The Eye Does It

The pews had been pushed aside to make room for the 90 or so chairs and music stands. Microphones arched overhead on long, angled booms. It was not the usual look of the West Ham Central Mission, a turn-of-the-century Methodist church in London's East End, but it has excellent acoustics and is sometimes used for recording sessions. Concertmaster Sidney Sax gave the signal for the orchestra to tune up. Then, from a double door, the frail, stooped figure began a slow walk to the podium, his right hand gripping a sturdy cane, his left on the shoulder of an associate. Carefully, the old man settled into his tall chair. At age 94, Conductor Leopold Stokowski was ready last week to cut another record.

It was October 1917 that Stokowski made his first recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Those were the days when the musicians gathered in front of a big acoustic horn and played into it. With the advent of electrical recording less than a decade later, Stokowski and the Philadelphia began a series that remains a landmark in quality recording. Then, as now, the Stokowski style is unmistakable--the lush violins, the burnished double basses, the biting brass, the luxuriance of the total sound.

Probably even Stokowski does not know how many hundreds of recordings he has made in the years since, but one thing is certain: no conductor has ever been so active in the studios past the age of 90. Four years ago, Stokowski gave up the leadership of his American Symphony Orchestra in New York and moved once and for all to his native England. "I spend my days studying the scores of the great masters," he says. "Except when I am sleeping, I am thinking of the next time I must conduct great music." Any number of vital, energetic albums have resulted--notably last fall's wondrous version of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection") with the London Symphony Orchestra (RCA).

In June Stokowski signed a contract with Columbia to make four records a year until 1982, when he will be 100. He has already taped some Tchaikovsky for Columbia and an album of his own transcriptions of Bach and Chopin. Last week's session with the National Philharmonic was devoted to Bizet's Carmen Suite. It is a work familiar to both conductor and orchestra, but still excitement ran high. Stokowski's fabled white mane is now a bit thin and shaggy, but the long, tapered hands still work their expressive magic. So does his pinpointing look. "One conducts with or without a baton," he likes to say, "but it is the eye that really does it."

Stokowski uses great economy of gesture. A molding movement of the hands--as though shaping an invisible clay vase--brought an exquisite rubato. In the final movement, the Danse Bohemienne, the slashing right arm drove the orchestra on furiously. Rising from his chair, he brought the work to a close with one passionate downsweep. Before the musicians disbanded for their tea break, Stokowski decided to dissolve the tension. "This is really a piece for brigands," he said. "You . . . and you . . . and you, look like real bad men to me. Bet you always go through the customs and say, 'Nothing to declare.' " That brought the appropriate guffaws. Then, grabbing his cane, Stokowski ambled off to listen to the tapes and decide, as always, which parts of the recording were good and which needed work.

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