Tchaikovsky 5 & rehearsals - Stokowski

 

Well, three posts to make up for an inactive December. Best wishes to everyone for a beautiful new year!

According to the BBC Proms Chronology, Stokowski conducted 5 concerts in all on these dates: 

23 and 30 july 1963, 15 and 17 september 1964, 10 september 1966. The largest and most detailed online discography of the maestro confirms the informations provided on the booklet, so I don't know what to add. Although this other concert took place at the RAH, it was not supposed to be part of the Proms... although the date (August 1973) suggests otherwise. I've not found any "definitive" news on the matter. Even the name of the orchestra sounds quite mysterious to me... but in the end, from the Philadelphians to a Conservatory orchestra, from the Houston Symphony to the Czech Philharmonic, after a couple of rehearsals they all became a Stokowski Symphony Orchestra.

What really matters, anyway, is that it is an involved performance of the Fifth, enriched by a large excerpt of rehearsals.

TCHAIKOVSKY

Symphony no. 5 

Performance + 35 min rehearsals

International Festival Orchestra

LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI

Live - August 1973

FLAC & scans

Honegger conducts Le Roi David (1951)

 

A truly historic document, as always when an important composer - whatever his strengths and limitations as a conductor - presents his own music from the podium. However, we are talking about a good overall result: also noteworthy is the presence of another composer, Maurice Duruflé - best known for his Requiem - who sits at the organ.

The role of narrator is entrusted to the actor Jean Hervé, who in his youth played for the French national rugby team, also winning the gold medal at the 1900 Paris Olympics; very curious because, as you know, Honegger was the author of an orchestral piece entitled "Rugby" (the Symphonic Movement n. 2).

HONEGGER

Le Roi David, psaume symphonique en 3 parties 

d'après le drame de René Morax, H 37B (1921)

Janine Micheau, soprano

Jeannine Collard, mezzo-soprano

Pierre Mollet, baritone

Jean Hervé, speaker

Maurice Duruflé, organ

Chorale Elisabeth Brasseur

Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française

ARTHUR HONEGGER, conductor

Studio recording - Paris (Eglise Saint-Roch), october 1951

[2 LP Ducretet Thomson LPG 8342/3] 

FLAC

Mahler - Des Knaben Wunderhorn - BSO Seiji Ozawa - live

 

Despite the extensive work on Mahler by Ozawa, from the Philips cycle in Boston plus the First Symphony with Blumine (DG) to the most recent CDs with the Saito Kinen, we don't have an "official" recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. A fact that, of course, increases the value of this document, also considering the caliber of the two soloists. 

MAHLER

Des Knaben Wunderhorn

MAHLER

Des Knaben Wunderhorn

01 Revelge

02 Rheinlegendchen

03 Verlor'ne Müh

04 Lob des hohen Verstandes

05 Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt

06 Trost im Unglück

07 Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?

08 Das irdische Leben

09 Lied des Verfolgten im Turm

10 Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen

11 Der Schildwache Nachtlied

12 Der Tamboursg'sell

Brigitte Fassbaender

Thomas Allen

Boston Symphony Orchestra

SEIJI OZAWA

23 IV 1988

Brigitte Fassbaender

Thomas Allen

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Seiji Ozawa 

23 IV 1988

FLAC