Stokowski and the Era of the Gods

There were once Gods of the Podium, Olympian figures elevated to that status--particularly in the United States--by the media and public relations arms of recording companies intent on popularizing classical music and mysticizing its practitioners.

Between the two world wars, the more aloof, mysterious or magisterial the conductor, the better he sold. Paradoxically, Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), the conductor who most considered himself (disingenuously, to be sure) “average”--hardheaded, composer-dedicated--was depicted by the media and by his NBC Symphony flack machine as being superhuman in intellect and skill.

His younger contemporary and sometime antagonist Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) was a self-made exotic: English-born but with a “Continental” accent of no ascribable provenance, he of the shining mane, a profile second only to John Barrymore’s, expressive hands sculpting sinuous curves in the air, prone to fragrantly mystical pronouncements about music making us one with the infinite--and, at the same time, speaking clearly about new music to audiences and encouraging music education in American schools.

The effect of Toscanini and Stokowski, different as their personalities and musical attitudes may have been, was ultimately the same: Both brought vast numbers of new listeners to serious music.

But while Toscanini has been the subject of massive revival on CD of late, Stokowski is only slowly re-emerging as a presence on recording. This may in part be explained by the bum rap that he was all flash, all ego, with a composer-be-damned attitude.

Perhaps self-infatuation proved harmful to his musical gifts at a certain, late stage of his career. But it is not this period that Pearl Records concerns itself with.

Pearl’s two Stokowski collections resurrect material he recorded with his Philadelphia Orchestra between 1926 and 1940. A Wagner program (9448) returns to circulation, with stunning visceral and sonic effect, the Overture and Venusberg Music from “Tannhauser,” displaying the Philadelphia strings in fullest, most alluring bloom, with magnificently enhancing touches of ensemble portamento.

The entire orchestral effect, not only that of the strings, is overwhelming--but less, ultimately, for what it tells us about Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra than about Wagner and his “Tannhauser.”

Also included are superbly executed excerpts from “Parsifal,” some played straight, others in Stokowski arrangements--that is, with the vocal parts allotted to instruments.

The second Pearl CD is labeled “A Stokowski Fantasia” (9488) and does indeed contain some of the music used in Disney’s 1940 film, whose soundtrack was performed by Stokowski and the Philadelphians. There is, however, a mammoth difference: Pearl’s program contains complete works rather than the chunks and dollops employed in the film.

This compilation, originally recorded by RCA Victor in 1926-40, includes the egregious (to some tastes irresistible) Bach-Stokowski Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Tchaikovsky’s first “Nutcracker” Suite, Dukas’ “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Stravinsky’s “Sacre du Printemps” (lethally truncated in the film) and Mussorgsky’s “Night on the Bare Mountain,” not in Rimsky-Korsakov’s familiar, flashy orchestration but in Stokowski’s own, which is flashy in a different way.

Again, the performances are magnificent, infused with a degree of rhythmic vitality for which posterity has not sufficiently credited the conductor, and executed not only with enormous skill but with a certain panache--perhaps it’s pride--that is not always so palpably part of orchestral performance today.

To anyone skeptical about the recorded sound on these transfers, about having to live with scratch and murk, let it be said at once that while some scratch from the 78-rpm originals is inevitable, it is also tolerable. More important is that Victor was able to capture large-orchestra sound faithfully five and six decades ago, when realism was the end-all of recording technology.

The Philadelphia Orchestra of 1926, in as fresh and vital a “Nutcracker” as these ears have encountered, or in the thrillingly sexy 1937 “Tannhauser,” sounds not only like a great orchestra, but like a real orchestra rather than an electronic fantasy.

More Stokowski reissues in a future On the Record.