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^ chapter 1 In the Lions’ Den Leopold Stokowski wasted no time on idle words in his rehearsals with the Philadelphia Orchestra. By the fall of 1930, he was forty-eight years old. He had taken over the orchestra in 1912, when he was thirty, and within a few years transformed what had been a stiff, undistinguished ensemble into one that enraptured audiences in Philadelphia and beyond with its striking virtuosity and rich, vibrant sound. Tall and slender and very much in command, he engineered this transformation with remarkable vision and determination. Knowing exactly what he wanted to accomplish in rehearsals, he drove his players forward with relentless intensity to achieve it. He spoke little. Instead, he communicated his wishes to his players with his riveting blue eyes and expressive hands so masterfully that they were able to respond to the nuances of his direction instantly, almost as if they could read his mind. He expected total concentration, and he got it. Nothing interrupted the progress of a rehearsal—no unnecessary pleasantries from the maestro, no comments from the players, no excuses , nothing—except for the rare occasions when Stokowski chose to break into the rigorous routine he had established with a comment that might stray somewhat from the serious music making at hand. Those interruptions were much appreciated by the musicians. They usually introduced a bit of humor into the proceedings and lightened the intensity of a session for the moment, even though the humor could, and frequently did, come at the expense of one or the other of them. That’s what happened during a rehearsal early in the orchestra’s 1930–31 season when Stokowski said something that might have amused the orchestra Welsh_Text.indd 1 10/22/12 8:55 AM 2 6 chapter 1 as a whole but that caused sharp discomfort for a particular player, who remembered the incident vividly and told it to me sixty years later. It began when Stokowski signaled a halt to the playing during a rehearsal one morning in mid-October. “Violas,” he said in the immediate silence that followed, “you make me think of the Parable in the Bible about the Foolish Virgins.” Then he stopped and glanced to his right, where a new member of his orchestra, a young woman of twenty-three, sat in accordance with his seating plan, which called for the harps to be placed in front of the orchestra, parallel with and not far to the right of the podium. Smiling a sly smile, he looked back at the men of the orchestra seated before him on the stage of Philadelphia’s Academy of Music with a question. “But then, aren’t all virgins foolish?” After allowing a few seconds for the import of his comment to sink in, he appeared to catch himself and turned to face the young woman full on, clasping his hands to his chest in an extravagant show of remorse. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said, hanging his head in mock contrition as all eyes turned toward her. The mortified young woman, grasping for a way to hide her dismay, kept her head close to her harp’s soundboard and pretended to be intent on adjusting the tuning, which was something she had to do often, sitting as she did at the front of the stage where strong drafts from the wings swept across the instrument and played havoc with its tuning. If ever she needed a moment to think, now was the time. The last thing she wanted was to let the maestro and the men of the orchestra see how embarrassed and vulnerable she felt, but what was she to do? “Some instinct told me to deflate that balloon as quickly as possible,” she would later say, and an idea came to her. Following its dictates, she focused on her harp’s strings, pretending to be busy tuning them for as long as she dared. Then she raised her eyes to meet Stokowski’s with an inquiring look, as if she wondered why he seemed to be beseeching her so plaintively. After all, she had been concentrating on her tuning while he dealt with the viola players and hadn’t been listening to what he said. At least that’s what she hoped he would think. Stokowski held his contrite pose a moment longer, waiting for the blushing, girlish reaction he expected. Then, realizing that the young woman wasn’t going to fall into his trap...

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