dy ever quite knew whether the dead-pan Stoky was in earnest
or moved by an impish sense of humor when, following the usual thin
smattering of applause, he said:

"This strange beating together of hands has no meaning, and to me
it is very disturbing. I do not like it. It destroys the mood my
colleagues and I have been trying to create with our music."

Shortly afterward, the Philadelphia Orchestra and its blond, romantic
conductor invaded New York. Their Tuesday night concerts at Carnegie
Hall became the rage. The uninhibited music lovers of this town not
only applauded Stoky but cheered, yelled and stamped to express their
frenzied approval. He never lectured THEM.

But in Philadelphia he continued his extra-conductorial antics. When
the audience hissed an ultra-modern composition, he told them: "I am
glad you are hissing. It is so much better than apathy." Another time,
when they booed an atonal piece, he repeated it immediately.

He scolded the audience for coming late. He scolded them for leaving
early. Once he scolded them for coughing. They continued the rasping
noise. After the intermission, on Stoky's orders, the 100-odd men of
the orchestra walked out on the stage barking as if in the last stages
of an epidemic bronchial disease.

All those didoes promptly made the front page. Thereafter Mr.
Stokowski, who had tasted blood, or rather, printer's ink, came out on
the average of once a month with a new notion to astound the Quakers.

He shocked them with a demand for Sunday concerts--then a heresy in
Philadelphia. He changed the seating arrangement of the orchestra. He
discarded the wooden amphitheatre on which, since the dark symphonic
ages, the players had sat in tiers, and put them on chairs directly on
the stage. Then he shuffled the men, making the cellos change places
with the second violins, the battery with the basses. There must have
been some merit in all this switching, for several conductors copied
it.

Next he announced that light was a distraction at a concert.
Henceforth, the Philadelphia Orchestra would play in darkness. Wails
of dismay from the Friday afternoon dowagers. How on earth was any one
going to see what her friends were wearing?

At the next matinee the Academy of Music was black as a crypt. On
the stage, at each of the players' desks, hung a small, green-shaded
light. Then Mr. Stokowski walked out on the podium. The moment he had
mounted the dais, a spotlight was trained on hi