Without Stokowski

Habitual listeners to the Philadelphia Orchestra, present at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan, for its first concert there this season, were shocked though not surprised to see, standing upon the conductor's stand, the unfamiliar figure of Fritz Reiner, leader of the Cincinnati Symphony. Though aware that famed Leopold Stokowski was taking a year's leave of absence, they had half expected to see the sharp and mobile curlicue of his conjuror's face, to be entertained by the hunch-ings and bendings of his thin black back, to listen to the superb and golden music which he has been able to coax from his musicians. Reiner, the first of the guest conductors who will replace him this year, they knew would be acceptable; but they did not see how he could equal Stokowski; they waited anxiously.

He did not equal Stokowski but he proved, by the thorough excellence of his performance, that the Philadelphia Orchestra was more than a tool for the musical genius of one man. In a hodge-podge of Handel, Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and Saint-Saens, the first was the best. Beside the Firework-Music (written so long ago as 1749 to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle) Stravinsky's virtuosity seemed pale, Copland's Scherzo, flimsy. Pianist Josef Hofmann gave the evening a special glitter by an interpretation of the C Minor Concerto which was more profound than Saint-Saens'music.