Cajoling and Seducing Composers

This chapter details events following Stokowski's departure from the Philadelphia Orchestra. With Ormandy completely in charge, the Philadelphia players carried on as the professionals they were, still committed to performing at the highest levels and still proud to be members of a great orchestra. In addition to her orchestral duties, Phillips took on another project at this time. Over the years, she had grown frustrated by the scarcity of works written for the harp, especially when she performed as a soloist with the orchestra and found that the number of suitable works she had to choose from was limited. Finally, in 1940, she decided to do something about the problem. With her husband's generous support, she set out to expand the repertoire by commissioning new works for the harp from the best composers she could find. But finding and pinning down those composers turned out to be much harder than she had imagined.