"I wish you would let Stokowski come out and explain to you what he is trying to do," said Hofmann."He knows what he wants, and he is right in his efforts; but he doesn't know how to educate the public.There is where you could help him."But Bok had no desire to meet Stokowski.He mentally pictured the conductor: long hair; feet never touching the earth; temperament galore;he knew them! And he had no wish to introduce the type into his home life.
Mrs.Bok, however, ably seconded Josef Hofmann, and endeavored to dissipate Bok's preconceived notion, with the result that Stokowksi came to the Bok home.
Bok was not slow to see that Stokowski was quite the reverse of his mental picture, and became intensely interested in the youthful conductor's practical way of looking at things.It was agreed that the encore "bull" was to be taken by the horns that week; that no matter what the ovation to Hofmann might be, however the public might clamor, no encore was to be forthcoming; and Bok was to give the public an explanation during the following week.The next concert was to present Mischa Elman, and his co-operation was assured so that continuity of effort might be counted upon.
In order to have first-hand information, Bok attended the concert that Saturday evening.The symphony, Dvorak's "New World Symphony," amazed Bok by its beauty; he was more astonished that he could so easily grasp any music in symphonic form.He was equally surprised at the simple beauty of the other numbers on the programme, and wondered not a little at his own perfectly absorbed attention during Hofmann's playing of a rather long concerto.
The pianist's performance was so beautiful that the audience was uproarious in its approval; it had calculated, of course, upon an encore, and recalled the pianist again and again until he had appeared and bowed his thanks several times.But there was no encore; the stage hands appeared and moved the piano to one side, and the audience relapsed into unsatisfied and rather bewildered silence.
Then followed Bok's publicity work in the newspapers, beginning the next day, exonerating Hofmann and explaining the situation.The following week, with Mischa Elman as soloist, the audience once more tried to have its way and its cherished encore, but again none was forthcoming.Once more the newspapers explained; the battle was won, and the no-encore rule has prevailed at the Philadelphia Orchestra concerts from that day to this, with the public entirely resigned to the idea and satisfied with the reason therefor.
But the bewildered Bok could not make out exactly what had happened to his preconceived notion about symphonic music.He attended the following Saturday evening concert; listened to a Brahms symphony that pleased him even more than had "The New World," and when, two weeks later, he heard the Tschaikowski "Pathetique" and later the "Unfinished" symphony, by Schubert, and a Beethoven symphony, attracted by each in turn, he realized that his prejudice against the whole question of symphonic music had been both wrongly conceived and baseless.
He now began to see the possibility of a whole world of beauty which up to that time had been closed to him, and he made up his mind that he would enter it.Somehow or other, he found the appeal of music did not confine itself to women; it seemed to have a message for men.Then, too, instead of dreading the approach of Saturday evenings, he was looking forward to them, and invariably so arranged his engagements that they might not interfere with his attendance at the orchestra concerts.
