Music: Stokowski's Satire

The audiences that attend the Friday concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra are famous for their nonchalance. Lovers of music who have visited Philadelphia recount with indignation how rudely the people drift in, in casual ones and twos and in large box parties, always late—sometimes so late that when the curtain rises most of the seats are vacant. The Philadelphians, however, are rarely late for their teas. If the concert is long, they rise and leave, bowing to their friends and murmuring goodbyes, and hurry away to scones and cinnamon toast and caroling kettles, leaving the music to make its swanlike end exclusively for the benefit of the ushers and those that have free seats, etc. Ah, if only Conductor Leopold Stokowski would treat these Friday excursionists as they treat him, lovers of music have said. If he would return their courtesy, the scene in the auditorium would be something like this:

The curtain rises. Two musicians—the first violin and the cellist—are seated, chatting. Conductor Stokowski strolls vaguely in from the wings. He bows. Puzzled applause from the audience—murmurs of "But good heavens, Victoria, where is the orchestra? . . . Down behind that backdrop? . . . I think it is simply too quaint. . . ." That no orchestra lurks behind the backdrop is clearly demonstrated when Mr. Stokowski raises his baton and the scrannel strains of the violin and cello tremble, quite unsupported, in the hostile air. . . . Now another musician comes in. He carries a horn and a handkerchief and flops down in the first convenient seat; after a premonitory groan, his brass assaults the tune. . . . The piccolo players, the drummer and the flute stroll in, smiling and chuckling; one of them is trying to get a pack of cards into his waistcoat pocket. Obviously a game of penny ante has delayed them. . . . Mr. Stokowski stops while the last of his audience parade down the aisle. . . . Haydn's "Farewell." The orchestra has played it better at other concerts. Some of the players seem merely indifferent, but several are definitely tired; the trombone puts his instrument in a case and walks out, the second cellos follow his example; now no one is left but Mr. Stokowski and two violins. One of the violins makes a surreptitious exit, playing as he goes. The other retires with a gracious bow.

Mr. Stokowski, conducting a symphony of empty chairs, churns on and on; the music must be coming to a climax, for now his arms wildly flagellate; he whips his fiddlers up to a crisis, holds his phantom cymbals and horns and woodwinds suspended in a terrific fortissimo of silence, and then, at a final mute drum-stroke, drops his arms to his sides. . . . Standing alone, his back to the audience, he orders his invisible orchestra to rise to the applause that does not come — turns, smiles, walks quickly out. . . .

This is what music-lovers have often wished would happen. This, in substance, was what happened last Friday. Philadelphians were "dumbfounded by Stokowski's satire." Some applauded. Some hissed. Forty odd first-row patrons walked out. At last a conductor had had the courage to give a Philadelphia audience a few hints on behavior.

Metropolitan Finale