Return in Triumph

Last July, before Maestro Leopold Stokowski took his All American Youth Orchestra on a good-will tour of South America, he let it sound off to hot-weather audiences in Baltimore, Atlantic City, Manhattan. The So-odd youngsters (with a backbone of 18 Philadelphia veterans) sounded good, but some critics reserved judgment. Last week, back from the tour, Dr. Stokowski with the Youth Orchestra put on a show in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall itself and put their reservations to rout. Concertgoers were somewhat startled to see the orchestra framed in a brash, blue acoustical shell, lit by brash, blue lamps.

Conductor Stokowski, as mettlesome a showman as he is a musician, gave Manhattan (and, on later nights, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia) a spine-tingling program. His white hands and fuzzy platinum hair gleaming like an oriflamme, he led the youths through a spirited charge on Bach. The violins, on their feet and playing as one man, rattled off one piece, a Preludio, so brilliantly that the audience roared bravos. After the Bach came the Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich, melodiously and pompously hymning the Bolshevik October Revolution. By strictest Carnegie Hall standards, the cheers showed that the Youth Orchestra had passed with honors.

Three nights later, when Philadelphia cheers died away, Dr. Stokowski's triumph near went past itself. Luxuriously he told his audience that he was "a little sad . . . because I wanted to make this tour with the Philadelphia Orchestra. But when I suggested it, I was told it was impossible. I can't understand that, because we've done it."

On their 21-engagement South American tour, Conductor Stokowski's youths had downed a widespread impression that their brash, inexperienced good will would "insult" musically sophisticated South Americans. The orchestra played to full houses nearly everywhere. The tour was no picnic for the players, as most of their spare time was spent rehearsing. Stokowski, who took no salary for the tour, complained that enthusiastic South Americans had mobbed him for souvenirs--coat buttons, handkerchiefs, gloves. Only time he lost the Stokowski temper was in Montevideo, where the program carried a biography stating the old libel that his real name was Stokes.* The concert was delayed for half an hour while the offending programs were gathered up.

Maestro Stokowski brought home 300 records which he made of South American music, among them some tunes played by Indian witch doctors. At Stokowski's request, 150 Indians were taken to Rio de Janeiro by busses, from which they emerged mother-naked. Ensued a lively discussion about whether their instruments were clothing enough. The answer was no. So Youth Orchestra members rustled up some garments.

To many listeners in the two Americas, Leopold Stokowski and his youngsters had by last week proved that 20 years is not needed to make an orchestra; that, anyway, the conductor is the thing. That proved, Stokowski announced that the Youth Orchestra would, at least temporarily, disband. It may be reassembled for a movie.

* His birth certificate in London, where he was born of an Irish mother and a Polish father, reads Leopold Antony Stokowski.

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