Wow Artist

What had come over Leopold Stokowski? It was as if Actor Maurice Evans had gradually altered his Hamlet to the style of Cinemactor Robert Taylor. At his first appearance with the NBC Symphony last week, fading Stokowski,* master of the symphonic wow technique, dealt confusion to many a musician under him, and many a critic behind him: Stokowski's increasing preoccupation with inflated, ear-tickling orchestral sonorities seemed to have got out of hand.

In earlier years, when he was building the Philadelphia Orchestra to one of the world's greatest, he made legitimate use of tonal opulence. But his baroque conception of sound has lately given NBC many a headache. Sooner than rebuild its woolly-sounding Studio 8-H to his specifications, NBC hired an old auditorium (Cosmopolitan Opera House), opened the broadcasts to a paying audience.

Stokowski was his own commentator, introducing each number in his faintly foreign lisp. Of his Bach prelude he said: "An inspired inspiration." He had reseated the orchestra, turning trombones and woodwinds away from the audience, had added a few instrumental touches to the Third Symphony of Brahms--like an actor rewriting Shakespeare. The Brahms heaved and wallowed luxuriantly, the orchestra following Stokowski's erratic beat as best it could.

Some musicians attribute Stokowski's musical deliquescence to Walt Disney's enormously successful Fantasia, in which the conductor was flatteringly spotlighted. Next month Stokowski leaves Manhattan for Hollywood, to make more Disney pictures.

* Stokowski has given two birth dates in Who's Who in America. According to the 1924-25 volume, he would now be 59. According to the current one, he is 54.

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