(b London, 18 April 1882; d Nether Wallop, Hants., 13 Sept 1977). American conductor of British birth, and Polish and Irish parentage. He entered the RCM at 13, studying with Stevenson Hoyte, Walford Davies and Stanford, and gaining the FRCO diploma in 1900. After travelling to Paris and Berlin he returned to London to form a choir at St Mary's, Charing Cross Road, in 1900–01. In 1902 he was appointed organist and choirmaster at St James's, Piccadilly, and the following year he took the BMus at Queen's College, Oxford. After three years as organist and choirmaster at St Bartholomew's, New York (1905–8), he returned to Europe in search of conducting work, making his début in Paris in 1908. With the help of Olga Samaroff (later to be his first wife) and his own guile, he was appointed conductor with the Cincinnati SO (1909–12) despite his lack of experience. Over the next 24 years (1912–36) he made the Philadelphia Orchestra one of the best in the world. He was appointed music director in 1931 but he resigned in 1936, although he carried on as co-conductor with Ormandy for two more years. He finally severed his connection with Philadelphia in 1941. A spate of new orchestras followed as he created and conducted (often for no pay) the All-American Youth Orchestra (1940–41), the New York City Symphony (1944) and the Hollywood Bowl SO (1945). After a season as conductor of the NBC SO (1941–2) Stokowski was joined by Toscanini as co-conductor for two seasons (1942–4). He was principal guest conductor of the New York PO, 1947–9, and co-conductor, with Mitropoulos, in the 1949–50 season. Several years of guest conducting followed, and he appeared in Britain (for the first time since 1912) in the 1951 Festival of Britain. After five seasons (1955–60) as music director of the Houston SO, he went on to conduct Turandot at the Metropolitan (1960) and to create the American SO (1962–72), with whom he gave the first complete performance of Ives's Fourth Symphony (1965). He finally returned to London and continued to give concerts until 1975, and to record until shortly before his death.
While Stokowski's roles of pop star and champion of the avant garde seem somewhat contradictory, most of his idiosyncrasies stemmed from his zeal to create a large and sophisticated audience. He had a lifelong interest in music from around the globe and believed (perhaps naively, but consistently) that music was a universal language. It was this belief, espoused in his book Music for All of Us (New York, 1943), that gave impetus to his missionary zeal. Recognizing his talents as a showman, he built upon his gifts by abandoning the baton in 1929, conducting from memory, creating an orchestra for the Hollywood Bowl and collaborating with Walt Disney on Fantasia (1940). Even when chastising his audience for shuffling during modern music, he used his gift for drama, pleading on behalf of the musicians, or stomping off only to return and start from the beginning.
Stokowski's music-making was shaped by the same goals. The interpreter who created the most ‘vibrant and thrilling’ experience would win the most converts of the composer's music. Hence he created the lush ‘Philadelphia Sound’ through the use of ‘free bowing’ in the strings and staggered breathing with doubled winds. His rehearsal technique substituted practical direction for the traditional metaphorical explanations, while his innovation of putting all the violins on one side (with the sound directed towards the audience) is still standard practice. Stokowski's quest to popularize also led from minor reorchestrations to complete transcriptions, including the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Born when interpretation was an art, he was hardly unusual in occasionally doubling solo passages, adding percussion, emphasizing extreme dynamics and even cutting ‘uninteresting’ bars. But attitudes changed during his 65 years as a conductor, and critics accused him of tinkering even when all of the notes were exactly as the composer left them.
Those who disagreed with his methods chose to ignore his tremendous contribution to modern music. In addition to an unrivalled tally of several hundred world premières (among them Rachmaninoff's Third Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Schoenberg's Violin Concerto), he devoted Wednesday mornings in Philadelphia to reading new pieces, even if they could not be included in concerts. His many American premières included The Rite of Spring, Mahler's Eighth Symphony, Wozzeck and Pierrot lunaire. In 1933 the Philadelphia board tried to stop him by declaring that ‘no more debatable music’ would be played. He soon left, but when he became music director in Houston in 1955 he insisted on a première at almost every concert.
Seeing their educational potential, Stokowski made acoustic 78s in 1917 and continued to experiment with new media, making the first electrical recordings of a symphony and experimenting with long-playing records, stereo and television. In 1926 he experimented with turning out all the house lights and using only small lights on the music stands and a massive spotlight underneath the conductor.
Stokowski's life off the podium was equally colourful, with three wives (Olga Samaroff, the heiress Evangeline Brewster Johnson and the young Gloria Vanderbilt) and a highly publicized relationship with Greta Garbo.
O.S. Stokowski: An American Musician's Story (New York, 1939)
H. Kupferberg: Those Fabulous Philadelphians: the Life and Times of a Great Orchestra (New York, 1969)
E. Johnson: ‘Stokowski Looks Back’, Music and Musicians, xix/11 (1970–71), 22–4
E. Arian: Bach, Beethoven and Bureaucracy: The Case of the Philadelphia Orchestra (Alabama, 1971)
E. Johnson, ed.: Stokowski: Essays in Analysis of his Art (London, 1973) [incl. list of transcriptions, notable first performances, filmography and discography]
R. Chesterman, ed.: Conversations with Conductors (London, 1976) [incl. Stokowski interview by Glenn Gould]
A. Hodgson: ‘The Stokowski Sound’, Records and Recording, xx/8 (1976–7), 16
P. Robinson: The Art of the Conductor: Stokowski (Toronto and London, 1977)
A. Chasins: Leopold Stokowski: a Profile (New York, 1979)
O. Daniel: Stokowski: a Counterpoint of View (New York, 1982)
P. Opperby: Leopold Stokowski (Tunbridge Wells and New York, 1982) [incl. bibliography, discography and list of first performances]
W.A. Smith: The Mystery of Leopold Stokowski (Cranbury, NJ, 1990)
J. Hunt: Leopold Stokowski: Discography and Concert Register (London, 1996)
J. Ardoin, ed.: The Philadelphia Orchestra: a Century of Music (Philadelphia, 1999)
JOSÉ BOWEN