -- Philadelphia Honorary Citizen Certificate
n.d. -- Prix mondial du disque de Montreux
BIBLIOGRAPHY (selected)
"$30,000 is sought for all-Negro opera" in New York times (1945/VI/3).
"Negro performers brighten the decades" in Pittsburgh courier (1960/IX/17) sect. 3, p7.
Chasins, Abram. Leopold Stokowski, a profile. New York: E. P. Dutton; Da Capo Press,1979.
Daniel, Oliver. Stokowski; A counterpoint of view. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co. 1982.
Ewen, David. Dictators of the baton. Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1945.
Eyer, Ronald F. "The Philadelphia Orchestra" in Musical America (1937/I/25).
Haffner, Herbert. Genie oder Scharlatan?'Das aufregende Leben des Leopold Stokowski. Berlin: Parthas Verlag, 2009.
Hunt, John. Leopold Stokowski; Discography and concert register. London: John Hunt, 1996.
Johnson, Edward, ed. Stokowski : Essays in analysis of his art. London: Triad Press, 1973.
Knight, John. "Leopold Stokowski explores Debussy's orchestral colors" in Instrumentalist, v50n9 (1996/IV).
Kupferberg, Herbert. Those fabulous Philadelphians. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1969.
Levett, Harry. "Stokowski gets first race press confab" in California eagle (1943/VI/3).
Marks, Robert W. "Orient colors Stokowski's vista" in Musical America (1937/I) p25; (1928/IX/15).
McGinn,
Robert E. "Stokowski and the Bell Telephone Laboratories: Collaboration
in the development of high fidelity sound reproduction" in Technology and culture (1983/I).
O'Connell, Charles. "Leopold Stokowski" in The other side of the record.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.
Opperby, Preben. Leopold Stokowski. Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Midas Books, 1982.
Pogue, Samuel F. "Some unpublished letters of Stokowski" in Notes, v46n1 (1989/IX) [at the University of Cincinnati Libraries].
Reis, Claire. Composers, conductors, and critics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.
Robinson, Paul. Stokowski. London: MacDonald and Jane's, 1977.
Samaroff, Olga. An American musician's story. New York: W. W. Norton, 1939.
Schonberg, Harold. The great conductors of the USA. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1943.
Smith, Catherine Parsons, ed. William Grant Still, a study in contrasts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000 (Music of the African diaspora).
Smith, Rollin. Stokowski and the organ. Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2004.
Smith, William Ander. "Leopold Stokowski" American National Biography.
Smith, William Ander. "Leopold Stokowski: A re-evaluation" in American music, v1n3 (Fall, 1983/fall) p23-37.
Smith, William Ander. "Stokowski at one hundred" in South Atlantic quarterly (1982) v81n3.
Smith, William Ander. The mystery of Leopold Stokowski. Rutherford NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990.
Smith, William Ander. "Leopold Stokowski: A re-evaluation" in American music (1983/fall).
Smith, William Ander. "Stokowski at one hundred" in South Atlantic quarterly, v81n3 (1982).
Spencer, Jon Michael, ed. The William Grant Still reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 1992 (Black sacred music; A journal of theomusicology, vol. 6, no. 2).
Still, Judith Anne, ed. Just tell the story; Troubled Island, ed. by Judith Anne Still and Lisa M. Headlee. Flagstaff: The Master-Player Library, 2006.
Still, Judith Anne, ed. William Grant Still and the fusion of cultures in American music. 2nd ed. Flagstaff: The Master-Player Library, 1972.
Still, Judith Anne. William Grant Still; A bio-bibliography, by Judith Anne Still, Michael J. Dabrishus, and Carolyn L. Quinn. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996 (Bio- bibliographies in music, no, 61).
Still, Judith Anne. William Still, a voice high-sounding. Flagstaff: The Master-Player Library, 1990.
Still, William Grant. "Leopold Stokowski as I know him" in War worker, v1n9 (1943.XI) p6, 8.
Still, William Grant. "Troubled island; The Voice of America radio interview" in William Grant Still; an oral history, edited by Judith Anne Still. Flagstaff: The Master- Player Library, 1998, p51-67.
Stokowski, Leopold. "An interpretation of modern music" in Arts and decoration (1922/XI).
Stokowski, Leopold. Music for all of us. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943.
Taubman, Howard. Music on my beat. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1943.
Toccata. v1-? (1979/I-1998/winter).
Wister, Frances Anne. Twenty-five years of the Philadelphia Orchestra, 1900-1925. Philadelphia: Edward Stern & Co., 1925.
------------------------------------
Dominique-René de Lerma
http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com
Comments by email:
1) Hello Bill, I thought I'd point out a premiere by
Stokowski during his Philadelphia years that is missing from Dr.
DeLerma's list. Stokowski conducted the first performance of Henry
Hadley's Othello Overture with the Philadelphia Orchestra on 12/26/19.
At that time Hadley was nearing the height of his fame, and was already
considered the most prominent and important American composer. You can
hear a modern performance of it on YouTube. Wishing you all best, JMW [John McLaughlin Williams]
2) Leopold Stokowski and Zubin Mehta, more than any other two, expanded
the presence of African Americans in contemporary classical music. The
Negro Folk Symphony is surely one of the most deserving of all neglected
compositions by African American composers. [John Malveaux]
3) Wow! I need to print out this and read!!! It occurred to me that the Leopold Stokowski Club may be interested.
4) Dear Mike, Many thanks for the urging! After spending so much time getting all
the Stokie data together, I had hoped the results would be of interest
elsewhere and, in the process, alert the innocents to Bill's terribly
important site. I'll certainly follow your leads (there's also a very
dedicated Stokie worker in the U.S.). While I don't think the BBC music magazine
would be interested in the article, I hope to alert them to Bill's work
which, as you know, gives a lot of attention to the U.K.
While working on this, I put aside what I hope to live long enough to
finish (an unrealistic aspiration) -- a totally new history of Black
music, unlike Eileen's now aging book in that I wish to use the actual music
(mostly available on the internet) as a central issue, with a much
stronger orientation on liberal-arts and sociological matters. As part
of this, I have spent many weeks on the British 18th-century scene that I
had hoped would have been complete in advance of Chi-chi's February
visit for the BBC, but even now I am not finished with the Emidée
dynasty. This is now an opportunity even so for me to introduce you
two, should that not have happened already. I must also see that Jeff
Green and Hilary Burrage are alerted to her interests. Are there any
other Brits who should be signalled?
I've thought so very often of our trip to Truro. That was a wonderfully memorable experience!
