Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Symphony No. 5 in e minor, Op. 64 (1888) [47:45]
Eight encores arranged or orchestrated by Stokowski;
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Solitude Op.73 No.6 [3:37]
Humoresque Op.10 No.2 [2:02]
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Prelude in E minor Op.28 No.4 [2:29]
Prelude in D minor Op.28 No.24 [2:38]
Georg Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Pastorale from Messiah [4:49]
Mikhail IPPOLITOV-IVANOV (1859-1935)
In A Manger [3:04]
Johann STRAUSS II (1825-1899)
Tales from the Vienna Woods (shortened version) [4:01]
On the Beautiful Blue Danube (shortened version) [3:38]
Leopold Stokowski and Symphony Orchestra
NBC Symphony Orchestra issued on EP as ‘his Symphony Orchestra’/Leopold
Stokowski (Strauss)
rec. 1947-55
PRISTINE AUDIO XR PASC188 [74:03]
Now that Cala has ended its noble series of Stokowski material, the banner must
pass to other companies, to ensure that the discography is fully explored. One
such is Pristine Audio, which has already embarked on a revivifying project of
its own - Stokowski’s acoustics have already been issued for instance -
and they now turn to a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, coupled
with some recordings of encores, which have not previously been transferred to
CD.
The Fifth receives a good XR transfer, and is a fine performance. It’s
powerful, expressive, and predicated on warmly textured and moulded lyrical cantilever. Guild has
recently released a wartime performance of the symphony that Stokowski gave with
the NBC and in my review of it I outlined something of the conductor’s
performance history of the work on disc. The differences between this 1953 reading
and the one made a decade or so earlier are ones of tension and the degree of
rhythmic screw-turning that Stokowski extracts in the more obviously visceral
earlier inscription. This relative degree of relaxation may prove decisive if
one wishes to choose one recording over the other.
The choice is made rather more difficult - or more pleasant, given their rarity
- by virtue of the eight other items, all arranged or orchestrated by
Stokowski. He brings a rampant sensuality to Tchaikovsky’s Solitude whilst
its companion, the Op.10 No.2, is saucily done. The pair of Chopin Preludes has
had the purists in arms for many a long year. Certainly the E minor is a study
in glowering brass though even this must cede in eccentricity to the Ride of
the Valkyries treatment meted out to the D minor with its inclusion of a brilliantly
terse trumpet, and orchestral trill of spine rattling proportions. Next to this
the Handel Pastorale is sugar-coated and slow as driftless snow. The noble brass
in Ippolitov-Ivanov In A Manger reminds me a little of Stokowski’s
wonderful Veni veni Emanuel recording with the Philadelphia in the 20s.
Finally there are the two shortened Strauss recordings, issued on RCA 45rpms.
There’s an electric guitar in these Vienna Woods doing a Third Man impression
- and who but a cast iron snob would cavil?
This well conceived act of restoration certainly gets my vote.
Jonathan Woolf