Anshel Brusilow as Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy – PART II, EPISODES 2 snd 3
Part II Episode 2
Nineteen years after leaving the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski finally received an invitation from Eugene Ormandy to guest conduct in February, 1960. Stokowski had raised the orchestra from regional to international acclaim, and yet never been invited back. This is most unusual. What can have prevented the conventional honor normally shown to a previous conductor of long tenure?
The usual answer flies to the sticky subject of Stokowski’s supposed sexual exploits. Now the board member whose wife’s name was too intimately tied with Stokowski’s was no longer associated with us. Surely it was merely that indelicate situation that had delayed the invitation.
Stokowski’s return was a major event in Philadelphia. The newspapers reminded us of all he had done to polish the orchestra, which gave luster to the city. Those few members of the orchestra who dated back to the previous era were jittery, spreading their anticipation to the rest of us—“He’s coming back! Three concerts!” Dave Madison had told me what concerts had been like back then, the godlike aura he managed to exude as he strode onto the stage, a magnificent specimen of humanity, six foot two with gleaming white hair that swooped over his head like meringue.
I remembered his visits to New Orleans and San Francisco. He had impressed me more than any conductor I had ever played for, even though I could not see myself opting for such a showy style. It was the vigor of his conducting that thrilled the players. His changes to scores attracted criticism, but I thought they were usually justified. When an orchestra is paying 110 players, the board is displeased to come to a concert and find only 80 of them on stage, even if the composer wrote parts only for 80. So in pieces written for smaller orchestras, Stokowski would add instruments and write the parts, not necessarily introducing new notes.
We sounded different under Stokowski. It was partly his added transcription to the scores. But also the force of his leadership. We sounded however he wanted us to sound. Of course the Philadelphians gave him curtain calls. When he returned the third time, he motioned for the audience to sit. First, he gave the smile. Such a knowing smile, boyish even on the old man. Knowing, specifically, that many of the women in the audience were suffering rapid heartbeats.
Then he spoke: “As I was saying—”
The audience erupted in laughter. They were still in love with him. He said generous things about the orchestra, its continued quality, about Ormandy’s work with us, about the dedication of our board. He paved the way for annual return visits.
In February of 1962, Stokowski had Scheherazade on the program for us, Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite full of violin solos. Afterwards he sent me a kind letter, which I still treasure. Here are words from him that thrilled this musician’s heart:
“[Scheherazade] has nostalgic qualities which are different from any other music I know, and your playing showed that you completely understood this unique mood. For example, at the beginning of the 4th movement your first solo had that kind of dreamy tenderness it should have, and the next solo the powerful agitation and even brutality that is its character.”
That’s what we all want to do. Really get what the composer meant.
During that visit, we played the piece Stokowski’s way on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. On Sunday—with no rehearsal— the orchestra recorded Scheherazade with Ormandy, effortlessly switching back to his way.
Writers about music often mention the long shadow of Stokowski. Anyone close to the five-foot-five Ormandy knew that, in his own mind, no height of musical achievement could add to his actual stature. He was a short man. The extra-high podium helped, but not enough. Obviously, height has nothing to do with conducting talent, and others have found it no hindrance. but for Ormandy it was a problem. Stokowski’s physical height alone was enough to haunt Ormandy. Add in Stokowski’s dancer-like grace, the head of hair, the magnetism he exercised over women, and his glamorous style of batonless conducting, and up rises a shadow perfectly designed to torment a profoundly talented but sensitive man like Ormandy. Who could compete with the elegant silhouette we all knew from Walt Disney’s Fantasia?
Most of the time, Ormandy looked out for me. When I tore my pant leg on the way to a Monday night concert, he lent me a pair of his own pants. (I wore them as low as possible.) He wasn’t even above sharing his personal secrets for avoiding embarrassing oversights onstage. He always checked his pants zipper before he walked on, and he told me to do the same.
“It’s too late when you’re onstage. Your full dress jacket won’t cover it. I call it the glissando.” He demonstrated, sliding his finger up and down the zipper as you would make a glissando on a string instrument by sliding your finger up and down the string.
How could I not be reminded of Szell’s interpretation of the glissando in “Till Eulenspiegel” as the moment when Till turns and pees down from the steeple?
In a candid moment, Ormandy told me about an experience he had when he was conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony and still quite young. He arrived at the hall for rehearsal. The players didn’t know he was there yet, and he overheard one saying to another, “That Ormandy is a son of a bitch.”
Appalled, he closed himself in his office. This was intolerable! What should he do? He phoned Arthur Judson, his manager at Columbia Artists Management, Inc. (CAMI).
“You won’t believe what I just heard. A member of my orchestra called me an S.O.B! Behind my back, but still—how can they dare?”
Judson burst out laughing. “Ormandy! Congratulations. You’ve just become a conductor.”
PART II Episode 3
In 1961, the Philadelphia Orchestra embarked on a transcontinental tour that would go to California and end in New York. It began in Ann Arbor with our traditional May festival.
We packed ourselves into a train and headed south to Indiana. I was less squeezed than others, since Ormandy arranged a large private compartment for me. This was necessary to accommodate the card games we players always had going, though perhaps that was not in the boss’s mind.
In Fort Wayne, we performed in an old movie theater. Of course the dressing room space was inadequate. Ormandy kindly invited me to share his room.
In the performance, we came to the final piece of the concert, Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. We had played it in Philadelphia just a month earlier and Ormandy had conducted it most impressively from memory.
We began, and quickly I noticed that his movements were rote. In fact, it was like watching my grandmother wash clothes on a washboard. His arms moved up and down without even completing the standard fourfold movement of conducting— the sequence of down, left, right, up. He gave no direction to the strings or woodwinds, and did not even pull the brass in at their entry. His music stand was empty. But he really did know Petrouchka inside out.
Just at that moment, I looked around and saw the musicians beginning to be disconcerted. Stravinsky is difficult music. Sweating, I shifted toward the orchestra to make eye contact with various section leaders and raised my violin a bit so the bow was more visible, to help them until our conductor got his bearing.
Ormandy still raised and lowered his arms mechanically. On his face was a look of frozen fear. His beats were not even in the right places, as if not a single note of Stravinsky’s piece was available to his mind. He was wandering in a territory all his own.
We knew this work. I was sure we could play it decently, if we could just all keep together. I felt completely unprepared for what I had to do, but there was simply no choice. The players had to follow something, and in this case it wasn’t going to be Ormandy. Fortunately, the bowing action adds to the visibility of a violin, but it was not enough. I knew that. With my head, my feet, my elbows too, I tried to lead the orchestra. A lesser group of musicians could never have gotten through such a difficult piece in this way, but somehow the others saw what they needed and played where they were supposed to. What a great sigh of relief ran through us all when we reached the end.
The audience, I think, was none the wiser. They even required an encore.
I knew Ormandy would not want to see anyone, and I wished my things were out with everyone else’s. But I had to go into his dressing room because we were sharing. I would just retrieve my stuff and get out of there fast.
He stood staring into a large mirrored wall. Which meant that he was facing me in the mirror.
I started packing my violin quickly.
“What did I do? What did I do?” he said.
“Boss, Petrouchka’s a difficult work.”
“I know. But what did I do?”
“Well,” I said, “you made it more difficult.” I would really like to revisit that moment and think of something more helpful to say. I just haven’t thought of it yet.
Two days later Ormandy conducted Petrouchka perfectly from memory. What happened to him can happen to any of us.
Final Episode 4 to follow.