Leopold Stokowski

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Leopold Stokowski (born Antoni Stanisław Bolesławowicz April 18, 1882 in London, England, died September 13, 1977 in Nether Wallop, England) was the conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Symphony of the Air. He was the founder of the New York City Symphony Orchestra and The American Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the music for and appeared in Disney’s Fantasia.

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[edit] Early life

He was son of Polish cabinetmaker Kopernik Józef Bolesławowicz and his Irish wife Annie Marion Moore. There is some mystery surrounding his early life. For example, no one could ever determine why he spoke with a slightly Eastern European, foreign-sounding accent as he was born and raised in London (it is surmised that this was an affectation on his part to add mystery and interest), and he also, on occasion, gave his birth year as 1887 instead of 1882.

Stokowski trained at the Royal College of Music (which he entered in 1896, at the age of thirteen, one of the college's youngest students ever). He sang in the choir of St. Marylebone Church and later became Assistant Organist to Sir Henry Walford Davies at The Temple Church. At the age of 16, he was elected to membership in the Royal College of Organists. In 1900 he formed the choir of St. Mary's Church, Charing Cross Road, where he trained the choirboys and played the organ. In 1902 he was appointed organist and choir director of St. James's Church, Piccadilly. He also attended Queen's College, Oxford, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1903.

[edit] Professional career

In 1905 Stokowski began work in New York City as the organist and choir director of St. Bartholomew's Church. He became very popular amongst the parishoners (who included J. P. Morgan and members of the Vanderbilt family) but eventually quit the position to pursue a post as an orchestra conductor. He moved to Paris for additional study before hearing that the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra would be needing a new conductor when it returned from a hiatus. So, in 1908, he began his campaign to obtain the position, writing multiple letters to the orchestra's president, Mrs. C. R. Holmes, and traveling to Cincinnati for a personal interview. Eventually he was granted the post and officially took up his duties in the fall of 1909.

Stokowski was a great success in Cincinnati, introducing the idea of "pop concerts" and conducting the United States premieres of new works by such composers as Edward Elgar. However, in early 1912 he became sufficiently frustrated with the politics of the orchestra's board that he tendered his resignation. There was a dispute over the resignation, but on April 12 it was finally accepted.

Two months later, Stokowski was appointed director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Stokowski made his Philadelphia debut on October 11, 1912. This position would bring him some of his greatest accomplishments and recognition. It has been suggested that Stokowski quit at Cincinnati knowing full well that the job in Philadelhia was already his, or as Oscar Levant suggested in his book A Smattering of Ignorance, "he had the contract in his back pocket."

Stokowski rapidly garnered a reputation as a showman. His flair for the theatrical included grand gestures such as throwing the sheet music on the floor to show he did not need to conduct from a score. He also experimented with lighting techniques in the concert hall, at one point conducting in a dark hall with only his head and hands lighted, at other times arranging the lights so they would cast theatrical shadows of his head and hands. His hair, always unruly, he allowed to grow long, and he combed it straight back. This created a "lion's mane" effect that he carefully nurtured (his adopted first name "Leopold", means "lion-like"). Late in the 1929-30 season, he started conducting without a baton; his free-hand manner of conducting became one of his trademarks.

On the musical side, Stokowski nurtured the orchestra and shaped the "Stokowski" sound. He encouraged "free bowing" from the string section, "free breathing" from the brass section, and continually altered the seating arrangements of the sections as well as the acoustics of the hall in order to create better sound. But he was also known for tinkering with the orchestration of famous works by such composers as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Brahms. In one instance, he even revised the ending of a work - the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, by Tchaikovsky, so that it would sound more "triumphant" in a sort of "Hollywoody" way. He performed much the same task for Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, discarding completely Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration of the work in favor of his own. (In the film Fantasia, however, Stokowski did not end the work with a big climax, but allowed it to blend right into Schubert's Ave Maria).

Stokowski also claimed to have made his own orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, in which he omitted two of the movements from the score; the composer and arranger Lucien Cailliet actually created the orchestration.

Stokowski's repertoire was broad and included contemporary works. In 1916, he conducted the United States premiere of Mahler's 8th Symphony. He added works by Rachmaninoff, Sibelius and Igor Stravinsky.

