AN EVENING WITH LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI

Bach, Haendel, Purcell et al.

Johann Sebastian Bach / Stokowski
01 Toccata in D minor
02 Fugue in D minor

Marco Antonio Cesti / Stokowski
03 Tu mancavi a tormentarmi

Georg Friedrich Haendel / Egarr
04-09 Water Music Suite:
Prelude, Alla Hornpipe, Allegro, Menuet,
Lentement, Bourrée

Johann Sebastian Bach / Stokowski
10 Aria from Overture no. 3

Henry Purcell / Stokowski
11-16 Suite of Five Pieces:
(Trumpet tune) - Echo (Pastorale) - Hornpipe
-When I am laid in Earth - Largo and Allegro

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina / Stokowski
17 Adoramus te

Johannes Ockeghem / Egarr
18 Intemerata Dei Mater

Pitr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
19 Slavonic March

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About this CD

The charm and sheer full-blooded pleasure offered by Leopold Stokowski’s transcriptions continues to hold sway today – complete with opulent and resonant strings – some three decades after the dynamic conductor’s death. The “Stokowski Sound” was particularly, indeed deliberately, well-suited to the possibilities offered with the development of stereo recording of the maestro’s day, a challenge which Glossa’s engineer Manuel Mohino has happily embraced as much as the Brussels Philharmonic, whose members have taken to the style like ducks to water in this modern-day “Evening with Leopold Stokowski”.

Leading the way with a classy swagger in transcriptions of Bach, Purcell and Palestrina is a conductor in Richard Egarr, perhaps better known for his work with the unadorned originals (he is the Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music, after all), but in reality equally at home in much later music – and he makes no bones about his appreciation of the Stokowski style. About the transcription of Dido’s Lament Egarr says, “It is still Purcell, even in Stokowski's fur coat.” and, for added emphasis, he conjures up his own orchestral confection of Handel’s Water Music. An evening’s entertainment of unalloyed pleasure culminating in a triumphant rendition of the Slavonic March by Tchaikovsky, à la Stokowski, naturally.