CD1
BACH
Air on a G string; Wachet
Auf *
BEETHOVEN
Coriolan Overture *
LISZT Hungarian
Rhapsody No. 2 **
WAGNER
Magic Fire Music (RPO
rec 1973)
SMETANA Vltava **
BRAHMS
Academic Festival Overture
***
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Russian Easter Festival Overture
****
RACHMANINOV Vocalise *****
CD2
ENESCU
Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1
**
VILLA-LOBOS Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5
*****
PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet (five numbers)
******
SHOSTAKOVICH Age of Gold (four numbers) ****
LSO rec 1974 *
RCA Victor SO rec 1960 **
New Philharmonia rec 1974 ***
Chicago SO rec 1968 ****
American SO (with Anna Moffo - soprano) rec 1964 *****
NBC SO (members of) rec 1954 ******
This is a nice set for those with caramel dentalwork. Each piece is lit and
balanced with Stokowski's attention to the bigger technicolor picture and
it is Stokowski's picture. The magic is in evidence in the balancings,
adjustments and pacing of these familiar works. The recordings (1954-1973)
are neon-illuminated but without undue glare. The oldest, Romeo,
voluptuous indeed, is a performance in which every succulent drop is milked
from the music. Frankly, though I enjoyed it, it is overdone to the point
of saturated collapse (think of late Bernstein and then some!).
The Bach Air goes sweetly: no dawdling but predictably sheeny big
band strings. The Winged Messenger gets under Stokowski's fingernails
for the Shostakovich which goes cheekily. Stokowski's mainstream is successfully
tapped in the exotic Rimsky and the naughty and cartoon-like Enesco. The
Bach Wachet Auf, Wagner and Liszt are nondescript. I had better qualify
that remark about the Stokowski mainstream. While, on disc, he is best known
for mainstream Russian exotica (Scheherazade, Ilya Muramets and
the like) his concert hall reputation was much broader. Of great value and
taking up large parts of his concert programmes in Philadelphia (much to
the horror of the matriarchal hegemony there) were his performances of
contemporary American music.
Moffo is not among the very best but is still a paradigm by the side of the
operatic divas who have felt (or been told that they are) duty bound to
immemorialise their interpretations. In the lovely Vocalise she struggled
once but otherwise triumphed. Vltava has a lovely sense of ebb, flow
and depth (offset by congestion during the loud passages) making us wonder
about a complete Stokowski Ma Vlast. Coriolan (dramatic) and
Academic Festival round off this generously timed and spirited collection
- a tonic for those who want to slough off the politically correct. There
is a brief and rudimentary scene-setting essay in three languages.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
various
orchestras 
