The All-American Youth Orchestra flourished briefly
in 1941. Rehearsals began in 1940 but the attack on Pearl Harbour led
to the disbanding of the orchestra, many of whose members went into
the armed forces. But for a short space of time Stokowski galvanized
them - formed with a stiffening of younger players from the Philadelphia
Orchestra into a wonderfully expressive and sonorous ensemble. Here,
on Cala's superb disc, we can hear for the first time on one CD their
entire Bach transcription recordings, made between November 1940 and
(the bulk) July 1941. No allowances need be made then or now for the
relative youth of the performers and their discs made by Columbia as
a rival to Stokowski's own earlier RCA recordings are worthy of the
highest interest.
Familiar though they may be from those Philadelphia
discs or from his subsequent stereo remakes (with the exception of the
Andante Sostenuto, his only recording) these are still outstanding performances.
Stokowski's technique of alternate string and woodwind sectional writing
is conspicuously successful as is, specifically, the violin and brass
gradations of the Toccata and Fugue, the slow tempo of Mein Jesu with
its seamless line and control, the perfectly judged portamenti of the
Air on the G string, and the progressive lightening of the string texture
in the Arioso. All these subtleties and inflective devices are used
with a spontaneity and immediacy that are simply captivating.
The transfers are good, the notes by Edward Johnson
authoritative, and there is a superb photograph of conductor and orchestra
in the famously unorthodox seating arrangement; he preferred woodwind
directly in front of him, strings behind, brass to his left, horns and
percussion to his right. No matter how well you think you know Stokowski's
Bach transcriptions this is still a disc to treasure.
Jonathan Woolf
Leopold Stokowski conductor