Leopold Stokowski (conductor)
Great Recordings from the BBC Legends archive
rec. live, 1963-74
ICA Classics ICAB5180 [6 CDs: 459]
“Stereo newly remastered” proclaims the banner across the front of this box, but there are no booklet notes or other explanation as to precisely what this means. All of the discs, so far as I can ascertain, have been available previously and in exactly the same couplings, and the recording of the Mahler Resurrection which was originally in mono is described on the inner sleeve as having been subjected to “ambient remastering,” whatever that term may signify. The remainder of the recordings were originally made in stereo between 1963 and 1972. Also, despite the statement on the cover that these are recordings “from the BBC archive”, the bonus disc consists of Dutch radio recordings.
Many of the works included here will already be familiar from other performances by Stokowski on commercial recordings, many of those still being available. The differences between those recordings and these live performances are however of interest. Stokowski was of course notorious for his cavalier approach to the letter of the composer’s score, frequently making alterations and amendments in an attempt to realise his own particular vision of the composer’s intention; and the nature of these ‘improvements’ would fluctuate from one occasion to the next, so that results could be startling different. The one consistent theme that runs through these performances, however, is Stokowski’s invariable ability to obtain the very best from his players. The 1960s was an era where the BBC Symphony Orchestra, beginning a period where they concentrated increasing amounts of time and scheduling to the performance of modern music, sometimes sacrificed the romantic warmth of string playing that had been their hallmark up to the 1950s under Boult and his successors. But there is no suspicion of that here; the string tone is exceptionally engaged and brilliant, even when one suspects that there may have been some surreptitious amendment of scoring by (for example) bolstering high violins with flutes. The classical works in this box benefit particularly from this; not so much the Beethoven Seventh Symphony (butchered by the wholesale omission of repeats which reduce some movements to a crippled skeleton of themselves) as in the Brahms Fourth Symphony which reaches incandescent heights in the passacaglia finale, and the Franck symphony which can sound vulgar when indulged too greatly but here glowers darkly and menacingly despite some rather erratic changes of pace during the opening pages. The Berlioz Symphonie fantastique was a Stokowski standard, and his performance here reflects his enjoyment of the work even when studio recordings might have been more eerie in their treatment of the final movement witches’ sabbath; and one again misses the repeats in the first and fourth movements, which help to keep the proportions of the work in balance.
Other works here are predictably successful in Stokowski’s hands: the impressionist washes of sound in Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole and the seething account of the Scriabin Poem of ecstasy are exactly the kind of music in which the conductor excelled. His substantial rescoring of Falla’s El amor brujo transforms the score from its relatively small-scale beginnings into a real orchestral showpiece in which Gloria Lane sounds suitably Spanish. Similarly exciting are the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony, which builds up a real sense of ebullience in the final movement without any of the suspicion of forced rejoicing which we now read into the music; and the Britten Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, unexpectedly contemplative and indeed romantic in places. Even more unexpected are some of the interpretative quirks in Alexander Nevsky, where the Battle on the Ice has the Teutonic knights careering into the breaking waves with a degree of haste that makes one wonder if Stokowski had ever looked at the Eisenstein film, with the slow ponderous overwhelming of the cavalry sinking beneath the waters. It is a rare misjudgement.
Stokowski in Vaughan Williams – we have not only the quirky Eighth Symphony but also the archetypically English Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis – is fascinating, and indeed he seems to be fascinated in his turn by the music. He relishes the fabulously inventive sonorities in the symphony (the gongs and tuned percussion in the finale have an absolute riot!) but he also brings a rare sense of unity to the opening ‘variations without a theme’ where the vibraphone colours the orchestral textures without dominating them. His way with the Tallis fantasia is predictably lush, but he captures the sense of cathedral spaces with exactly the right sense of mystery, and the recessed sound of the distant second orchestra is haunting. He also resists the temptation to build the climax too hastily, allowing the solo viola and violin to emerge naturally from the textures in the closing pages.
The mono sound – however much enhanced by the ‘ambient remastering’ – is not nearly so much of a problem in the Mahler Resurrection as I was anticipating. Indeed the sound is well up to regular broadcast standards of the era, enhanced by the playing that Stokowski draws from the London Symphony Orchestra – with the exception of the timpanist who so brashly and confidently mis-handles his solo contribution following the outburst at the end of the third movement. Although that might become infuriating with repetition, it is a momentary annoyance in the context of a performance that otherwise is so brimful of life – a contrast to many modern performances where orchestral perfection can conceal a lack of sympathetic engagement with the message of the music itself. The recorded balance, with the solo singers in a concert perspective and the chorus slightly distanced, is well judged and natural, and the volume of choral sound at the end is not compromised at all. I can’t really hear the bells at the end, but then one can’t have everything and the Royal Albert Hall organ is its hulkingly monstrous self. Stokowski later recorded the symphony commercially, but this performance has more life and a clearly enthusiastic audience whose resounding cheers are thoroughly well deserved (it was four years before Solti was to record the symphony with the same players). It need hardly be added that Rae Woodland and the very young Janet Baker are superb soloists.
There are three charming encores: the fanfare from Ravel’s L’eventail de Jeanne, Stokowski’s own arrangement of Novacek’s otherwise unknown Perpetuum mobile, and most startlingly of all Otto Klemperer’s Merry Waltz. Those who expect a Klemperer composition to be dour and solemn (the LP he produced of his own second symphony and a string quartet certainly would encourage that expectation) will be surprised and delighted by this light music confection drawn from his unperformed opera Das Zeil.
For those like myself who are hearing these live performances for the first time this will be a most welcome collection, with the added bonus of the final CD from Dutch radio sources. Stokowski fans will probably already have most of these performances already and, as I have noted, it is unclear whether the references to remastering refer to this reissue or to those already available on BBC Legends. The six well-filled CDs also include a nine-minute recording of the conductor ‘in conversation with’ Deryck Cooke.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
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Contents
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No 2 in C minor ‘Resurrection’
Rae Woodland (soprano), Janet Baker (contralto), BBC Chorus and Choral Society, Harrow Choral Society, Goldsmith’s Choral Union, London Symphony Orchestra
rec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 30 July 1963
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75)
Symphony No 5 in D minor, Op.47
London Symphony Orchestra
rec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 17 September 1964
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Symphony No 8 in D minor
BBC Symphony Orchestrarec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 15 September 1964
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Poem of ecstasy, Op.54
Hector Berlioz (1803-69)
Symphonie fantastique, Op.14
New Philharmonia Orchestra
rec. Royal Festival Hall, London, 18 June 1968
Benjamin Britten (1913-76)
The young person’s guide to the orchestra, Op.34
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No 7 in A, Op.92
BBC Symphony Orchestra
rec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 23 July 1963
Manuel da Falla (1876-1946)
El amor brujo
Gloria Lane (mezzo-soprano), BBC Symphony Orchestra
rec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 15 September 1964
Otto Klemperer (1885-1973)
Merry Waltz
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Rapsodie espagnole, M.54
Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
Symphony No 4 in E minor, Op.98
New Philharmonia Orchestra
rec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 21 September 1964
Ottokar Nováček (1866-1900)
Perpetuum mobile, Op.5/4 [orch Stokowski]
London Symphony Orchestra
rec. Royal Albert Hall, London, 14 May 1974
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
L’éventail de Jeanne: Fanfare
César Franck (1822-90)
Symphony in D minor
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Alexander Nevsky [with Sophie van Sante (mezzo-soprano), Groof Omroepkoor]
Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra
rec. De Doelen, Rotterdam, 22 August 1970
