Rimsky-Korsakov: Scherherazade; Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (Composer), Mikhail Mikhaylovich Ippolitov-Ivanov (Composer), Alexander Glazunov (Composer), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Composer), Leopold Stokowski (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Leopold Stokowski
• Composer: Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Mikhail Mikhaylovich Ippolitov-Ivanov, Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• Audio CD (January 27, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cala Records
• ASIN: B00000FDEL
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #593,584 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For "His" Fans, June 16, 2005

By 

Jeffrey Lipscomb (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty; Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela; Liszt: Préludes No3 (Audio CD)

This Cala CD features 1947 performances by Stokowski, with "His Symphony Orchestra," of Liszt's tone poem "Les Preludes," the Sibelius "Swan of Tuonela" (with Mitch Miller on Cor Anglais), and selections from Tchaikovsky's ballet "Sleeping Beauty." The transfers are slightly disappointing: my RCA LP of the Tchaikovsky has better sound than what is heard here.

The Liszt is a fine performance, though in stereo I prefer Scherchen (DG Westminster) and Silvestri (Disky). To my taste, the finest mono accounts are the Weingartner (IMG) and, best of all, the incomparable Mengelberg (Andante or Pearl). If memory serves, Stoky also conducted part of "Les Preludes" in the delightfully campy Hollywood film "100 Men and a Girl," staring Deanna Durbin.

Stokowski always delivered an eloquent Swan of Tuonela, though here I don't find soloist Mitch Miller all that expressive. All in all, Stoky's earlier Philadelphia account (best heard on a multi-disc Stokowski set on Andante) remains the ONE to own.

The Tchaikovsky here is fascinating. Some of it is rather poker-faced (the Pas' d'Action on track 8 misses the wonderfully buoyant lyricism of the classic Desormiere reading on Testament - but them so does everybody else's). But if you're a Stoky fan like me, you really HAVE to hear track 18 (the Pas de Quatre from Act III). Stoky stretches and teases the rubatos here in such a mannered fashion that any ballerina would have to defy the physical laws of gravity while attempting to dance with it. It is, in a word, OUTRAGEOUS!

Perhaps needless to say, all the playing is absolutely first-class and endlessly entertaining.

Recommended.

Jeff Lipscomb

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poet of melodic color !, August 16, 2007

By 

Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty; Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela; Liszt: Préludes No3 (Audio CD)

The sense of color tonal, astonishing sense of imagination, and distinctive creative ethos of Tchaikovski's ballets have never found a best musical Ambassador than Stokowski, in Aurora we feel and aware that nobody but him could mirror with such conviction power and insurmountable expressive refinement those little insights without losing the whole meaning of the score.

Many generations of conductors, notable ensembles have performed this core since then but nobody has been capable to decipher with such splendid figurative lexicon this primitive vitality and penetrating fantasy.