Stokowski’s hands were for shaking, not signing autographs
OrchestrasFrom a new memoir by Chicago psychologist Dr Gerald Stein:
…I went downstairs to the orchestra’s nether region and stood in line for an autograph. When Stokowski emerged from his dressing room, he appeared shorter than I imagined. But he was 83 after all, by which time men diminish in size.
Perhaps a dozen or two admirers made up the queue I was in, all with pens in hand, holding program booklets we expected the maestro to ink with his name.
He didn’t. Not that he displayed rudeness as he listened to the plaudits each of us expressed, along with our thanks. Instead, he shook our hands.
I’d seen those hands even after Fantasia, too. Bugs Bunny had portrayed Stoki in a Looney Tunes cartoon, with much attention to them.
Was he now suffering from arthritis? His hands were once the subject of considerable comment as to their beauty. Did he want to dispense with the process faster than multiple autographs would permit? He didn’t appear to be in a hurry.
Stoki’s mitts were uncommonly soft for a man, almost as if he used a hand lotion to produce their tenderness. Nor did he offer manly grip strength. But it was not that so much as something else that brought me back to Fantasia….
Read on here.
Lovely story and that Shostakovitch 10th can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUs61EdnKxM
Stoki was not an autograph giver generally, and the author’s experience of shaking hands and chatting is much more in line with what others have recalled. And by the way up in the “Gods” are the best seats for sound in Orchestra Hall so he was well placed.
Really? I’ve never heard that. There are certainly a lot of them out there. I have one on my wall that is inscribed to my father who played in the Houston Symphony when he was music director.
I have a few myself but they were typically dedicated to people as in the case of your Dad. I had a lovely conversation with Ray Weaver about 30 years ago, he was principal oboe in Houston.
I read somewhere that someone came up to Stokowski on the street and commented, “You’re the man who shook hands with Mickey Mouse!” To which he replied, “No, he shook hands with ME!”
My favorite Stokowski autograph story came from Ruth Whyte the wife of Bert Whyte the producer of Everest records. She and her husband were at the Russian Tea Room (next to Carnegie Hall – it’s still there) with Stokowski. Some autograph hound approaches and asks Stoki for an autograph calling him “Mr Koussevitzky.” Stoki duly obliged with a huge signature “Serge Koussevitzky.” Koussy had been dead almost ten years at the time.
Georg Solti could be quite abrupt if a stranger tried to shake his hand
Decades ago I was one of a group trying to get an elderly Arthur Rubenstein’s autograph: he was very apologetic, but said if he signed one, he’d have to sign for all of us, but he did at least shake hands.
Mickey Mouse aside, Stoki’s thing was his head of hair, more than his hands. It was reliably reported that he arranged stage lighting to emphasize the tresses.
Yes. Him and Von Karajan with the hair!