On a Friday in December 1940 we were scheduled to rehearse from 5 to 7:30 in Carnegie Hall for a performance of the Missa Solemnis the next night.
There was a concert of the Chicago Symphony in Carnegie Hall that afternoon,after which the platform had to be set up om the stage for the chorus in the Missa: so the reheaesal didn't start until 5:30, which meant it would go on 8.
But thirty-five men of the orchestra had to play with Frank Black in the Cities Service program in Studio 8H at 8; and they had to leave at 7:30 if they were to pack their instruments, get to 8H, change their clothes,
and be ready for the broadcast at 8.
And since this was the first time we were doing the Missa with the maestro he was really out to work. So 7:30came, and he kept right on working;
then it was 7:32and7:33and at that point the personnel manager stood behind the maestro and signaled to them one by one to sneak out;
and it was only after a number of men had done this that the Old Man's eye caught the movement of the bassoon that one of the men was holding as he crawled out, and he discovered what was going on.
He was so infuriated that he threw down his stand and walked out.
He conducted the performance the next night and finished the season; but a couple of months later when the conductors for the 1941-42season were announced he was not among them,
and we learned that Stokowski was going to conduct us instead.

Alan Shulman