Word: stokowskied
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...been a great lesson to me to know that in life it is the unexpected that happens. Sometimes it's tragic and sometimes it's happy like this time." --Leopold Stokowski, reuniting as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra after an embittered 19-year interval...
MORE DISQUIETED than the man without a country, more stifled than the rebel without a cause, is the conductor without an orchestra. In the case of Leopold Stokowski, whose repeated misfortune it was to be without that sine qua non, the void had a peculiar poignancy. It didn't matter that Stokowski was perhaps the greatest innovative genius on the podium. Or that when he conducted, box office receipts soared. In the end his alleged ruthlessness would eclipse them, and prompt a dark ending to one orchestral link after another...
...nature of his craft, the conductor need be a diplomat as well as an artist. But as the non-conformist Stokowski would learn in his career that spanned nearly three-quarters of the century, it was not always so simple to keep the two from clashing. The conductor who is too diplomatic may sacrifice authority he wants to hold over his musicians. On the other hand, the conductor who gives his artistic instincts free reign is labelled a tyrant or a show-off. In the best of times and in the worst of times, the conductor operates at the mercy...
...Berlioz, Queen Mab Scherzo; Respighi, Feste Romane; Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream; Strauss, Death and Transfiguration; Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique): The Philadelphia Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini conducting (5 LPs, RCA). When Toscanini made these recordings in 1941-42 with the orchestra Leopold Stokowski had built, it was astonishing, then as now, to note how readily the musicians yielded their lush sound and fat phrasing to the brilliant, transparent, sharply contoured style that Toscanini favored. The resulting interpretations are still splendid to hear-spacious, virtuosic, imbued with an exceptional inner calm...
...Stokowski uses great economy of gesture. A molding movement of the hands-as though shaping an invisible clay vase-brought an exquisite rubato. In the final movement, the Danse Bohémienne, the slashing right arm drove the orchestra on furiously. Rising from his chair, he brought the work to a close with one passionate downsweep. Before the musicians disbanded for their tea break, Stokowski decided to dissolve the tension. "This is really a piece for brigands," he said. "You . . . and you . . . and you, look like real bad men to me. Bet you always go through the customs...