Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Overture (Stokowski, 1942)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
(portrait by Ilya Repin, 1893)

For Easter weekend, and in celebration of Leopold Stokowski's birth month (April 18, 1882), I present one of Stoki's more controversial interpretations, that of Rimsky-Korsakov's 1888 Russian Easter Overture. Controversial, because it features one of his many retouchings of orchestral scoring - and this in a work by a composer renowned for his mastery of orchestration! In this case, an anonymous male voice substitutes for a trombone in the recitative-like middle section, singing words of the Russian liturgy:

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Overture, Op. 36
NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded April 23, 1942
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-937, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 33.71 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 23.40 MB)

This brilliant piece must have been particularly dear to Stokowski, for he recorded it no less than four times - in 1929 with the Philadelphia Orchestra; the present version; in 1953 with "his symphony orchestra"; and in 1968 with the Chicago Symphony. The 1953 recording also uses the voice-for-trombone substitution; there, the singing is credited to bass Nicola Moscona. (Moscona can be heard on this recording of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony.)

A happy and blessed Easter to everyone!

Morton Gould and Menotti

It's been a while since I've offered anything by Morton Gould, whose centennial year we are in (he was born Dec, 10, 1913), so I make partial amends with a work that he himself, according to his biographer Peter Goodman, considered one of his most important pieces.  This is the Dance Variations, a concerto for two pianos written in 1953 on commission by Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, who premiered the score with Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic in October of that year, and, one month later, also made this first recording.  (As far as I am aware, the work has received only one other recording, by Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas, about twenty years ago for Koch International Classics, no longer available on CD but only as an MP3 download.)  I concur with the composer's assessment and that of Goodman, who calls it "a score of depth and complexity" - it is a major addition to the all-too-meager repertoire of two-piano concertos and its neglect is unjustified.

Gould: Dance Variations, for two pianos and orchestra (1953)
Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, pianists
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded November 22, 1953
Side 1 of RCA Victor LM-1858, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 57.72 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.93 MB)

With the other work on this LP, we are in slightly more familiar territory, although Gian-Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) is best remembered as an operatic composer.  His ballet Sebastian was written in 1944, before the operas that brought him his greatest fame, The Medium, The Consul, and Amahl and the Night Visitors.  This recording of the ballet's Suite by Stokowski was actually also made in stereo, but not issued as such until 24 years later, with a different coupling.  Here is the original mono version:

Menotti: Sebastian - Ballet Suite
NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded September 28, 1954
Side 2 of RCA Victor LM-1858, one LP record
Link (FLAC file, 60.44 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 30.87 MB)

LM-1858 was issued with two different covers; the one I have (pictured above) is the second one, from 1958.  I've seen the original cover at a local college library but remember none of the details; in particular, I can't remember whether the Gould or the Menotti was credited first.