On Stokowski

When Leopold Stokowski is not making curious things happen, they are often being made to happen to him. Last week the picturesque maestro's Mexican tour continued in an ornate fuss & feathers of insult and apology. He had already scared the wits out of Oaxaca with a rendition of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with offstage sound effects of cannonading (TIME, May 29). Last week it was something else.

Stokowski had been engaged to conduct the Mexico Symphony Orchestra in a broadcast in memory of the torpedoing of the tanker Potrero del Llano, which led to Mexico's entry into the war. One of the numbers programmed was La Mort, whose composer is kindly, snowy-haired Manuel Ponce, a Mexican Indian whose Estrellita is one of the most popular songs of all time.

A Furious Being. At the rehearsal Stokowski discovered the orchestration was only for piano and string quintet, sent out a call for the composer, meanwhile attempted to proceed. When Ponce arrived, Stokowski erupted in French. He semaphored and windmilled. His elderly victim commented later: "What a surprise ... a furious being, wildly gesticulating at me . . . very rude. ..." Stokowski adjourned the rehearsal until 7:30 a.m. on the day of the broadcast.

He arrived 25 minutes early. An hour later, a fourth of the musicians had not yet turned up. Stokowski abruptly quit the job.

Next day Mexico City's Excelsior headlined STOKOWSKl'S RUDENESS TO MEXICO'.

Universal's Columnist Ruben Salazar Mallen observed: "Mexicans are guilty of letting Stokowski run over them. They have an inferiority complex. . . . Mexico and Stokowski are guilty." Famed Composer Carlos Chavez submitted that "it is sufficient to recall that the Mexican Symphony Orchestra has been functioning regularly --without disputes -- for the last 16 years." Stokowski wrote an open letter of explanation to Mexico's President Avila Camacho.

As explanatory as anyone was ample, well-meaning Contralto Josefina ("Cha-cha") Aguilar, who sang Ponce's La Mort under another conductor. She had handed the six-instrument score to Stokowski. It was not Ponce's score; Ponce, unable to find a full orchestral score, had agreed to let her offer the smaller one to the conductor, but asked her to explain the situation. Somehow the explanation got lost along the way.

Before the week was out, Stokowski and Ponce had a love feast. The composer broke out a bottle of 100-year-old cognac.

Said the disputants: "The mutual under standing at which we have arrived destroys completely the bad interpretation which has been made regarding it."

Next Stokowski stop: Vera Cruz.

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