*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

SOMM recordings is delighted to release Frankly Speaking with Leopold Stokowski, which gives rare insight into the legendary maestro through live recordings of a performance, a rehearsal, and an interview. The CD features Stokowski conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and soprano Gloria Lane in a performance of El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla at the Royal Albert Hall on 15 September 1964; a rehearsal of El amor brujo and Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the War Memorial Opera House on 19 December 1952; and a Frankly Speaking BBC Home Service interview with Stokowski answering questions put to him by John Bowen, Reginald Jacques, and George Scott at the BBC Studios in London on 25 August 1959. Leopold Stokowski's unorthodox seating arrangements, his flexibility regarding free individual string bowings, his emphasis on vibrato and tone, and his idiosyncratic baton-less conducting technique, were some of the practical elements that defined his popularity and his uniquely lush sound-coupled with allowing himself free reign to alter details of the musical text in his performances. Yet there remains a highly elusive element in the art of a great conductor. The rehearsal presented on this release provides a glimpse into Stokowski's creative process. One the one hand, he was fastidiously detailed and precisely demanding to the point of being draconian, but he also admired and encouraged an element of spontaneity, and even improvisation, within the framework of his extreme insistence on precision. The performance of El amor brujo-one of Stokowski's favourite compositions-was recorded at a BBC Promenade concert, and provides a stellar example of the effect that he was able to achieve through his singular and charismatic approach to making music. The extended interview, heard here for the first time since it's original radio broadcast in 1959, illustrates the brilliant repartee, levity, and charm of which this extraordinary musician was capable. Through the breadth of his public success-including his appearance in the film Fantasia and, even more significantly, his recordings as the Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which he led from 1912 to 1936-Leopold Stokowski reached a more wide-ranging audience than was typical for classical music in his day, and did much to debunk the perception that classical music is "elitist." Together, Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra racked up international sales figures that were unprecedented for orchestral discs, attracted a far-reaching following, and captivated an audience that ranged from classical music newcomers to some of his most celebrated fellow musicians.

In conjunction with the Orchestra's 30th Anniversary Season, Music Director Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announce the launch of the ensemble's own recording label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions. The label's d�but release showcases the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in a live 1995 recording of Berlioz's Les Nuits d �t� and a live 1991 recording of arias from Handel's Giulio Cesare, Ottone, Arianna, Radamisto, and Agrippina. Hunt Lieberson had a long and fruitful relationship with McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque. The Berlioz is the last of seven acclaimed recordings she made with the orchestra and the first time she ever sang the full Berlioz song cycle in performance. Lorraine was in her element, and the result was splendid. These incredibly moving performances are now available to a wide audience for the first time.

BERLIOZ: HAROLD EN ITALIE, LA

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, H. 48 - Dukas: L'app

Some of Boulez's finest Berlioz performances are gathered together in this very welcome compendium. Symphonie fantastique is given a terrifyingly formidable performance.

Some of Boulez's finest Berlioz performances are gathered together in this very welcome compendium. Not the least of the pleasures is the association of the Symphonic Fantastique with its pendant Lelio: they are not a required coupling, of course, but there is a special pleasure in hearing the unforgettable tones of Jean-Louis Barrault (he who once memorably played Berlioz on film) as he revives after the drug-induced nightmare. Barrault speaks so beautifully that the ramshackle concoction of some very mixed inspirations becomes a rich Berliozian experience. The symphony is given a formidable performance, terrifyingly formidable in the measured tread of the "March to the Scaffold", somewhat too much so where the waltz should charm, even if ironically, and making a morose landscape of the "Scene aux champs". But it is a sustained and valid performance which does not seek to make the work into a vehicle for personal virtuosity (as in different ways so many conductors have done), and conjures up Berlioz's dark romantic vision.

