Leopold Stokowski - favourite recordings

[Barbirollians]

It seems we have never had a thread devoted to Stokowski except it seems his Bach transcriptions.

I knew his incandescent Francesca da Rimini but little else . I bought the bargain Presto set of his RCA recordings yet have not listened to it yet . I also have a set of his Decca recordings in the Original Masters series but I had no memory of listening to it although the plastic wrap is missing it may well have been accidentally filed away and not listened to.

I was rather blown away by that live Mahler 2 from the RAH on BBC legends and this morning have been thrilled to bits by his Beethoven 9 on Decca - I am not sure where that trumpet is in the score though ! Absolutely vital conducting , playing and singing. It has the shock of the new about it . One of those performances that explains why its first audiences and other musicians were thrilled by it .

What are your favourite Stokowski recordings ?

PS I see now EG called it one of the great Ninths in Gramophone and explains about that trumpet !

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My favourite performances are from the '20s & '30s with the Philadelphians - the Rachmaninoff "Concerto" recordings, the Schönberg Gurrelieder, the best of the early Rite of Spring recordings - all requiring affection for the sound quality of such elderly recordings. Only a few of his later recordings get that frisson, I feel - yes, that Mahler #2, and the Rachmaninoff #3, the Poem of Ecstasy with the CzechPO ... I had the Beethoven #9 on a double, gatefold LP, coupled with the Fifth. It's nearly 30 years since I last heard it.

PS - oh! And the '60s Ives recordings, too!

[Master Jacques]

PS - oh! And the '60s Ives recordings, too!

Seconded. I'd also want to add the 1960's Shostakovich 6th Symphony, with the Chicago SO. Yes, I know aficionados tend to prefer his premiere recording of the work from the 1940s, but the RCA stereo remake is demonstration quality, and Stokowski's interpretation of the first movement retains its magisterially slow, tragic grip. I've yet to find another conductor who "gets" this work - or emphasises the links with Rimsky's Mozart and Salieri to quite the degree he did.

[richardfinegold]

His Bizet Symphony with the National Philharmonic and the carmen Suite

[Edgy 2]

His RVW recordings

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

His Decca Phase 4 recordings are better than most from this intrusive stable, as the conductor insisted on being there in the editing and sound balance decision making.

[cloughie]

His Decca Phase 4 recordings are better than most from this intrusive stable, as the conductor insisted on being there in the editing and sound balance decision making.

I love his Pictures at an Exhibition, particularly the Hut and the Great Gate of Kiev.

[Petrushka]

I have that famous Prom Mahler 2 of course plus a studio recording with the LSO from 1974 that is fine until let down somewhat by the very ending which doesn't quite come off. It's coupled with an excellent Brahms 4 with the New Philharmonia Orchestra that deserves wider currency.

I also have a soft spot for a Wagner disc on BBC Legends which features the usual Meistersinger Suite (Act 3 Prelude, Dance of the Apprentices and Entry of the Masters) but, in a Stoki surprise, the chorus suddenly burst in to splendid effect with the conclusion of the opera. It's an electrifying moment!

Best of all, though, is a live performance of Mahler 8 given on April 9 1950 and included in the NYPO Mahler Broadcasts set. The sound is pretty good and it's another electrifying performance, well worth hearing. It probably exists on other labels but can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8HOUmyY56c

[makropulos]

The Tallis Fantasia that was originally on Desmar, reissued by EMI. And both the Mahler's 2 performances (the Prom and the RCA studio set) mentioned by Petrushka. Also the Phase 4 Sheherazade and the Tchaikovsky 'Aurora's Wedding' on RCA and the remake on Sony. I've a soft spot, too, for the very late Sibelius 1.

[Barbirollians]

Unfortunately, Sony appear to have deleted that set of his late recordings on their label only available now as a download.

[cloughie]

Unfortunately, Sony appear to have deleted that set of his late recordings on their label only available now as a download.

It is interesting how much his, presumably deleted, recordings are now.

[Maclintick]

His Decca Phase 4 recordings are better than most from this intrusive stable, as the conductor insisted on being there in the editing and sound balance decision making.

An incandescent Messiaen "L'Ascension" & Ives "Second Orchestral Set" . My teenage introduction to these very different composers, of whom Stokie was an early-adopter, as it were, as he was with RVW in the USA. It occurs to me now that what they have in common is an ecstatic, visionary or transcendental quality...

[Barbirollians]

Been listening to his 1975 Decca recording of Beethoven 7 tonight - a wonderful recording despite some missing repeats - makes you fall in love with the work all over again.

[Roslynmuse]

I picked up a bargain copy of the Decca original masters box this week and have been musing over the performances and why he hadn't been much on my radar before.

