Customer Reviews

Holst: The Planets / Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night) ~ Stokowski

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The best, hottest, most intense "Planets" on the...planet. Man, they really knew how to lay it down in the 1950s. The sound here is great too, probably thanks to Stokowski's total involvement. Listen to a few seconds of "Mars." Yeah... You know it's going to be a heck of a trip. Really, one of the CDs that I absolutely treasure and recommend to others. I preach Stokowski's 'Planets,' as it were. I'd say essential.

Stokowski didn't record The Planets just to add his version to the stack. In 1956, the stack wasn't very large. Stokowski was always interested in new recording technology, & i think he would be pleased with this remaster of the analog stereo he tried to record with great care. It brings out details in winds & percussion (but unfortunately not the organ), adding about 10 seconds of silence at the conclusion of Neptune before the track ends, his original intention.

You know this recording is a little different from start, with the blitzkrieg paced Mars (Maestro adds a tam-tam at the end, but it works). He eases back on the Elgarian tone of Jupiter, & whips up the wizard in Uranus. Neptune may be the loveliest, most ethereal version of all, with vague premonitions of minimalism Stokowski seems to sense (& Holst toyed with in several other compositions); the ending takes us out of the world of myth & the gods & leaves us in the silence of outer space. Not the best Planets all around (maybe the best Neptune), but if you love the work enough to collect fine recordings of it, this is a must-have.

If post-Wagnerian is your cup of Viennese coffee, it doesn't get served up much better than Transfigured Night. Stokowski knew this music intimately & his recording here has always been considered one of the finest available. Darkly, even passionately, romantic on the surface - Schoenberg was falling in love at the time - it is as brilliantly constructed as his later 12 tone works.

Believe it or not, I purchased this album on vinyl years ago. I no longer have the vinyl version so I was pleased to see Stokowski's arrangement of the Planets Suite on a CD -- and using the same album picture yet. I had another arrangement of Holst's work and it was fine but not as good as Stokowski's.

These are early stereo recordings from 1956-57, a time when Angel Records used Capitol (Frank Sinatra's label) as its American distributor. Capitol did miserably by them, supplying us with execrable pressings of great recordings. They also had their own limited clssical division, from which came these two recordings of The Planets and Verklarte Nacht. Though clear and open, this remastering can't compete with the best modern sonics for immediacy and impact.

In a way that's to the good. Stokowski doesn't pump The Planets up on steroids; despite his carnival turn in Fantasia, Stokowski was a real musician, and here he brings out the lyrical quality in Holst's writing--the second movement, Venus, has the gossamer delicacy of Debussy. Mars is quite low-key compared to the march into the Rhineland under Karajan. The recording is fairly distant, and the Los Angeles Phil. from that era sounds fairly thin and ragged--it wouldn't be rejuvenated until Mehta joined up in the Sixties. Three stars.

The exciting thing here is the Schonberg Verklarte Nacht, something of a specialty with Stokowski, who loved to champion modernism as long as it was tonal. The strings that play the here are from "His Symphony Orchestra," hand-picekd studio musicians brought together to showcase Stokowski. They do a bang-up job, playing with free rhythm, gorgeous tone, and exciting accents. This is a fully committed Verklarte Nacht brought out of its post-romantic haze. Five stars.

Hardly lightweight, this is the recording that first introduced me to "The Planets" years ago. Now all others take a back seat to it. Still smooth-as-silk on CD, though recorded some 50 years ago. Mr. Stokowski knew just where to add suttle fillers, and when to raise the levels of intensity. Some of the most enriching sounds ever recorded in my opinion.