Like many men of his practical nature, he had made up his mind on this point without ever having heard such a concert.  The word “symphony” was enough; it conveyed to him a form of the highest music quite beyond his comprehension.  Then, too, in the back of his mind there was the feeling that, while he was perfectly willing to offer the best that the musical world afforded in his magazine, his readers were primarily women, and the appeal of music, after all, he felt was largely, if not wholly, to the feminine nature.  It was very satisfying to him to hear his wife play in the evening; but when it came to public concerts, they were not for his masculine nature.  In other words, Bok shared the all too common masculine notion that music is for women and has little place in the lives of men.

One day Josef Hofmann gave Bok an entirely new point of view.  The artist was rehearsing in Philadelphia for an appearance with the orchestra, and the pianist was telling Bok and his wife of the desire of Leopold Stokowski, who had recently become conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, to eliminate encores from his symphonic programmes; he wanted to begin the experiment with Hofmann’s appearance that week.  This was a novel thought to Bok:  why eliminate encores from any concert?  If he liked the way any performer played, he had always done his share to secure an encore.  Why should not the public have an encore if it desired it, and why should a conductor or a performer object?  Hofmann explained to him the entity of a symphonic programme; that it was made up with one composition in relation to the others as a sympathetic unit, and that an encore was an intrusion, disturbing the harmony of the whole.

“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 Stokowski came to the Bok home.

Bok was not slow to see 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.