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 his head, turning his hair into a glittering golden halo. The ladies forgot all about their friends' dresses. Why, the darling boy looked like an angel descended into a tomb to waken the dead!
Stoky explained to the press that the spot was necessary to enable his men to follow the play of his facial expressions.
Most conductors make their appearance in a leisurely manner. Carrying the stick, they stride out on the platform, acknowledge the audience's reception with a courtly bow, say a few kind words to the men, and when musicians and listeners have composed themselves, begin the concert.
Leopold changed all that. Leander-like, he leaped from the wings, dashed to the center of the stage, nodded curtly to the customers, then accepted the baton which was handed to him, with a flourish, by one of the viola players, and, before you could say "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," plunged into the opening number.
His audiences, particularly the ladies, doted on his conducting technique. His slim, youthful, virile figure was held erect, his feet remained still as if nailed to the floor, while his arms went through a series of sensuously compelling, always graceful motions. The view from the back was enhanced by the fact that the tailor who cut his morning and evening coats was almost as great as Stoky himself. And his hands! Ah, my dear, those hands——!
There was so much ecstatic comment on those slender, nervous, expressive hands that Mr. Stokowski decided to give the gals a full, unhampered view. He did away with the baton.