Excerpt from Coraddi, Vol. 42: May, 1938 Leopold Stokowski showed his musical talents at an early age. Before he was ten years old, he was familiar with the piano, the violin, the tuba, and the viola. Within a few succeeding years he had familiarized himself with every orches tral instrument, and at the age of fourteen had produced a composition which was sung at Saint Paul's Cathedral. By that time he had deter mined to be a conductor, the only music field large enough for the expression of a personality which could only lead and never follow. He attended the Royal College of Organists, and became a Fellow at Queens College, Oxford. There he majored in chemistry and athletics, with the emphasis on boxing, a fact which he now finds most embarrassing. At the completion of this schooling, he became the organist and director at Saint James Church, Piccadilly. A Few years later he was interrupted while playing football in the mud, and was invited to become the organist of Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York. So Leopold Stokowski came to America, a classically handsome youth, with bril liant blue eyes, a small sensitive mouth, and yellow curls, even then appearing young for his age. In 1908 he left abruptly and went to Europe for a triumphant year of continental conduct ing. Upon his return to this country he im mediately signed a contract with the Cincinnati Orchestra. This he directed so successfully that he was tendered the better position of conductor of the Philadelphia Philharmonic. Breaking his other contract, he accepted this offer in 1912. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.