I don’t care what they say about Stokowski

“I know there are other things in music that are more important,” he said in his eighties, “but after all, sound is what we’re selling. I hate nasty tone. Even the timpani should sing. I remember the cymbals in the Bruckner Seventh when Furtwängler did it with the Berlin Philharmonic – a shower of stars. Not a bang or a clap, which is what you seem to get these days. I don’t care what they say about Stokowski. He was good. He could achieve a lovely sound. I learned something from that.”

Another great conductor, Reginald Goodall, talks about Leopold Stokowski who was born on April 18th 1882. Quote from Reggie, the Life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas, John Murray ISBN 1856810518

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Comments

Daniel Wolf said…
Pliable --

It appears that Stokowski is the conductor of the moment:

http://renewablemusic.blogspot.com/2007/04/stokowski-pulled-out-all-of-stops.html
12:49 pm
Konrad von Swalwagner said…
Since you mentioned Sir Reginald, Pliable, I was wondering if anyone (such as the Decca Records CEO, I bet s/he reads your blog) knows if Decca has any plans of re-releasing Goodall's "Tristan" with the Welsh National Opera, which I never saw for sale on Amazon or any other retailer (I just saw it once in a CD store in Brazil in the late 'nineties, but at that time I didn't have the necessary capital for that purchase).
2:44 pm
Pliable said…
I can only echo your request Konrad.

There should be a feature on Reginald Goodall On an Overgrown Path for the anniversary of his death in May.

I was very, very fortunate to hear Goodall's Wagner at the ENO in the seventies. Sublime music making, if a politically naive man - but how many conductors can we say that about?

A WNO Parsifal we attended a few years ago conducted by Anthony Negus, who was Goodall's assistant, was also profoundly moving.
3:35 pm
Pliable said…
Konrad, it is pretty rash of us to assume that the CEO of Decca has heard of Wagner, let alone Reginald Goodall.

But if he has the LP release was D250D 5 in the UK and London LDR5 75001 in the US. The session dates were November 1980 and January 1981.
4:25 pm
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