tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post2484005862851827000..comments2024-03-26T15:57:13.443+00:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Stokowski - magician or charlatan?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-3059619875022956172016-11-01T11:54:09.603+00:002016-11-01T11:54:09.603+00:00RE one of your links, Bob, I had completely forgot...RE one of your links, Bob, I had completely forgotten B.H. Haggin. Many, many years ago I read one of his books and, though he became a critic in a time when critics in the U.S. were much given to chucking vitriol about, I was first taken aback and then repulsed by Haggin's perpetual warfare against certain composers and musicians, and against anyone who had the temerity to take a different view. Appalling. He was a Toscanini man, so I'm hardly surprised he took against Stokowski most majorly, and I'm happier just assuming how he reacted to Barbirolli. I don't want to read about it.<br /><br />I think that people might best forget Fantasia and those Bach transcriptions, plus any other preconceptions of Stokowski they may have, and start afresh. Consider the orchestras he founded. The premiere performances he conducted. The inspired way in which he placed the sections of orchestras. And listen to his recordings. On one BBC Legends cd, he starts with Klemperer's Merry Waltz and ends with his own mischievous arrangement of Novacek's Perpetuum Mobile. Between we have Brahms' 4th., VW's Tallis Fantasia, and Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole. There is not a wayward note in any of this. Indeed, these are fine performances. Yes, I'd like the outer movements of the Brahms a touch slower. The VW is superb, but not going to displace Barbirolli's 1963 recording at the top of my list. But if my desert island discs were chosen for me and this cd were one of them, for I am very fond indeed of Brahms' 4th. and the Tallis Fantasia, I should be a happy man, perfectly so with the Ravel. Never a charlatan. Often a fine interpreter. And a magician when it came to getting the finest sound out of an orchestra or concert hall. With regard to getting new ears to concerts, I should not say that he had charisma. Rather, he was an artful man who knew how to give music charisma, and it is people of exactly that sort we need now.Philip Amoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11739418522974972567noreply@blogger.com