Philadelphians in Pullmans

In Philadelphia's Broad Street Station the send-off was grandly staged. Everyday travelers were befuddled by the confusion. A great crowd jammed the dingy old terminal, fairly fought to be near the track where a train was labeled PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA--RCA VICTOR TOUR.

On the observation platform Mayor Samuel Davis Wilson spoke his good wishes into a microphone which gave him a nationwide audience. Without topcoat or hat but wearing white gloves was fair-haired Leopold Stokowski, exulting not only over the tour to come but because there is a prospect of a European trip next season. Cameras clicked rapidly while Frances A. Wister of the Orchestra Board presented Conductor Stokowski with a fox-terrier pup named Nipper. The New York Philharmonic players sent money to buy each of the travelers a beer. Led by Trumpeter Saul Caston, the Orchestra's brasses blew out Auld Lang Syne, played Anchors Aweigh for "all aboard." Thus the Philadelphia Orchestra was off last week on a five-week cross-country tour. By May 17, it will have traveled 11,113 miles, played in 27 cities, given 35 performances.*

First concert was in Hartford, where the players blamed the recent flood for what seemed to be a cool reception even to Stokowski's dazzling Bach orchestrations, the electrified excerpts from Wagner's Gotterdammerung. But Boston more than made up for Hartford's apathy. In Hartford Stokowski played a Bach encore "because you seem to love Bach so." In Boston he played four encores because Bostonians clamored for them. Gist of Stokowski's speech in Boston was his admiration for Boston's Conductor Sergei Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony "from which I learned so much when I first came to the United States."

On to Springfield went the Philadelphia Special. There Stokowski relinquished the conductor's stand to Charles O'Connell, one of his assistants who grew up in Springfield. In a final chorale and fugue Stokowski played the organ along with the Orchestra. But he sternly refused to take a bow, kept in the background while Conductor O'Connell reaped a home-town reception. For the Toronto concert next night special trains brought listeners from all over Ontario. The city was beflagged. Enthusiasm outran anything the Philadelphia players had ever dreamed of.

Dream tours have been a stock joke in Philadelphia for years. Stokowski has talked of taking the Philadelphia Orchestra to Europe, South America, the Orient. One reason for his tiff with his directors last season was their failure to see their way clear to financing a tour while there was a considerable deficit at home (TIME, Oct. 29, 1934 et seq.). The angel that suddenly popped up was RCA Victor, for which Stokowski and his orchestra make many a red-seal phonograph record. RCA Victor underwrote the current tour for $250,000, hoping to get back much of it on the sale of records and phonographs. Last week the tour's sponsor was loudly in evidence. Phonographs were planted in the lobbies and foyers of every auditorium, played Philadelphia Orchestra records during intermissions.

Rightful hero of the tour is the conductor who built up the Philadelphia Orchestra to be one of the greatest in the world. Last week's audiences were fascinated by Stokowski: his swift graceful dash for the podium, the svelte back he turned, the fine graceful hands which seem to mold every phrase of the music that is played. The orchestramen seemed like cogs in a magic wheel, but within the Orchestra each player has an important identity. Violinist Alexander Hilsberg is envied for his $35,000 Guarnerius which once belonged to Jan Kubelik. Tubaman Philip Donatelli is the orchestra's winemaker, father of seven daughters. Two Spanish Torellos play in the double-bass section. Father Anton is an oldster in the Orchestra. His son Carl is there to follow in his footsteps. Trumpeter Saul Caston is conducting in Evansville, Phoenix and Holdrege, Neb. Caston conducted first at a Dell summer concert in 1931, when Albert Coates was suddenly taken ill. For a few hair-raising moments then, there was no Coates and no Caston, who had been arrested for speeding on his way from Atlantic City. Caston arrived pale and out-of-breath to learn that it was his night to conduct. There was no hesitancy about his performance. He earned his right then to become a Stokowski assistant.

In the Philadelphia Orchestra there are two onetime army officers who fought on opposite sides during the War. Both are first violinists. One is Hungarian George Beimel, the other Russian Yasha Kayaloff. Flutist William Kincaid and Marcel Tabuteau, first oboist, make a woodwind pair outstanding when the Philadelphians undertake Debussy. Flutist Kincaid trains vigorously each summer at Lake Sebago, Me. Leon Frengut, a viola player, takes his recreation at the racetracks. Samuel Lifschey, leader of the viola section, has been a six-day bicycle racer, a dentist, a pharmacist, an engineer. Yarnspinner of the Orchestra is Trombonist Eddie Gerhard. Bill Greenberg, a viola player, proved himself a practical musician when he thought of the paper dickeys which the Philadelphians now wear instead of uncomfortable stiff shirts. Schima Kaufman values his typewriter next to his fiddle. He is author of an excellent book on Mendelssohn, is now working on a novel.

Four women are aboard the Philadelphia Special: Harpists Edna Phillips and Marjorie Tyre; Cellist Elsa Hilger who popped into the news four months ago when she discovered her stolen Guarnerius in the arms of an innocent deskmate who had borrowed it from a dealer who had unwittingly bought it from a thief (TIME, Dec. 23). No musician but a competent masseuse is pretty, blonde Miss Rondum, taken along by Stokowski to give him daily rubs.

Youthful Manager Alfred Reginald Allen, a shrewd peacemaker in Philadelphia since his appointment year ago, figures out the Orchestra's payroll which amounts to about $10,400 per week, exclusive of Stokowski's salary. Invaluable to the Orchestra is bald-headed Marshall ("Curley") Betz, who acts as librarian and general baggage master. Marshall Betz allied himself with the Philadelphia band the same day that Stokowski did 24 years ago, understands the conductor's and the players' moods. With the current tour Betz faced his stiffest undertaking. He is responsible for the many scores that are to be played, for the instruments, which are carried in two baggage cars. Total value of the instruments amounts to some $250,000.

* Cities and towns in the Philadelphia's itinerary: Hartford, Boston, Springfield, Toronto, Chicago, Urbana, Ill., Evansville, Ind., Atlanta, New Orleans, Birmingham, Little Rock, Dallas, El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Holdrege, Neb., Omaha, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Manhattan.

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