As can be seen, the Nuits d'ete songs are shared. Berlioz first wrote them for mezzo-soprano or tenor and piano, then rewriting them to some extent and transposing the first three for the orchestral vision, probably because he then had particular singers in mind or each song. Boulez keeps to the orchestral version of the key sequence (which not all do) and divides them equally between male and female voices. So Stuart Burrows sings a fresh. lively "Villanelle", and this is followed by Yvonne Minton's richly phrased "Spectre de la rose" and "Sur les lagunes" (in which she takes, successfully, the option of a low F). Burrows returns for "Absence", which he sings admirably, though without stifling regrets that this of all songs might have suited Minton and the mezzo-soprano timbre (many will remember Janet Baker here). He also sings "Au cimetiere", leaving Minton to finish the cycle off with her warm performance of "L'ile inconnue". There can be no question or an authentic version when Berlioz left so many options open; this is a compromise, and even if one may have other preferences, it works well. Yvonne Minton goes on to show not only a fine voice but fine musicianship as she sustains Boulez in holding La mort de Cleopatre together so well. Berliozians will recognize one or two familiar ideas in this remarkable piece. notably one that was to serve again in Benvenuto Cellini, whose overture is given a sharp, vigorous performance here.

-- Gramophone [3/1995]

When Berlioz's revolutionary milestone is paired with ballet music by Toshiro Mayuzumi from 1962, unexpected similarities in sound, power and inspiration emerge. Andrea Battistoni conducts the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in this enigmatic performance

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

This latest issue in APR's ongoing French Piano School series is perhaps the most important yet. The set brings together some of the earliest and rarest piano recordings ever made, not just in France, but worldwide, and includes the complete solo recordings of all the pianists featured except Wurmser. Many are reissued for the first time. The French office of the Gramophone Company was a pioneer in bringing serious artists into the studio and the results are a legacy of the utmost historical importance. So too are the early Fonotipia recordings of the only Herz pupil to record, Roger-Miclos, and the later Columbia electric recordings of Plante, made in his 90th year. With Saint-Saens, Diemer and Plante we can hear pianists who were born in the first half of the 19th century - a unique window into the past. The latest digital technology has been applied throughout and, amongst other improvements, we are now able to hear Pugno's wonderful recordings, hitherto flawed by a notorious vibrato caused by the unstable recording turntable used in 1903, with their pitch stabilized.

Classical Music

NUITS D'ETE

The conductor Herbert Kegel had an instinctive flair for unravelling sound to fill space and thus made full use of the exceptional acoustics of the Lukaskirche in Dresden, which became his regular recording studio (for the Eterna label). The challenge there was to achieve a finely balanced fusion of sound and complete audibility in the tutti sections – after all, Herbert Kegel never aspired to the opulence associated with Karajan. One might say that the composition has been put under an acoustic magnifying glass to bring out details that are little appreciated (e.g. secondary parts that are often overlooked). Although Kegel’s finely nuanced style aims to develop contrasts of both sound and dynamics, his agogics never appear arbitrary but always in line with the formal progression of the music. It is clear from the track list that this re-released recording is one of the slowest in his discography, not that this is at all noticeable at any stage of the listening experience: one might say that the composition has been put under an acoustic magnifying glass to bring out details that are little appreciated (e.g. secondary parts that are often overlooked). Although Kegel’s finely nuanced style aims to develop contrasts of both sound and dynamics, his agogics never appear arbitrary but always in line with the formal progression of the music.

In mid-1941 Toscanini temporarily fell out with the NBC Symphony Orchestra management, and during the following season directed the Philadelphia Orchestra in a number of concerts. Some of the items he conducted were also recorded by RCA over several sessions, but various technical disasters left the metal masters with heavy surface noise and a barrage of clicks and pops. Nothing could be done to salvage the situation at the time, but later technology opened up possibilities and in 1963 the Schubert Ninth Symphony was published. In 1977 the whole Philadelphia series finally saw the light of day on five LPs (nla), but some allowance had then to be made for the recording quality. Further technological miracles have taken place and as a result all the performances have emerged on CD with remarkably improved sound. In fact, the recordings now seem very good indeed for their date, and RCA are therefore in a sense justified in leaving the troubled history of the enterprise out of their accompanying notes.

...Toscanini re-recorded all the Philadelphia items with the NBC orchestra, but later versions do not all show gain... [T]he Berlioz piece has just the right quicksilver, atmospheric quality. Mendelssohn's score is given with much charm and character...

The Philadelphia Orchestra of 1941 was very much a Stokowski-trained instrument, and possessed more tonal colour and warmth than the New York, NBC and BBC orchestras with which Toscanini made most of his recordings. These performances tend to show a different aspect of the great conductor, one where he sometimes responds in a slightly more yielding fashion to the character of the orchestra and to the acoustic of Philadelphia's Academy of Music, which was softer than Toscanini's usual New York venues.

-- Gramophone [6/1991]

Classical Music

Classical Music