Word: stokowskis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Stokowski began to think about forming his newest orchestra two years...
...wonder of the new orchestra is that a third of its players are fresh out of conservatories. The youngest is 18, and the group has played together no more than 30 hours. But Stokowski has an almost uncanny way of making instrumentalists play better than their best; he is as adept as ever at juggling his seating arrangements to produce the lush orchestral effects that are now so easily recognized as the Stokowski Sound...
...last week's concert at Carnegie Hall the orchestra offered a haunting, evocative reading of Debussy's Six Epigraphes Antiques, a relaxed, singing Brahms's Symphony No. 2, a beautifully articulated Petite Symphonic Concertante by contemporary Swiss Composer Frank Martin. Stokowski led his 95 musicians with the surgically precise gestures of the hand, the long, scythelike sweeps of the arm that are as familiar to concertgoers as the white-maned profile. At concert's end, in response to the cheers, Stokowski announced a "Christmas present" encore -his own arrangement of old and traditional Russian Christmas music...
...auditions and putting the bite on his friends for contributions. He listened to a total of 200 young instrumentalists in his penthouse on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, hired the outstanding performers and put the rest on a waiting list. To fill out the orchestra with more experienced players, Stokowski consulted what is probably the most extensive talent file in all music: his own loose-leaf notebook in which he has evaluated every instrumentalist and singer who has ever performed with him-about 1,700 of them...
...could he sat the youngsters next to the veterans, on the theory that the enthusiasm of one would rub off on the experience of the other. But there is more than seating arrangement to account for the transformation of an assorted group of musicians into a symphony orchestra. Stokowski tunes differently from other conductors: instead of asking the oboe for an A by which the whole orchestra tunes, he asks for an A for woodwinds, a B-flat for the brasses, an A again for the strings. The three sections tune separately. Nor does Stokowski, like most conductors, stop...