Witness to History: Excerpts from Nancy Shear's New Memoir "I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms."

On July 21, 1960, Leopold Stokowski was to conduct members of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Robin Hood Dell, an outdoor amphitheater where they performed for eight weeks after the regular Academy of Music season. Stokowski, who brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to global prominence years earlier, had been away from the city for almost two decades. This would be his first appearance at the Dell in twenty-seven years, and although I was only fourteen, I was desperate to hear him conduct.

That concert became a landmark in my memory. Five summers later, backstage in his dressing room at the Dell, Stokowski would ask me to work with him as his personal orchestra librarian and musical assistant. It would be the beginning of a close, complex relationship that would bring me not only into his home but into his musical mind.

I was too young to travel alone in 1960. My mother probably wasn’t well, because my older neighbor, Eileen, went with me. Luckily, the tickets were free, available by clipping coupons from local papers.

Eileen and I arrived early—more than an hour before concert time—but long lines had already formed at the entrance. Inside, green wooden seats lined the vast bowl-shaped venue. The extensive concrete paving was softened by a grove of trees to the left of the seats and an expansive grassy embankment to their right. A huge angular shell leaned protectively over the stage.

That July evening, more than thirty thousand music lovers filled the seats and covered the immense sloping lawn. Some people even climbed into the trees. Two thousand more stood outside the facility, listening through loudspeakers. Eileen and I were lucky to have gotten in. …

At the Dell, even though we were sitting almost a block away from the stage, I caught sight of Stokowski just before the concert began. He was dressed in white tie and tails as he stood at the open backstage doorway. More than half a century later, I can still feel the thrill of seeing him in person for the first time.

Seconds later, to wild cheers and applause, the Maestro made his way onstage. Mounting the podium, he bowed several times in different directions, then—in one quick motion—pivoted to face the orchestra and launched a vibrant performance of Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture. Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso followed, castanets clicking away, all color and seduction. Then came Debussy’s “Nuages” and “Fêtes” (“Clouds” and “Festivals”), two of the three sections of the Nocturnes.

Atmospheric and mysterious—mostly soft winds and muted strings—“Nuages” gave way to the brisk and spirited “Fêtes,” with its swirling winds and scurrying strings. A few moments after “Fêtes” began, a train, chugging far off in the distance, tooted a rude counterpoint to the music and the performance abruptly stopped. People looked at each other questioningly, then at the stage. Facing the orchestra, Stokowski stood motionless, his hands at his sides. He held the pose for four interminable minutes. Then, once silence was restored, his hands moved, the music resumed, and the audience visibly relaxed. The peace, however, was short-lived. A loud diesel horn blew, the crowd laughed, and Stokowski flew offstage. Another four minutes elapsed before he returned. But back on the podium, before he resumed conducting, he turned to face the audience. “We must be patient with modern civilization,” he commented, and the crowd cheered.

During the second half of the concert, which included a powerful performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1, he stopped the music two more times for train noise but didn’t leave the podium. The shouting, foot-stamping crowd brought him back for ten curtain calls.

“I hear you asking for an encore,” he teased the audience. “We would be delighted to do it, but do not wish to disturb the Pennsylvania Railroad!” Everyone laughed but no one left. “If you will protect me,” he said into the microphone, “and you are sure we will not offend the Pennsylvania Railroad, we will play a little something.” (Back at the Dell a year later, he apologized to the Pennsylvania Railroad; it had been the Reading Company railroad.) He repeated the last movement of Amirov’s “Azerbaijan: Symphonic Suite,” which had already been performed in its entirety.

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Visually, the Academy of Music’s backstage was intriguing: expansive raw brick walls; massive rope pulleys holding opera scenery, props and lighting fixtures; handcarts and dollies to move equipment. Enormous wooden double bass cases lay strewn about the floor like coffins, and cello cases, standing upright, looked like human silhouettes in the dim lighting mounted high above the dark-red velvet curtains. Battered black trunks served as moveable closets, their doors ajar to reveal concert dresses, dark suits, and sets of tails draped on wooden hangers. Larger trunks fitted with shelving stood ready to receive and transport the music folders for one hundred-plus players.

The entire backstage area smelled of music: the scent of bow rosin, the perfume of valve oil, and the aroma of freshly pressed concert clothing mingled with the mustiness of decades of dust. That smell was like a drug. As it filled my lungs, I was infused with a sense of well-being. …

I loved to walk across the abandoned, darkened stage after rehearsals, peering first through the crack of the door to be certain no one was there. Empty chairs and music stands fanned out from the podium, and the ghost light—a single bare bulb screwed into the top of a wrought-iron stand at the edge of the stage—threw elongated shadows high against the walls. The silence had a tone of its own, a kind of prelude to the music that would soon replace it.

In 1963, when I was almost seventeen, Mr. Barnes [Orchestra stage personnel manager] finally gave up the battle. I was allowed to go where I wished backstage. Just off stage right, a few concrete steps led to a utilitarian-looking metal door and on one of my explorations, I opened it. Two men sat at a long, worn, pale-green linoleum table. A fluorescent lamp with a piece of paper taped to its side illuminated the end of the table nearest the door, where the assistant conductor of the orchestra, William Smith, sat puffing on his pipe. Jesse Taynton, the orchestra’s good-natured, white-haired librarian, sat to Mr. Smith’s left, a cigarette burning itself out in the ashtray in front of him. He was penciling strange-looking marks, like hieroglyphics, onto sheets of music. I always said hello to these two backstage, but they were obviously hard at work now. Wordlessly, I began to close the door. “You may come in,” Mr. Taynton said, and I pushed the door back open.

“This is the library, where we prepare the music,” he explained. I was confused. Composers wrote the notes. I knew that from playing the cello in the school orchestra. Why would anything have to be added to what the composers had written? I was also shocked. The music was sacred, like the Bible, and not to be tampered with.

“Pull up a chair,” he invited, “and I’ll show you what I’m doing.” Bill Smith smiled at me, his pipe clenched between his teeth.

Mr. Taynton explained that the printed music couldn’t convey everything needed for a performance. It instructed the musicians on what notes to play and basically how loud or soft, long or short, fast or slow, to play them. But the conductor, through gestures and sometimes verbal directions at rehearsals, would communicate specific tempos, volume (called “dynamics”), phrasing, and the subtleties of expression that make each conductor’s interpretation uniquely his own. To further convey his wishes, a conductor would give the librarian directives to mark into the parts.

The most heavily marked parts, Mr. Taynton explained, were those for the string players. They had to deal with bowings—markings that indicated the directions in which the bows should move, up or down, which varies the quality of sound. The conductor, the concertmaster, or the principal player of each string section determined the bowings. (Ormandy, a former violinist, did the bowings for many of his concerts.) The librarian then had to transfer those directions—hundreds or thousands of them—into every string part. There were also indications of how phrases should be shaped; if certain notes should be played aggressively or subtly, given relatively more or less emphasis; and a myriad of other interpretive details. A conductor might also decide if certain notes should be omitted. The markings, Mr. Taynton continued, must reflect the style of playing that a conductor will ask for through gesture.

The markings for a conductor who wants a lean, classical approach differ substantially from those of someone who wants an emotional, romantic interpretation. Markings, therefore, would have to be changed from conductor to conductor. Fascinated, I listened as Mr. Taynton talked. Pipe smoke curled in the air and the sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra flooded the room from a wall speaker mounted above a metal cabinet. I returned to the library the next afternoon, and started going there a few days a week, not just on Fridays.

Excerpts from I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms by Nancy Shear are reprinted with permission from Regalo Press.