Stokowski on contemporary music

Leopold Stokowski was a champion of contemporary music. He conducted music without judgement, believing judgement to be the public’s job.

During the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra’s 1915-16 season,he programmed orchestral suites from Stravinsky’s Firebird and Petrushka, Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, and Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie No. 1.

“This last, very cerebral work, although not atonal, proved unbearably dissonant, and the Academy’s audience loudly voiced its displeasure during the performance. I was told that in the middle Stokowski strode off the stage in a fury. When quiet was restored, he returned and started it again from the very beginning. At its conclusion an intimidated audience, fearful of a third repetition, offered some dutiful applause.”

Source: Chasins, Abram (1979) Leopold Stokowski. London: Robert Hale, p. 85-86.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

The effect of art
“There’s a phrase I’ve often heard from audience members at popular musicals (but, oddly, never anywhere else): the show, they’ll say, “really took me out of myself”.  They are saying something basic and profound about the ecstasy of art, the act of being taken out of one’s normal state to a different level of being.  […]
The art within
“Only art experienced within, in which the personality plays a creative role can be of interest …To achieve this, those of you who are not already in this sense dead, must die an expiatory death of all superficiality, of all that you have already learnt, of all encumbrances and of all that is false. Then, […]
The forgotten aspect of music
“One of things that’s been forgotten in music for a long time is the ability to be nakedly emotional”. David Lang, composer Cited in “When Opera Is New and Unproved”, Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, 7 September 2008.
An experiment in the colours of keys
The relativity of all these key-colour associations was illustrated during a debate on the whole subject organised in London in 1886 by the Journal “Musical Opinion”. That section of the audience that maintained the definite existence of “key colour” by which it could aurally identify a key was submitted to a test, a well known […]
Recollections from Gallipoli
Title: Recollections from Gallipoli Text: Ellis Salis Music: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Tenor and piano Product medium: PDF score Sample:
Schumann chasing a girl
Schumann once attended a masquerade during the carnival of 1830, in company with his friend Rosen, for the purpose of paying some attention to a pretty but otherwise insignificant girl.He knew that she would be present at the ball, and, as a pretext for approaching her, put a poem in his pocket.Fortune favored him: he […]
Put creativity into everything
“When you put creativity into everything, everything becomes available to you.” – Robert Rodriguez, filmmaker Cited in: Nathalie Sejean, “30 Piece of Advice from Robert Rodriguez to Lead a Creative Life”, Mentorless, 4 September 2015, https://www.mentorless.com/2015/09/04/30-piece-of-advice-from-robert-rodriguez-to-lead-a-creative-life/, accessed 28 October 2020
Easy Street
Title: Easy Street (Silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 soundtrack     Related products     – PDF score TRACK LISTING AND SAMPLES: TRACK TITLE LENGTH SAMPLE 1. A new beginning 4:07 2. Easy Street 7:06 3. Law and order 1:22 4. Aid where aid is due 1:33 5. Poverty and […]
Following the crowd
“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.” Alan Ashley-Pitt (Francis Phillip Wernig) Cited in: Eda LeShan (1973) The Wonderfujl Crisis of Middle Age.  New York: Warner Books, p. 304.
Sleeping Beauty Waltz (Tchaikovsky)
Title: Sleeping Beauty Waltz Composer: Pytor Il’ich Tchaikovsky Arranger: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample: