Frederick Stock (conductor)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Volume 1
rec. 1916-17, Columbia Studios, New York City; 1925, Webster Hotel Ballroom, Chicago; 1926, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
PRISTINE AUDIO PASC657 [74:53 + 75:43]
At a time when European conductors were dominant in the emergence of world-class American orchestras, Toscanini, Stokowski, Koussevitzky and Mengelberg were the headline stars both in modern and classical music in the new world of recorded music and the name of the German-born Frederick Stock was in the background. However, he was the man responsible for continuing the work of Theodore Thomas, who established the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Between 1905 and 1942, Stock ensured that discipline and interpretative qualities would rule in creating one of the world’s finest orchestras – which it remains today. Stock was Music Director for a period of 37 years, a spell exceeded only by Mengelberg at the Concertgebouw and Mravinsky at the Leningrad Philharmonic. This series of historic recordings celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Frederick Stock’s birth.
Born in Jülich, Germany in 1872, Stock was the son of an army bandmaster. Aged fourteen he entered Cologne Conservatoire to study the violin and composition, where his fellow students included Mengelberg and Humperdinck. Following graduation, he was a violinist at the Municipal Orchestra of Cologne where he worked under the batons of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss; in 1895, Theodore Thomas, who was recruiting musicians for his newly formed Chicago orchestra, signed him up as a violist. After four seasons in Chicago as the first violist, Thomas appointed him as his assistant and thus he succeeded Thomas on his death in 1905, initially as an interim music director; however, as the board could not then recruit Weingartner, Richter or Mottl to the post of music director, Stock was given the position after a season in charge.
Among his triumphs was the premiere in 1914 of the four-movement version of Mahler’s First Symphony, and also the first performance of Mahler’s Eighth using a thousand singers and musicians. Stock was an important interpreter of modern music and commissioned leading composers of the day to write for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, including, among others, Arthur Benjamin, Holst, Kodaly, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Stravinsky, Suk, and Walton. In 1933, Stock premiered the Symphony in E minor by Florence Price, the first work by an Afro-American woman to be performed by a professional symphony orchestra. A notable quality which Stock brought to the Chicago Symphony was a glorious brass sound quite distinguishable among the finest American orchestras which it retains to this day. Frederick Stock was also a gifted composer of symphonies, concertos and of chamber music which he introduced to his audiences in Chicago, but these are now long-forgotten and unrecorded. Virgil Thomson said of him, ‘In my time only Stock of Chicago has been able to envelop the Brahms symphonies with a dreamy lilt that allows the soft passages to sing out as elements of a single continuity’. Stock recorded exclusively with the Chicago Symphony and his recordings of May 1916 of works by Mendelssohn and Wagner are thought to be the first by an American orchestra.
The first CD here is devoted to acoustic recordings made in 1916-1917 and offers a remarkable impression of the orchestra’s standards, which are verified by the second CD of electrical recordings made in 1925 and 1926. More recordings were made through to 1930 for Victor, after which there was a gap of nine years when Stock once again recorded for Columbia between 1939 and 1941. In his final year, Stock recorded again for Victor Beethoven concertos with Schnabel, plus Dvořák’s In Nature’s Realm and Chausson’s Symphony. The recordings on these two discs embrace many of the composers in his huge repertoire and it emerges that he was an outstanding Wagnerian, finding all the thrilling nuances on the orchestral excerpts from The Ring, Die Meistersingers, Lohengrin and from Parsifal. There are notable performances of pieces by Johann Strauss II, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Rimsky Korsakov and Dvořák, but I liked especially Järnfelt’s Praeludium, The Last Spring from Grieg’s Two Elegiac Melodies, and Stock’s own arrangements of MacDowell’s Woodland Sketches, To a Water Lily, and To A Wild Rose; there are also other orchestrations by Stock of Simonetti’s Madrigale, Schubert’s Moment musicale No. 3 from D. 780, Smith’s The Star-Spangled Banner, and Carey’s America. Elgar’s First Pomp and Circumstance March completes the two-disc set in fine style with the organ part performed by Walter P. Zimmermann.
I found the acoustic recordings extraordinarily fine; obviously by reducing his orchestra to a minimum, Stock managed to produce outstandingly fine performances of these pieces which sound clear and highly musical. The electrical recordings nevertheless verify Stock and his orchestra as magnificent performers of both popular and less well-known repertoire. The work of Mark Obert-Thorn is of the highest standard possible and one cannot thank him enough for his magnificent work in restoring these recordings. With the exception of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, which were reissued on LPs, they are the first to be re-released since their original issues on 78 rpm records.
