Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt :: Leopold Stokowski The Magician

The performances on this well-filled two-CD set come from the last decades of Leopold Stokowski's extraordinarily long life (1882-1977). The five selections from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet are dated 1954, everything else being recorded between 1960 and 1974. After opening with two idiomatic Bach transcriptions, much of the program concentrates on 19th-century romanticism, a glittering fantasy being conjured from Wagner's "Magic Fire Music." Even so, given the title The Magician, a reference to Stokowski's role in Disney's film Fantasia--and specifically The Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence--one might be surprised that there is no recording of that piece here.Equally surprising, though in a very different way, is the sheer energy the 92-year-old conductor brings to a 1974 reading of Beethoven's Coriolan Overture. With a deeply romantic intensity, Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 has surely never sounded more European, soprano Anna Moffo singing with impassioned commitment. At 28 minutes, by far the longest recording is Romeo and Juliet; beginning in almost detached tranquility, Stokowski builds to implacable tragedy. Finally, Shostakovich's suite The Age of Gold is witty and idiosyncratic, the high point being an especially lyrical and affecting Adagio. A feast of rapt music-making and vividly bold sound, this is an excellent anthology thoroughly deserving a sequel. --Gary S Dalkin