Good Djokjakarta

In the remote, jungled landscapes of India and in the alleyways of cities of Ceylon, music can be heard. To most occidental ears such music sounds queer and ugly, as the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra would sound queer to the inhabitants of the far places. Yet oriental music did not sound ugly to Leopold Stokowski, famed insurgent conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony. In fact during a recent and extensive tour of the Far East he stood "literally hypnotized ... by music such as western ears had never heard, wildly discordant but with overtones of grandeur." Always eager to shock the music-lovers of Philadelphia, Leopold Stokowski swore that he would carry these aboriginal harmonies home with him to Pennsylvania.

Last week when he arrived, alert music-listeners were in a stew of excitement. They longed to see Stokowski and to ask him to play for them the wild notes of songs which western ears had never heard before. "What have you brought us?" they cried; whereupon Leopold Stokowski showed them three Javanese gongs, sacred objects which made a pleasant noise when struck. These he said he had wheedled from the Sultan of Java.

Instead of notes, Conductor Stokowski offered his admirers notations which he had made upon music heard in Java. Conductor Stokowski said that he had been entertained by the good Sultan of Djokjakarta in his 15-acre palace at the wedding ceremonies of certain of the children of several of the Sultan's 3,000 wives. At this wedding feast he had heard Javanese "gamalongs" or orchestras which he described :

"Instead of string and wind instruments, the Javanese produce their music with a complex system of gongs, bells and celestas, achieving a cohesion of rhythm beyond the hopes of an occidental orchestra." Different gamalongs, said Stokowski in an awed whisper, played long, complicated programs in different courtyards without leaders and without mistakes. "I tried," said the leader of the Philadelphia Symphony, "to arrange with a Javanese prince to send his entire orchestra of several hundred to Philadelphia . . . they are splendidly barbaric. . . ."