Music: Philadelphia’s Scheme

For the opening of its orchestra season, Philadelphia had its own, its very own Leopold Stokowski. Slender and elegant as ever, he was bursting with energy. He had spent a quiet summer studying Persian music in the British Museum. But like any shrewd showman he first gave his subscribers just what they wanted: his own arrangement of Bach, a Beethoven symphony, a magnificent high-powered reading of Death and Transfiguration. Only flaw was the Prelude to Hans Pfitzner’s long-winded Palestrina. But of that no one took much notice.

Stokowski schemes crop thick as clover. Last week he announced that he would organize a junior orchestra, that he intended, also, to let a few of his players try conducting at the regular Orchestra rehearsals. But Philadelphia’s most ambitious project this season does not limelight Stokowski. Beginning next week the Orchestra Association will give a series of operas under Conductors Fritz Reiner & Alexander Smallens.