Naxos Releases Stokowski’s Wagner: Symphonic Syntheses, Performed By José Serebrier And The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Posted by David in Naxos NewsIn September 2007, Naxos released a new Wagner recording, Symphonic Syntheses by Leopold Stokowski, performed by Stokowski’s protégé, GRAMMY-winning conductor and composer José Serebrier, leading the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In the November 2007 issue, Gramophone critic Edward Greenfield remarked “It would be hard to imagine a more sumptuous disc … José Serebrier conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in thrilling, passionate performances, and treated to orchestral sound of demonstration quality.”
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This disc follows the acclaimed Naxos recordings of Stokowski’s Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky transcriptions (Naxos 8557645), which received two GRAMMY nominations, and his J.S. Bach transcriptions (Naxos 8557883).
Sponsored by the Leopold Stokowski Society, Symphonic Syntheses features Das Rheingold: Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla (ed. Stokowski); Tristan und Isolde: Symphonic Synthesis (arr. Stokowski); Parsifal: Symphonic Synthesis from Act III (arr. Stokowski); Die Walküre: Magic Fire Music (arr. Stokowski); and Die Walküre: Ride of the Valkyries (ed. Stokowski).
From the first days of his conducting career, Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) championed Wagner’s music: Siegfried Idyll and The Ride of the Valkyries featured prominently in his first performances with the Cincinnati Orchestra in 1909. In addition to live performances, Stokowski brought Wagner’s music to a much wider audience through a series of 78rpm recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra, for which he wove together extended orchestral excerpts from great Wagnerian operas. He titled these excerpts, which took the form of elaborate tone poems, “Symphonic Syntheses.”
Serebrier has commented:
“During my many years as his Associate Conductor in New York, I had the wonderful opportunity to observe Stokowski’s work first hand. While I had great teachers, Pierre Monteux, Antal Dorati, and was associated with George Szell for many years, I learned a great deal about sound and about orchestral technique from Stokowski. His orchestrations of Bach and Mussorgsky are completely different from what he did with the Wagner operas. Here, he left the original orchestration intact (except for very minor retouches in The Ride of the Valkyries), giving the vocal lines to instruments, and providing links between sections of Tristan, to make true symphonic poems. “
The idea for the recordings of Stokowski’s transcriptions originated from the Leopold Stokowski Society itself, which approached Serebrier in 2003. After graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music, Serebrier enjoyed a close association with Stokowski, serving for many years as the Associate Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra, which Stokowski founded in 1962. Stokowski premiered Serebrier’s First Symphony and other works when Serebrier was just seventeen. The Stokowski premiere of Serebrier’s First Symphony was a last minute replacement for the Ives 4th Symphony, which was still considered unplayable at the time. Years later, Stokowski and Serebrier premiered the Ives 4th conducting it together, side by side, at Carnegie Hall.
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