In one painful rehearsal for Stravinsky’s The Firebird, the principal cellist didn’t play the solo well, so Stokowski had every single cellist play it – an exercise in mass humiliation. “You just sat there and prayed for each man to get through it,” Minsker recalls. Some did, some didn’t.

Ah yes, old school conductors. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with them.

The 95 year old MInsker is the former English hornist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The article is definitely worth the read.
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