Leopold Stokowski (conductor)
Great Recordings Newly Remastered, Volume 2
rec. 1961-74
ICA Classics ICAB5183 [6 CDs: 444]

The second ‘Stokowski Remastered’ box from ICA has now appeared and contains 6 CDs. It contains eight new BBC broadcasts which have not officially been issued before as well as 3 CDs that were issued – and reviewed here, of which more below – but have been further remastered by Paul Baily. Those eight items include Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, the Mussorgsky-Stokowski Pictures at an Exhibition, Beethoven’s Ninth, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No.2, and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. As before, there are no notes.

For the first disc I must refer you to my colleague John Quinn’s review, which appeared nearly 25 years ago and is typically judicious and accurate. I’d only add that this disc offers some classic Stokowski repertory and some equally typical Stokowski string balances, whether you like them or not. For my money his arrangement of Shostakovich’s Prelude is absurdly overblown but it only lasts three minutes and you’ll find no further complaints from me. Though he only performs four of the eight Russian Folk Songs, the ‘Plaintive Song’ in particular is exquisitely done.

I was lucky enough to review CD 2 and it appeared the year after JQ’s in 2002, which makes me feel extraordinarily old. The third disc comes from two venues. The first is Usher Hall in Edinburgh with the London Symphony in 1961, for a performance of Stokowski’s arrangement of Gabrieli’s Sonata pian e forte from Sacrae Symphoniae. It has a sonic amplitude and spatial breadth that continue to impress. This was followed by the one-off performance of Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra which receives a memorable reading full of warmth and insight, crisp, bright and taut in the opening movement, full of rapt lyricism and eloquence in the central one and playfully joyful in the finale. No wonder Tippett is said to have been so happy that night. The Liszt also comes from the same concert and is suitably colourful and energetic. Which leaves Nielsen’s Sixth Symphony, with the New Philharmonia, from the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in London in 1965. One would have thought that its enigmatic profile would not have found an exponent in the flamboyant Stokowski, but he was a deep musical thinker and proselytiser and had the imagination to take it on. It works well and the orchestra plays finely for him. Acknowledging that the ways of Nielsen in this work remain stubbornly beyond me, I can still appreciate a committed reading such as this.

CD 4 contains a broadcast of Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony from the Maida Vale studios again, though this time much later in 1973. This was a work he recorded often – he had something of a discographic love-affair with it – and there are a number of my reviews on this site outlining his way with it from the 1920s. He first recorded the Scherzo in 1917 though it wasn’t issued and then recorded the whole work twice in the 20s, once in the 30s – the famous 1934 set – again in 1940 and so on. This Maida Vale broadcast was presumably a run-through for the New Philharmonia RCA LP he made the following month. Orchestral balancing may perturb listeners a little but I found it a convincing reading though with all those Ninths available you really are spoiled for choice. The Ravel, from1966, lacks a little in sheer sensuality, I feel, but there’s a typically sonorous and echt-Stoky Bach transcription from the LSO in 1963.

Undoubtedly the single best disc is No.5 which contains a volcanic performance of Beethoven’s Ninth from the Fairfield Hall, Croydon in September 1967, a reading of such tensile strength, such determined intensity and drama that its trenchancy had me on the edge of my proverbial seat. The vocal quartet make a strong showing – Harper, Watts, Young, McIntyre – and the LSO sing with fervour. These forces came hot foot from a Decca recording session of the work, made a couple of days before this live performance. It’s followed by the Coriolan overture from a private tape provided by Edward Johnson. It’s sonically a little constricted but otherwise preserves a lean, hungry reading.

The last disc showcases the conductor’s own arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition with the BBC Symphony in 1963, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. This quixotic, typically personalised arrangement has many features wondrous, sonically piquant and – dare one say it – a touch risible (Bydlo). The opulent scoring has winds and percussion very well caught – I assume the orchestral layout was a Stokowski Special. Specialist collectors may have caught this when it appeared on Music & Arts, Seven Seas or even – for the Far Eastern specialist – the Japanese Stokowski Society.

The Tchaikovsky Symphony was performed on 10 September 1966, a few days in advance of Decca’s recording sessions, which took place between 13-16 September with the New Philharmonia. It’s subject to a small amount of retouching and personal emphases. I always liked the 1942 NBC version, on Guild, which I reviewed here, but the sonically much better commercial London recording can sit alongside it nicely, along with this live performance.

The excellent news is that there is a complete Stokowski concert split over two CDs – the Mastersingers Overture and Suite on CD 2 prefaced Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in Croydon’s Fairfield Hall and which can be found on CD 5. There are also those two one-off performances of Tippett and Nielsen. If you have the previously released discs you will rightly be doubtful of duplicating them even for the three symphonies in the new edition. That’s really a question for you, along with the eternal one of how much of this material – especially the material Stokowski re-recorded frequently – you are ever really going to need, or listen to? Again, I’ll leave that with you but I can say that this set has been carefully and attractively designed and produced.

Jonathan Woolf

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Contents
CD 1
Mussorgsky: Night on the Bare Mountain (arr. for Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)
Glinka: Kamarinskaya, Fantasy on Two Russian Songs
Shostakovich: 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 14 in E-Flat Minor (arr. for Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)
Stravinsky: Pastorale (arr. for Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Op. 49
Scriabin: Poème de l’Extase, Op. 54
Liadov: Eight Russian Folk Songs, Op. 58
Borodin: Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances
Band of the Grenadier Guards, John Alldis Choir, Welsh National Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
rec. 15 June 1969, Royal Albert Hall, London

CD 2
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, Act I: Prelude
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, Act III Suite
Prelude: Tanz der Lehrbuben: Aufzug der Meister
Wagner: Götterdämmerung, WWV 86D, Act I: Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt
Wagner: Götterdämmerung, WWV 86D, Act III Trauermarsch: Brünnhildes Opfer und Erlösung
Berit Lindholm (soprano)/London Symphony Orchestra
Wagner: Rienzi Overture
New Philharmonia Orchestra
rec. 15 June 1967 and 18 June 1968, Royal Festival Hall, London and 23 September 1967, Fairfield Hall, Croydon (Die Meistersinger)

CD 3
Gabrieli, G: Sacrae symphoniae, Liber 1: Sonata pian e forte, Ch. 175 (arr. for Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)
Tippett: Concerto for double string orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
Liszt: 2 Episoden aus Lenau’s Faust, S. 110: No. 2, Mephisto Waltz
London Symphony Orchestra
Nielsen: Symphony No. 6, CNW 30 “Sinfonia semplice”
New Philharmonia Orchestra
rec. 22 August 1961, Usher Hall, Edinburgh (Gabrieli, Tippett, Liszt) and 12 September 1965, BBC Studios, Maida Vale, London (Nielsen)

CD 4
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 ‘From the New World’
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Bach, J S: Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582 (arr. for Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)
London Symphony Orchestra
rec. 30 July 1963, Royal Albert Hall, London (Bach) and 10 September 1966 (Ravel): 7 June 1973, BBC Studios, Maida Vale, London (Dvořák)

CD 5
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ‘Choral’
Heather Harper, Helen Watts, Alexander Young, Donald McIntyre
London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus
Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
rec. 23 September 1967, Fairfield Hall, Croydon and 10 February 1974, Royal Albert Hall, London (Coriolan)

CD 6
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Leopold Stokowski)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Stokowski: Short Speech by Leopold Stokowski
Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina, Act IV: Entr’acte (arr. for Orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
rec.23 July 1963, Royal Albert Hall, London (Mussorgsky Pictures) and 10 September 1966 (remainder)