Serebrier, who met Khachaturian when he was working with Leopold Stokowski, explains:

“I had the pleasure and privilege of having lunch with Khachaturian in New York, with Leopold Stokowski, when Stokowski invited him to conduct a concert of his music with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and obvious charm and modesty. He stayed on after one of his rehearsals to watch me rehearse the orchestra for one of my own concerts, and sat in the hall next to Stokowski.”

Of this particular repertoire, the conductor remarks: “While the Violin Concerto is a staple of the repertoire, the Concerto-Rhapsody is very rarely performed, and has enormous difficulties for the soloist. In some ways, it’s more interesting and imaginative than the concerto, certainly more original.”

On January 27, Naxos releases the final recording in a series of orchestral transcriptions (and syntheses) by Leopold Stokowski led by Stokowski’s protégé, the GRAMMY-winning conductor and composer José Serebrier, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Serebrier also comments:

“The Bournemouth musicians and I had so much fun recording these four volumes of Stokowski orchestrations, that we are sorry that the series is now finished, but I look forward to recording other repertoire with this wonderful orchestra. The 4th CD includes some works that were all time best sellers in the early part of the Twentieth Century. The Toccata and Fugue was included after we received numerous letters from listeners and critics asking for it. That is a very challenging work, and I had avoided it before because it is so closely identified with Stokowski and his wonderful numerous versions, but now I am delighted to have included it, and given my own personal view of this masterful, brilliant orchestration. I recently gave a concert in Israel in which I included several original Bach works on Baroque instruments, followed by orchestrations by Mitropoulos, Stokowski and others. The orchestrations and the originals are not exclusive of each other. Thanks to these colorful orchestrations Bach became known to entire generations.”

Bach-Stokowski Transcriptions 1 (Naxos 8557883), was released in June of 2006. It followed the 2005 release of Stokowski’s Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky Transcriptions (Naxos 8557645), a recording universally praised by critics and receiving two Grammy® nominations. ClassicsToday.com assigned the CD its highest rating, and called it “spectacular, sensational … this is the real deal.”

In 2007, Serebrier’s recording of Wagner: Symphonic Syntheses by Leopold Stokowski (Naxos 8570293) led Gramophone to remark: “It would be hard to imagine a more sumptuous disc. Stokowski, in these ‘symphonic syntheses,’ enhances Wagner’s already opulent orchestration with shrewdly added instrumental lines and with the vocal parts usually given to the strings. José Serebrier conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in thrilling performances, passionate in a genuinely Stokowskian manner…” MusicWeb International chose this CD as a “Recording of the Year,” commenting: “José Serebrier invests a fragrant and voluptuous sensuality to match the unbridled passion of the celebrated Liebestod that follows where its mounting excitement is literally edge-of-the-seat stuff.”

The idea for the Naxos recordings of Stokowski’s transcriptions originated from the Leopold Stokowski Society itself, which approached Serebrier in 2003. After graduating from Curtis, while still in his teens, Serebrier enjoyed a close working association with Stokowski, serving for many years as the Associate Conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra, which Stokowski founded. Stokowski also premiered a number of Serebrier’s own compositions, including his First Symphony, when the composer was 17 years old.

… the work takes in a range of emotional energies, and it sounds somewhat American in flavor and timbre, especially in its use of counterpoint, a David Diamond specialty. Agitated strings play against brass punctuations of “fateful” motivic allusions… 

… The skittish Presto maintains a sarcastic tone, along with a compositional prowess that suggests toccata for orchestra…

… The Largo provides a D Major song, a paean that will likely provide a movie soundtrack eventually; maybe it is the love-music if someone remakes On the Waterfront…

Read more.

