Search - Leopold Stokowski :: Bach Transcriptions

Bach on All Twelve Cylinders

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 10/17/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Oh boy! (I ain't bein' sarcastic.) More J.S. Bach in heavy-calibre transcriptions for symphony orchestra, this time from the necromantic hand of Leopold Stokowski himself (the arch-demon of Bach-arrangers), who leads the performances with the All-American Youth Symphony, which he founded. The past couple of months have yielded a boon for troglodytes like me who celebrate a Bacchanalia whenever they get to hear old Johann Sebastian, not on those cat-gut "period" fiddles and wheezy "authentic" woodwinds, but revved up like a Duesenberg (all twelve cylinders) with modern string-band, brass-choir, and percussion-battery. We've had a spectacular program of Bach arrangements by the usual - and by some unusual - suspects on Chandos and another one, not quite so variegated, on Sony. (Messers Slatkin and Salonen respectively.) Cala now offers splendid transfers from 78rpm masters recorded by Stokowski and his AAYO in 1940 and 41, originally for Columbia. While not as technically polished as the Philadelphians, with whom Stoki engraved most of these pieces in the early 1930s,* the Youth Orchestra delivers an extra powder-charge or two of... well... youthful panache, obviously responding with enthusiasm to the maestro's Svengalian coaxings. Despite some overloading in the fortissimo and tutti passages, the recordings sound remarkably good, at least as good as the earlier RCA platters cut by the suave Philadelphians, with plenty of definition among the orchestral choirs and good soloistic coverage when called upon to furnish it. The familiar Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor can be heard in better sound,** but it might never before or since have received quite this degree of Mephistophelean commitment from the players. "Ein Feste Burg" sounds really grand. The Passacaglia and Fugue, which concludes the program, also attains colossal stature. It was a livelier musical culture in those heady days between the Depression and World War II, less stymied by puritanical embarrassments and by cultish ideas about propriety and authenticity. As a matter of fact, I'm going back to my cave now to listen to it again. [*See Pearl's 2CD set. **Try Salonen on Sony]"