Léopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski, one of the true conducting luminaries of the twentieth century, was born in London in 1882. His father was Polish, his mother Irish, but he was raised as an Englishman. His famous, vaguely foreign, accent somehow appeared later in his life. The young Stokowski was a precocious musician, and as a child learned to play the violin, piano, and organ with apparently little effort. At the age of 13, he became the youngest person to have been admitted to the Royal College of Music.
By 18, Stokowski had been appointed organist and choirmaster at St. James', Piccadilly. He attended Queen's College, Oxford, receiving a Bachelor of Music degree in 1903. He moved to the United States in 1905, but returned to Europe each summer for further musical studies in Berlin, Munich, and Paris. When a conductor fell ill in Paris in 1908, he made his debut as an emergency substitute. The impression he made led to a position with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in which he quickly achieved notable success. However, a more tempting prospect faced him when he was asked to take over the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912. It was during his long and fruitful association with this ensemble that Stokowski established himself as one of the leading musicians of his day.
Stokowski gave the orchestra an entirely new sound, popularly known as the "Philadelphia Sound" or the "Stokowski Sound." Its foundation was a luxuriant, sonorous tone and an exacting attention to color. He pioneered the use of "free" bowing, which produced a rich, homogenized string tone. A relentless innovator, Stokowski experimented with orchestral seating, famously lining up the string basses across the rear of the stage and, in an early instance, massing all the violins on the left side of the orchestra and the cellos on the right. He also had spotlights directed on his hands and his impressively prominent hair to enhance his dramatic, theatrical aura. One of the first modern conductors to give up the use of the baton, Stokowski employed graceful, almost hypnotic, hand gestures to work his magic.
Indeed, Stokowski was the first conductor to become a true superstar. He was regarded as something of a matinee idol, an image aided by his appearances in such films as the Deanna Durbin spectacle One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) and, most famously, as the flesh-and-blood leader of the Philadelphia Orchestra in Walt Disney's animated classic Fantasia (1940). In one memorable instance, he appears to be talking to the cartoon figure of Mickey Mouse, the "star" of a sequence featuring Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice. In a clever parody, when the slumbering apprentice dreams of himself directing the forces of Nature with the masterful sweep of his hands, Disney artists copied Stokowski's own conducting gestures.
Following his tenure in Philadelphia, Stokowski directed several other ensembles, including the All-American Youth Orchestra (which he founded), the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic (both as co-conductor), the Houston Symphony Orchestra (1955-1960), and the American Symphony Orchestra, which he organized in 1962. He continued to make concert appearances and studio recordings of both standard works and unusual repertoire (including the first performance and recording of Charles Ives' decades-old Symphony No. 4) well into his nineties. He made his last public appearance as conductor in Venice in 1975, remaining active in the recording studio through 1977. He died on September 13, 1977, in Nether Wallop, Hampshire, England.
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Enescu: Rhapsodies roumaines (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Pages symphoniques (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1956
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Stokowski, Schubert: Danses tyroliennes - Stokowski, J. Strauss II: Valses de La chauve-souris (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1954
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Strauss: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 & Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op. 325 (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1952
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Bizet: Symphonie No. 1 (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1953
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: Symphonie No. 2 (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1953
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Sibelius: Symphonie No. 2 (Mono Version)
Léopold Stokowski, NBC Symphony Orchestra
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1956
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The Ballet (Mono Version)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, Léopold Stokowski
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Musiques de ballet (Mono Version)
Leopold Stokowski Symphony Orchestra, Léopold Stokowski
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1954
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Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Highlights (Mono Version)
Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Léopold Stokowski
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1952
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Dvořák: Symphonie No. 9 "Du nouveau monde" (Mono Version)
Léopold Stokowski, Stokowski Orchestra
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1952
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Borodin: Danses polovtsiennes - Liszt: Les préludes (Mono Version)
Leopold Stokowski Symphony Orchestra, Léopold Stokowski
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1952
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Bizet: Symphonie No. 1 & L'Arlésienne, suites (Mono Version)
Léopold Stokowski, Stokowski Orchestra
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1956
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Beethoven's Symphony No 9 In D Minor Op125 Chorale
Philadelphia Orchestra Chorus, Léopold Stokowski
Klassiek - Released by Stave on 2 jan. 2008
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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Major, Op. 10 / Prelude in E Flat Minor / Entr'acte from Lady Macbeth of Mzensk
Léopold Stokowski, The Symphony of the Air
Klassiek - Released by Music Manager on 18 dec. 2020
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Tchaikovsky: The Tempest, Op. 18, TH 44 & Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78 (Live)
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Westminster Choir, Léopold Stokowski
Klassiek - Released by Archipel on 5 aug. 2022
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Wagner: Tristan and Isolde - Love Music from Acts II and III / De Falla: El Amor Brujo
Léopold Stokowski, Philadelphia Orchestra, Shirley Verrett-Carter
Opera - Released by Music Manager on 7 feb. 2022
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Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
Léopold Stokowski, The Houston Symphony Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Music Manager on 12 sep. 2019
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Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 5 In E Minor Op 64
Klassiek - Released by Stave on 2 jan. 2008
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Orchestral Music - BLACHER, B. / PROKOFIEV, S. / EGK, W. / WAGNER, R. / MUSSORGSKY, M.P. / TCHAIKOVSKY, P.I. (Stokowski) (1955)
SWR Sinfonieorchester des Südwestrundfunks, Léopold Stokowski
Klassiek - Released by SWR Classic on 10 mrt. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo