MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

Buy through MusicWeb for £10.95 postage paid.
You may prefer to pay by Sterling cheque or Euro notes to avoid PayPal. Contact for details

Musicweb Purchase button

 

 

 

Georges BIZET (1838-1875)
Symphony in C (1) [28:09]
L’Arlésienne Suite no. 1 (arr. Bizet) (2) [16:53]
L’Arlésienne Suite no. 2 (arr. Guiraud) (3) [15:04]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Children’s Corner Suite (orch. Caplet) (4) [18:09]
Leopold Stokowski and his Symphony Orchestra
rec. 5, 21 March 1952 (1), 29 February 1952 (2), 5 March 1952 (3), 2, 30 March 1949 (4), Manhattan Center, New York
CALA CACD0548 [78:15]

 

Experience Classicsonline


A boomy recording, with some distortion at climaxes, in a cavernous acoustic, cannot disguise the fact that Stokowski finds a Mozartian grace in the first movement of the symphony. At this gentle gait the second subject relaxes smilingly with very little actual slackening of the pace.

After this friendly prelude, the long arching melodies of the slow movement are shaped as only Stokowski knew how. It should be over the top, yet it is worth noting how the often extreme rallentandos at the ends of phrases are cunningly gauged so that the music moves on again before it has fully stopped. Thus flow is maintained without the sensation of getting stuck at every lamp post that can beset even less indulgent, but heavier-handed, interpreters. As a further example of Stokowski’s mastery of mood and colour, when the oboe returns to its theme at the end, it doesn’t seem a repetition but rather an aftermath, as if we’ve been through a whole gamut of Carmen-like emotion in between.

The scherzo is a riot of folkloristic colour while rustic revelries are again to the fore in the finale This often veers towards a pace that is risky even for this hand-picked band, yet finding space for vocal, operatic moulding of the lyrical second subject.

I shall not be throwing out those performances that see this early piece as a youthful offering at the classical shrine, giving it a brisk, early-Beethoven purposefulness, especially those in fine modern sound. All the same, Stokowski finds more in this work than most of us thought existed.

The “most of us” alluded to may possibly have included Bizet himself. Whether he would have been so nonplussed by the “Arlésienne” suites is less certain. There are those for whom Bizet, even the relatively late Bizet of this work and “Carmen”, is to be treated with Gallic grace and restraint. For others he was the forerunner of the no-holds-barred verismo of Mascagni and Leoncavallo. Not unexpectedly, Stokowski is of the latter persuasion. The colours are strong, the emotions simple yet violent, as befits a country tale. It is an ideal counterpart to the cover illustration, a detail from a work by Corot in his most pre-Cézanne vein, with sharp contrasts and a geometrical design. It was a cunning choice. Just as Corot, it seems to say, could leave his more usual tranquil post-Constable manner and take a leap into the next century, so, too, could Bizet. And Stokowski shows us how. The famous “Adagietto”, I should add, is played with the most tender restraint, voluptuousness only hinted at.

A great Stokowski performance, then, even if “Stokowski performance” remains the operative phrase, since Stokowski never lets you forget that there’s an interpreter between you and the music.

Or does he? I followed “Children’s Corner” with the piano score and was struck by his fidelity to the text, in phrasing, dynamics and tempi. Curiously, I made the comparison with a “faithful” interpreter, Vittorio Gui (Naples 1968) and was more struck by the similarities than the differences. Gui, too, was a great musician with a way of getting to the heart of the music he was conducting. In spite of having a lesser orchestra, he and Stokowski agree, above all, in finding a bright-eyed, childlike innocence in the music. So in this case I am inclined to say we have here, not only a great Stokowski performance, but a great Debussy performance too. Although this recording is three years earlier, I found it better than the Bizet, if anything.

Richard Gate’s notes are a model of what we want from this type of release. There’s a brief history of earlier recordings of the works – the Debussy was the second complete recording ever – and other Stokowski versions of them: none in the case of the Debussy. There are reproductions of the original covers, a 1949 NY Times cutting with photos of Stokowski and six of the principals engaged in “his Symphony Orchestra” and other information about those taking part – a fairly mythical line-up.

Not just a disc for Stokowski fans, then, but one for all those who willingly exchange modern sound for the magic of a great interpreter.

Christopher Howell

see also Review by Jonathan Woolf 

 





 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.