In this interview he talks about the music, the composers, and about the joys of making music with young musicians.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 2.110230

English version of Interview:

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In this interview he talks about the music, the composers, and about the joys of making music with young musicians.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 2.110230

Versión en español de Entrevista

Subscribe to Podcast: AAC | MP3 | iTunes
Download this Episode: AAC | MP3

On August 26, Naxos of America releases Class of ‘38 (Naxos 8572087), a two-disc set of works by eight of America’s most compelling living composers: William Bolcom (Cello Sonata; II. Adagio semplice);
Gloria Coates (Symphony No. 15; III. What are the stars?); John Corigliano (A Black November Turkey); John Harbison (Trio, 1968); Frederic Rzewski (Four American Ballads: No. 4 Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues); José Serebrier (Fantasia for strings); Joan Tower (Tambor), and Charles Wuorinen (from Josquiniana). The second bonus disc contains podcast interviews with Naxos’ Raymond Bisha and composers Joan Tower, William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Charles Wuorinen, John Harbison, and José Serebrier.

Pictures at an Exhibition had already been orchestrated several times by the time Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel’s version in 1922. Stokowski loved the Ravel version, but he also felt its orchestration was not sufficiently Russian in sound and was “too subtle to do justice to Mussorgsky’s coarser idiom.” Stokowski’s version is, in fact, shorter than Ravel’s because he decided to omit two “pictures” -Tuileries and The Market-place at Limoges- possibly because he found them too French in character, or because he thought they were composed by Rimsky-Korsakov (who had revised the original piano score). Stokowski’s version of Pictures at an Exhibition was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Stokowski conducting on November 17, 1939.

José Serebrier composed ‘Symphonie Mystique’ in only one week, commenting that it was “as if I was just transcribing something that had always been in my memory.” Differing from his first two symphonies in every way but the traditional four-movement format, the Third Symphony is described by Serebrier as “rhapsodic,” “obsessive,” “dark,” “haunting,” “anxious,” and “morbid.” This performance features soprano Carole Farley, who also is soloist for the Naxos recording (8559183), which earned a Grammy® nomination for Best New Composition in 2004.

Composed originally by Georges Bizet in 1872 as incidental music for a play of the same name by Alphonse Daudet, L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2 was arranged and published in 1879 by Ernest Guiraud. Two orchestral suites were inspired by the incidental music from L’Arlésienne, the first arranged by Bizet himself and the second by Guiraud, who added a chorus to the full orchestra. Although Suite No. 2 was published four years after his death, both Suites are credited to Bizet, since he wrote the themes and basic orchestrations.

Also featured is Wagner’s grand Prelude from his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The 10-minute Prelude contains all of the leitmotifs from the opera. The majestic, yet sometimes frolicking piece is played masterfully by JONDE.

José Serebrier is one of the most recorded classical artists today, with 36 GRAMMY nominations, a Grand Prix du Disque, and many other international awards as both conductor and composer. After winning the Ford Foundation Conductor’s Award (together with James Levine), Serebrier was invited by George Szell as Composer-in-Residence of the Cleveland Orchestra for several seasons. Before that appointment, Serebrier was Stokowski’s Associate Conductor at Carnegie Hall’s American Symphony, a post he held for five years before joining Szell in Cleveland. He organized and directed Festival Miami for five years, commissioning Elliot Carter’s 4th String Quartet among others. When Serebrier was 20, Stokowski wrote “he is the greatest master of orchestral balance”. Serebrier records with the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others. He has toured with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra,Toulouse and Scottish Chamber orchestras, and many others.

The National Youth Orchestra of Spain (JONDE) was founded by the Spain’s Ministry of Culture in 1983 to assist young musicians between the ages of 18-24 before they embark on professional careers. The orchestra meets four to five times a year for a few weeks at a time to perform chamber and orchestral works from the contemporary and traditional repertoire. The musicians convene individually with international professionals for a few days and gather for sectionals and rehearsals, followed by public performances and, usually, a tour. Auditions are held every year, drawing a pool of over 800 applicants. The 2007 tour conducted by José Serebrier took the orchestra to sold-out concerts in Spain, and included festival concerts in Berlin and several cities in England and Scotland.

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