Word: stokowskis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While on the subject of classical, here are a couple of albums just released that are worth the attention of any record fan, classical or jazz. On the Victor label this month is "Nocturnes" by Claude Debussy recorded by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It seems to me that anybody who wants to play good jazz should plan to include Debussy in his course of study...
...album is recorded beautifully with Stokowski extracting the lush but powerful tone that he always manages to get out of a string section. Listen especially to the "Sirens," the third part of the work, which is very seldom played or recorded. It has some chorus work that will relay set your ears on end. Ellington's weirdest jungle stuff has nothing on this...
...surprisingly, in his book, Quiz Champion Levant slips on many a fact. Sample boners: that Leopold Stokowski taught the New York Philharmonic-Symphony to play Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps in 1930 (famed German Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler had done it five years before); that Harpo Marx tunes his harp backwards (Harpo's tuning, though unorthodox, is not backwards); that Toscanini cannot see the men in his orchestra (Toscanini, farsighted, can see quite well beyond six feet...
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 (Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; Victor: 12 sides). In the doghouse of official Soviet displeasure since 1936, when Joseph Stalin cracked down on modernistic music (TIME, Feb. 24, 1936), 33-year-old Dmitri Shostakovich climbed out again by writing this symphony in honor of the October Revolution's 20th anniversary (1937). The symphony, finest work to date by Soviet Russia's No. 1 TIME, January 8, 1940 composer, shows Joe Stalin to have been a sound music critic. In it, Composer Shostakovich leaves all clattering tricks behind, works fine melodies up into surging climaxes...
...starchier board members still creaked and grumbled, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced: 1) a move from Los Angeles' solemn, downtown Philharmonic Auditorium to Hollywood's garish Pantages Cinema Theatre, 2) three new conductors: famed German exile Bruno Walter, jovial Russo-Britisher Albert Coates, glamorous platinum blond Leopold Stokowski...