Leopold Stokowski

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

Did you hear a lot of music in your home as a child?

Leopold Stokowski0:10

Yes, I always wanted to be a musician since I can remember, since I was four or five years old.

Leopold Stokowski0:17

When I was about that age I was up in Palmen, that's the north part of Germany at that time.

Leopold Stokowski0:22

And I heard a violinist up there and I fell in love with that instrument, asked for a little violin, and that's how I began music.

Leopold Stokowski0:31

And when you left school you you studied at the Royal College here in London? Yes, I studied the Royal College and I I feel I owe a very great debt to the Royal College. It's a wonderful institution.

Leopold Stokowski0:43

After that I studied in Paris and later in München and later in Berlin.

Leopold Stokowski0:49

When you'd finished your studies, what was your first professional engagement? I never finished my studies. I haven't finished them yet. I've been studying all day today and I'll be studying all day tomorrow and for the rest of my life because conducting is very, very difficult and very complicated. And a modern orchestra is very complex. I'm sure of that.

Leopold Stokowski1:10

But do you you didn't begin as a conductor, did you?

Leopold Stokowski1:15

The first time I conducted was when I was twelve.

Leopold Stokowski1:18

And that was also here in England.

Leopold Stokowski1:21

Uh at that time I was the pianist for a chorus.

Leopold Stokowski1:26

And we were rehearsing one night

Leopold Stokowski1:29

And uh conductor did not come.

Leopold Stokowski1:32

And it was the last rehearsal before the concert. And so somebody said to me, one of the singers, uh, could you conduct this rehearsal? And, you know, boys are very confident and I said, Well, of course I can.

Leopold Stokowski1:45

And uh so I stood up and conducted it and uh then I conducted the concert afterwards and that's how it began. But I even before then I wanted to be an orchestral conductor.

Presenter1:56

Yes. Yes. You were for a time an organist here in London, weren't you?

Leopold Stokowski1:59

Oh yes. I I played first the violin, then the viola.

Leopold Stokowski2:02

And then the piano and then the organ. And now I play the greatest instrument of all, or I tried to play it, and that's the modern orchestra, yeah.

Presenter2:11

Yeah.

Leopold Stokowski2:11

Uh

Presenter2:11

Yeah.

Leopold Stokowski2:12

Did you decide to go to America, mister Scofier?

Leopold Stokowski2:14

I didn't decide.

Leopold Stokowski2:16

Um

Leopold Stokowski2:17

I was in London.

Leopold Stokowski2:19

Long time ago I lived in German Street and uh a man came and said I'm looking for an an organist.

Leopold Stokowski2:28

And uh

Leopold Stokowski2:29

I've been to Paris, and Paris was the great musician of those days.

Leopold Stokowski2:33

And

Leopold Stokowski2:35

Another

Leopold Stokowski2:36

Sir Charles William Stanford. I've been to those two.

Presenter2:38

I feel the

Leopold Stokowski2:39

And uh I said, I want a a good organist, but I want a man who's not too British. Well, that wasn't a very tactful thing for him to say, but that's what he did say to them, and they said, Please take Stokovsky. We we'd like him to go. So he offered me the position.

Leopold Stokowski2:56

of Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York. I was delighted because it was an adventure. I went there expecting to meet Indians and cowboys in the streets and was very disappointed at first.

Presenter3:11

Which was your first orchestra?

Leopold Stokowski3:13

Well

Leopold Stokowski3:14

I did a certain amount of conducting here in London and in Paris, but the first

Leopold Stokowski3:21

I had steadily was Cincinnati, after that it was Philadelphia, after that it was

Leopold Stokowski3:29

I can't remember what came next, but

Presenter3:31

Oh, the Philadelphia Orchestra, where you you stayed for so many years, you made into one of the the premier orchestras of the world. Uh how long were you in Philadelphia?

Presenter3:39

Uh

Leopold Stokowski3:39

I was there from

Leopold Stokowski3:41

Fifteen to thirty five. Yes. Twenty years. Yes. Well, since then, since you you left Philadelphia i in the thirties.

Leopold Stokowski3:50

You've been moving about quite a lot. I love to travel. I I would like to travel every day of my life. I think I'm just a vagabond. It's it's delightful to be going to different countries and cond conducting different orchestras because the personalities of the players are always so different.

Presenter4:08

Yeah.

Leopold Stokowski4:08

The orient command tool

Presenter4:09

At the moment of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, aren't you?

Leopold Stokowski4:12

Yes, at present I am conducting three orchestras in the United States, one in New York, one in Hollywood and one in Texas. Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:22

How long ago did you start making records yourself?

Leopold Stokowski4:25

I can't remember, but

Leopold Stokowski4:28

I remember that the first records we made, that was of course before electrical records.

Leopold Stokowski4:34

And we made them into a huge horn. It was like uh a great horn made of wood.

Leopold Stokowski4:41

was enormous and we pushed as many players as we could inside of that horn and and made records that way. Of course they were not very good but th those were the very early primitive days of records. Now we record uh electrically and by magnetic

Leopold Stokowski5:02

Process on tape, as you know.

Leopold Stokowski5:04

And that of course is much better. But in the future we will find, I'm sure we will invent much better ways of recording than we have at this present time.