Leopold Stokowski - Stokowski conducts 20th Century Music (1952/53) [2011]

Brilliant - Fascinating - Challenging: Stokowski's C20 music

First digital issues of classic 1950s recordings .

Leopold Stokowski was a staunch champion of contemporary music and Schoenberg was one of the many 20th century composers whose works found in Stokowski a firm advocate. Indeed, Stokowski was the only conductor to perform all of Schoenberg's orchestral music during the composer's own lifetime. His performances included the World Premieres of the Violin Concerto in 1940 (with Louis Krasner as soloist and the Philadelphia Orchestra) and the Piano Concerto in 1944 (with Eduard Steuermann, piano, and the NBC Symphony, of which Stokowski was then co-conductor with Toscanini).

Stokowski gave the American Premieres in Philadelphia of Schoenberg's First Kammersymphonie (1915), the Variations for Orchestra (1929) and Die Gluckliche Hand (1930). The US Premiere of Gurrelieder in 1932, together with its immediate subsequent performances, were recorded by RCA and the resulting 78rpm album remained the only recording of the work in the catalogue until the advent of LP. When Schoenberg died in 1951, Stokowski marked the event the following year by recording Verklärte Nacht in the performance heard here. His championship of the composer was marked by further performances of Gurrelieder in 1961, firstly in Philadelphia and again a few months later in Scotland, when he opened that year's Edinburgh International Festival with the work.

Bartók featured less on Stokowski's concert programmes and in his discography, though he did record the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta in 1957 for Capitol so as to exploit their new "Full Dimensional Stereo Sound." Three years later he recorded Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra with the Houston Symphony for Everest. The performance heard here of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion was one of many works he recorded for RCA in the 1950s that he never played in public.

Morton Gould was one of the great many young American composers whose music Stokowski presented to the public for the first time. In 1936, he conducted the World Premiere of Gould's Chorale and Fugue in Jazz and in 1941 he recorded the Guaracha from the Latin-American Symphonette No. 4 with his new All-American Youth Orchestra. Two years later he played Gould's Two Marches for Orchestra with the NBC Symphony, the broadcast of which was released on Cala Records by the Leopold Stokowski Society in 1999 (CACD0526). The recording of Gould's Dance Variations heard here was one of the many 'World Premiere Recordings' made by Stokowski during his long and illustrious career.


Tracks:

SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht
BARTÓK Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
GOULD Dance Variations

Personnel:

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Stokowski Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Leopold Stokowski