Further releases will survey Stock’s recordings of Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Mozart, Brahms, Richard Strauss and collaborations with some of the finest soloists of the period in Milstein, and Pyatigorsky. I can unhesitatingly recommend these historical recordings and look forward with keen anticipation to future releases in this series.
Gregor Tassie
Contents
CD 1 Columbia Acoustics, 1916 - 1917 (74:53)
1. Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 61 [4:28] rec. 1 May 1916
2. Richard WAGNER (1813-1883) Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre [4:36] rec. 1 May 1916
3. Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907) The Last Spring from Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34 [4:39] rec. 2 May 1916
4. Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila, Op. 47 [4:14] rec. 2 May 1916
5. Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Waltz from Sleeping Beauty [4:16] rec. 2 May 1916
6. Edvard JÄRNEFELT (1869-1958) Praeludium [2:31]
7. François SCHUBERT The Bee from Bagatelles, Op. 13, No. 9 [1:48]
rec. 2 May 1916
8. Georges BIZET (1838-1875) Prelude to Act 4 (Aragonese) Carmen [2:08]
9. Georges BIZET (1838-1875) Farandole from L’Arlésienne [1:19] rec. 8 May 1916
10. Richard WAGNER (1813-1883) Processional of the Knights of the Holy Grail from Parsifal [4:25] rec. 8 May 1916
11. Richard WAGNER (1813-1883) Prelude to Act 1 from Lohengrin [4:23] rec. 8 May 1916
12. Franz von SUPPÉ (1819-1895) Poet and Peasant – Overture [7:30] rec. 14 & 15 May 1917
13. Johannes STRAUSS II (1825 -1899) Waltz from Thousand and One Nights, Op. 346 [4:22]
rec. 14 May 1917
14. Ermanno WOLF-FERRARI (1876-1948) Intermezzo from The Jewels of the Madonna [3:10]
rec. 15 May 1917
15. Achille SIMONETTI (1857-1928) (orch. Stock) Madrigale [2:16]
16. Franz SCHUBERT (1799-1828) (orch. Stock) Moment Musical, D.780, No. 3 [1:48]
rec. 16 May 1917
17. Alexander GLAZUNOV (1865-1936) Waltz from Les ruses d’amour, Op. 61 [4:29]
Rec. 16 May 1917
18. Johannes STRAUSS II (1825-1899) Waltz from Voices of Spring, Op. 410 [4:20]
Rec. 16 May 1917
19. John Stafford SMITH (1750- 1836) (orch. Stock) The Star-Spangled Banner [2:39]
20. Henry CAREY (1687-1743) (orch. Stock) America [1:23] Rec. 28 May 1917
21. F. W. MEACHAM (1856-1909) March from American Patrol [3:57] Rec. 28 May 1917
CD 2 Victor Electrics – 1925 - 1926 [75:43]
1. Antonin DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) Carnival – Overture, Op. 92 [8:51] Rec. 19 December 1925
2. Karl GOLDMARK (1830-1915) In Springtime – Overture, Op. 36 [8:30] Rec. 20 December 1925
Edward MACDOWELL (1860-1908) (orch. Stock) Woodland Sketches, Op. 51
3. No. 6: To a Water Lily [2:56]
4. No. 1: To a Wild Rose [2:21] Rec. 22 December 1925
5. Jean SIBELIUS (1865-1957) Valse triste from Kuolema, Op. 44 [4:14] Rec. 22 December 1925
6. Robert VOLKMANN (1815-1883) Waltz from Serenade for String Orchestra, Op. 63 [3:07]
7. Nikolay RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908) Flight of the Bumble-Bee from Tsar Sultan [1:27]
Rec. 22 December 1925
8. Richard WAGNER (1813-1883) Prelude to Act 1 from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg [9:09]
Rec. 20 December 1926
9. Johannes STRAUSS II (1825-1899) Waltz from Wine, Women and Song, Op. 333 [4:41]
Rec. 20 December 1926
10. Johannes STRAUSS II (1825-1899) Waltz from Roses from the South, Op. 388 [4:44]
Rec. 21 December 1926
11. Ambroise THOMAS (1811-1896) Overture from Mignon [7:59] Rec. 21 December 1926
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897) (orch. Dvořák) Hungarian Dances
12. No. 17 in F sharp minor [1:57]
13. No. 18 in D major [1:07]
14. No. 19 in B minor [1:44]
15. No. 20 in E minor [2:17]
16. No. 21 in E minor [1:20] Rec. 21 & 22 December 1926 Unissued on 78 rpm
17. Georg Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759) Largo from Serse (“Ombra mai fu”) [4:40]
Walter P. Zimmermann, organ Rec. 22 December 1926
18. Edward ELGAR (1857-1934) Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, Op. 39 [4:31]
Walter P. Zimmermann, organ. Rec. 22 December 1926
