Leopold Stokowski – Complete Decca Recordings
Leopold Stokowski
-
US $89.99
- Release Date 12 January 2018
- Buy Now: More stock coming soon
- Product code
- 4832504
- Format
- CD Box Set
- Label
- Decca
How do you describe Leopold Stokowski in one word? Showman, impresario, visionary, firebrand, agent provocateur, magician? Take your pick as he all that and more. It’s 40 years since the passing of one of the most colourful characters in Decca’s roster and one of the most indefatigable innovators in music performance history. His complete recordings for Decca/Phase 4 are presented together for the first time, with a bonus audio documentary featuring an interview with the maestro himself, in a handsome Limited Edition 23-CD boxed set.
Especially effective at projecting the unique Phase 4 experience were the recordings made by legendary conductor, Leopold Stokowski. It was the perfect musical marriage; at the same time, Phase 4 perfectly captured to the full the maestro’s unique imagination. “More tone! More tone!” was a favourite admonition of the Maestro to his orchestras – though what he did to obtain that ‘Stokowski Sound’ was only in part quantifiable: his brilliance as an orchestrator; strong and broad vibrato and free bowing from the strings; free breathing for the brass and woodwind; knife-edged precision of attack; and absolute perfection of ensemble. The rest was down to a telepathic communication of something less tangible that was surely down to the power of mesmerism.
A relentless innovator, Stokowski experimented with orchestral seating, famously lining up the string basses across the rear of the stage and, in an early instance, massing all the violins on the left side of the orchestra and the cellos on the right. One of the first modern conductors to give up the use of the baton, Stokowski employed graceful, almost hypnotic, hand gestures to work his magic. In his pursuit of that “spontaneous, impulsive expression” he had a fundamentally different musical outlook to his contempories (and even sometimes his own musicians). Although, regardless of whether or not they agreed with his interpretations they greatly admired his results; he commanded one of the largest audience followings in conducting history, and his influence as a popularizer of classical music was worldwide.
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CD1 | ||
1 | Inspiration: Great Music for Chorus and Orchestra | |
2 | Norman Luboff Choir and New Symphony Orchestra of London |
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CD2 | ||
1 | RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade | |
2 | London Symphony Orchestra ∙ Erich Gruenberg (violin) |
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CD3 | ||
1 | MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition | |
2 | New Philharmonia Orchestra |
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CD4 | ||
1 | TCHAIKOVSKY: Swan Lake & Sleeping Beauty Selections | |
2 | New Philharmonia Orchestra |
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CD5 | ||
1 | VIVALDI: The Four Seasons | |
2 | New Philharmonia Orchestra ∙ Hugh Bean (violin) |
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CD6 | ||
1 | WAGNER: Orchestral Music from "The Ring" | |
2 | London Symphony Orchestra |
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CD7 | ||
1 | TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No.5 | |
2 | New Philharmonia Orchestra |
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CD8 | ||
1 | HANDEL: Messiah Excerpts | |
2 | London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus |
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CD9 | ||
1 | MUSSORGSKY: Night on the Bare Mountain ∙ STRAVINSKY: The Firebird Suite | |
2 | London Symphony Orchestra |
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CD10 | ||
1 | BEETHOVEN: Symphony No.9 - "Choral" | |
2 | London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus |
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CD11 | ||
1 | BERLIOZ: Symphonie Fantastique | |
2 | New Philharmonia Orchestra |
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CD12 | ||
1 | TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo & Juliet ∙ MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov Symphonic Syntheses | |
2 | L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande |
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CD13 | ||
1 | TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 Overture ∙ BORODIN: Polovtsian Dances ∙ STRAVINSKY: Pastorale | |
2 | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra |
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CD14 | ||
1 | BEETHOVEN: Symphony No.5 ∙ SCHUBERT: Symphony No.8 - "Unfinished" | |
2 | London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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CD15 | ||
1 | DEBUSSY: La Mer ∙ RAVEL: Daphnis & Chloe ∙ IVES: Orchestral Set No.2 ∙ MESSIAEN: L'Ascension | |
2 | London Symphony Orchestra |
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CD16 | ||
1 | FRANCK: Symphony in D Minor | |
2 | Hilversum Radio Philharmonia Orchestra |
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CD17-18 | ||
1 | Sixtieth Anniversary Concert | |
2 | Wagner ∙ Debussy ∙ Glazunov ∙ Brahms ∙ Tchaikovsky ∙ Chopin ∙ Schubert ∙ Byrd ∙ Clarke ∙ Duparc ∙ Rachmaninov (bonus) | |
3 | London Symphony Orchestra |
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CD19 | ||
1 | ELGAR: Enigma Variations | |
2 | Czech Philharmonic Orchestra |
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CD20 | ||
1 | J.S. BACH: Orchestral Transcriptions | |
2 | Czech Philharmonic Orchestra |
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CD21 | ||
1 | SCRIABIN: Le Poeme de L'Extase ∙ RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Capriccio Espagnol | |
2 | Czech Philharmonic Orchestra ∙ New Philharmonia Orchestra |
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CD22 | ||
1 | BEETHOVEN: Symphony No.7 | |
2 | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra |
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CD23 | ||
1 | Bonus Disc: Leopold Stokowski – A Memoir |