Like a lot of people my age I first encountered him through the Los Angeles PO recording of The Planets, reissued in the 60s or 70s on Music for Pleasure - everyone seemed to have that LP and I certainly listened to it lots up to my early teens. (I didn't see Fantasia till I was an adult.) I remember reading his obit in Gramophone and all the reviews of his discs then seemed to have a subtext of 'exciting but a bit vulgar', which must have coloured my view of him to the extent that I never went out of my way to listen to anything much. The only other disc I remember hearing then was the Ibert Escales/ Ravel Alborada / Debussy Iberia SXLP disc.

I haven't listened to all the box yet and I'm torn between admiration for a lot of the orchestral playing (especially in the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune) and a relief that these aren't the first performances of these works I've heard or the only ones I have access to. The Tchaik 5 has an amazing sense of line and direction but then he does something so idiosyncratic that it completely throws the listener (this one, anyway). After a magnificent 2nd mt, the 3rd mt is very quirky indeed. Similar feelings about Symphonie Fantastique - very intense for so much of the piece, wonderful detail in the Scène aux champs, one of the most urgent performances of Marche au supplice I've heard, and then a mauled-about Finale with disconcerting switches from 2nd to 5th gear. Incidentally, does anyone know whether he adds low piano notes to the bells? It's a strange texture if so - quite effective, but surely a conflation of Berlioz's alternatives? There's a lot to enjoy in the Debussy (La mer as well as the Prélude) although tempi are very relaxed at times; I was less convinced by the Elgar Enigma Variations although the Czech PO playing is very attractive, especially in the quieter variations. As a whole it doesn't quite work - although it may be that I'm just too used to more 'traditional' tempi. (Strangely and pleasingly he doesn't linger unduly over Nimrod.)

Still a few more pieces to listen to, but the Phase 4 sound is sometimes just too wearing - there were laughable woodwind moments in the first mt of the Tchaikovsky.

What really strikes me though is that, like it or loathe it (and even within one movement it's possible to experience both feelings), it is never dull, and is the work of a real musician who is not afraid to go further than many conductors now to produce a vital, living performance. And maybe that's the real point - that a living performance isn't necessarily one to be preserved for repeated listening.

[cloughie]

I picked up a bargain copy of the Decca original masters box this week and have been musing over the performances and why he hadn't been much on my radar before.

Like a lot of people my age I first encountered him through the Los Angeles PO recording of The Planets, reissued in the 60s or 70s on Music for Pleasure - everyone seemed to have that LP and I certainly listened to it lots up to my early teens. (I didn't see Fantasia till I was an adult.) I remember reading his obit in Gramophone and all the reviews of his discs then seemed to have a subtext of 'exciting but a bit vulgar', which must have coloured my view of him to the extent that I never went out of my way to listen to anything much. The only other disc I remember hearing then was the Ibert Escales/ Ravel Alborada / Debussy Iberia SXLP disc.

I haven't listened to all the box yet and I'm torn between admiration for a lot of the orchestral playing (especially in the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune) and a relief that these aren't the first performances of these works I've heard or the only ones I have access to. The Tchaik 5 has an amazing sense of line and direction but then he does something so idiosyncratic that it completely throws the listener (this one, anyway). After a magnificent 2nd mt, the 3rd mt is very quirky indeed. Similar feelings about Symphonie Fantastique - very intense for so much of the piece, wonderful detail in the Scène aux champs, one of the most urgent performances of Marche au supplice I've heard, and then a mauled-about Finale with disconcerting switches from 2nd to 5th gear. Incidentally, does anyone know whether he adds low piano notes to the bells? It's a strange texture if so - quite effective, but surely a conflation of Berlioz's alternatives? There's a lot to enjoy in the Debussy (La mer as well as the Prélude) although tempi are very relaxed at times; I was less convinced by the Elgar Enigma Variations although the Czech PO playing is very attractive, especially in the quieter variations. As a whole it doesn't quite work - although it may be that I'm just too used to more 'traditional' tempi. (Strangely and pleasingly he doesn't linger unduly over Nimrod.)

Still a few more pieces to listen to, but the Phase 4 sound is sometimes just too wearing - there were laughable woodwind moments in the first mt of the Tchaikovsky.

What really strikes me though is that, like it or loathe it (and even within one movement it's possible to experience both feelings), it is never dull, and is the work of a real musician who is not afraid to go further than many conductors now to produce a vital, living performance. And maybe that's the real point - that a living performance isn't necessarily one to be preserved for repeated listening.

I think that there was a time when critics would not take him seriously because of tinkering with orchestrations of works and pulling tempi around. Nowadays he seems to be lauded for his interesting interpretations! I quite like his ‘Symphonic synthesis of opera’ dabblings and his work encompassed the sublime, tinctured with the ‘cor blimey’.