In 1917 he made his very first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company, beginning with two of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. He found ways to make the best use of the acoustical process, until electrical recording was introduced by Victor in the spring of 1925. Among his first electrical recordings was Marche Slave by Tchaikovsky. These early recordings were made at Victor's Camden, New Jersey studios. Then, in 1927, Victor began recording the orchestra in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra later participated in long playing, high fidelity, and stereophonic experiments, during the early 1930s, mostly for Bell Laboratories. (Victor even released some LPs at this time, which were not commercially successful because they required special, expensive phonographs that most people could not afford during the Great Depression.) Stokowski recorded prodigiously for various labels until shortly before his death. His very last recording, for Columbia, was a remarkably youthful performance of the Symphony in C by Bizet, with the National Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

In 1933, he started "Youth Concerts" for younger audiences, which are still a Philadelphia tradition, and fostered youth music programs. He was very much a man of his times, and he understood his times well. He was famous for transcribing many of the major organ works of J. S. Bach for Wagnerian-sized orchestra, his goal being to bring this magnificent music to a wider audience. While much admired in their day, these transcriptions are little played now, and are considered by some to be bastardizations of the works. However, today the organ works of Bach are widely heard in their original form via recordings and concerts, much more so than during Stokowski's time. Whether his transcriptions encouraged this resurgence of interest in Bach's organ music is a matter of debate.

After disputes with the board, Stokowski began to withdraw from involvement in the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1935 onwards, allowing co-conductor Eugene Ormandy to gradually take over.

In 1937, Stokowski appeared as himself in the motion picture One Hundred Men and a Girl, with Deanna Durbin and Adolphe Menjou.

In 1939, Stokowski collaborated with Walt Disney to create the motion picture for which he is best known — Fantasia. He conducted all the music (with the exception of a "jam session" in the middle of the film) and included his own orchestrations for the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" and "Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria" segments. Stokowski even got to talk to (and shake hands with) Mickey Mouse on screen, although he would later say with a smile that Mickey Mouse got to shake hands with him. Most of the music was recorded in the Academy of Music and multi-track stereophonic sound.

In 1940, Stokowski formed the All-American Youth Orchestra, which took multiple tours overseas and was met with rave reviews. During this time he also became a frequent conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, while the NBC's regular conductor, Arturo Toscanini, had many guest engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In 1944, on the recommendation of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Stokowski helped form the New York City Symphony Orchestra, which they intended would make music accessible for middle-class workers. Ticket prices were set low, and performances took place at convenient, after-work hours. Many early concerts were standing room only; however, a year later in 1945, Stokowski was at odds with the board (who wanted to trim expenses even further) and he resigned.

In 1945, he founded the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra lasted for two years before it was disbanded. (It was restarted in 1991, under John Mauceri.) Then in the late 1940s, Stokowski became chief Guest Conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

After the NBC Symphony Orchestra was disbanded as the official ensemble of the NBC radio network, it was re-formed as the Symphony of the Air with Stokowski as Music Director, and as such performed many concerts from 1954 until 1963. From 1955 to 1961, Stokowski was also the Music Director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1962, at the age of 80, Stokowski founded the American Symphony Orchestra. He served as Music Director for the orchestra, until May 1972 when, at the age of 90, he returned to England.

In 1976, he signed a recording contract with RCA Victor that would have kept him active until he was 100 years old. However, he died of a heart attack the following year in Nether Wallop, Hampshire at the age of 95.

[edit] Personal life

Stokowski married three times. His first wife was the American concert pianist Olga Samaroff (born Lucie Hickenlooper) to whom he was married from 1911 until 1923 (one daughter: Sonia Stokowski, an actress). His second wife was Johnson & Johnson heiress Evangeline Love Brewster Johnson, an artist and aviator, to whom he was married from 1926 until 1937 (two children: Gloria Luba Stokowski and Andrea Sadja Stokowski). His third wife, from 1945 until 1955, was railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbilt (born 1924), an artist and fashion designer (two sons, Leopold Stanislaus Stokowski b. 1950 and Christopher Stokowski b. 1952). He also had a much-publicized affair with Greta Garbo.

[edit] Trivia

  • His popularity was such that he was caricatured in several Warner Bros. cartoons (including Long-Haired Hare) with Bugs Bunny playing Leopold.
  • He was known for conducting without a baton, using only his hand gestures.

"Christopher Lloyd says that his model for creating the character [of Dr. Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future series] was actually the conductor Leopold Stokowski, with the hair that way, and the big, broad gestures. Doc Brown walks around like he's conducting the orchestra of the world." - Bob Gale

[edit] Bibliography

Rollin Smith (2005) "Stokowski and the Organ".

[edit] Notable premieres

[edit] In concert

[edit] On record

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Frank van der Stucken		 Music Director, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
1909–1912		 Succeeded by
Ernst Kunwald
Preceded by
Carl Pohlig		 Music Director, Philadelphia Orchestra
1912–1938		 Succeeded by
Eugene Ormandy
Preceded by
Ferenc Fricsay		 Music Director, Houston Symphony Orchestra
1955–1961		 Succeeded by
John Barbirolli
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