Leopold Stokowski, British and not Slavic by birth, was one of the great individualists of the classical scene in the 20th century, and it seems a bit surprising that no one has undertaken this kind of homage before conductor
Richard Egarr and the
Brussels Philharmonic. But of course
Stokowski's recordings themselves have been widely available. They've fallen out of fashion but might be due for a revival as classical musicians ponder how their ancestors captured the public imagination. Surprising, too, is the identity of the conductor;
Egarr is generally known as a historical-performance specialist. In the booklet (in French, English, German, and Dutch) he is quoted as saying, "I prefer playing such a sincere interpretation from a true musician, than this or that rediscovered
Bach concerto questionably reconstructed by musicologist." What's at hand here is not quite the reconstruction of a typical
Stokowski concert but an examination of an unusual aspect of his repertoire, and here
Egarr makes a contribution that will be appreciated by
Stokowski buffs.
Stokowski was hardly a historically oriented conductor, but, coming of age during a time when Baroque and Renaissance music apart from
Bach,
Handel, and
Domenico Scarlatti were rarely played, he programmed quite a bit of it. He did not stop with hits like
Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ, BWV 565, but investigated the likes of Marco Antonio Cesti's operas (from one of which an instrumentally arranged aria is performed here),
Purcell's theater music for strings, and even Renaissance a cappella choral music, gleefully arranging it all for the
Philadelphia Orchestra and its famous string section. This raises some interesting questions about his sound world, in which he applied space as a detail; a series of thematic entrances, for example, might seem to move across the stage as it is given to different groups of instruments. The cellos and basses, which seem to define a large space by themselves, are always prominently featured.
Egarr tries his hand at a few arrangements (of selections from
Handel's Water Music and of Ockeghem's motet Intemerata Dei Mater) in the
Stokowski style; these don't quite have the arrestingly freakish quality of
Stokowski's own, but in a way they succeed at pointing up just how unusual
Stokowski was. The only non-Baroque and non-arranged piece is
Tchaikovsky's Slavonic March, a common
Stokowski encore. An offbeat and enjoyable disc, especially for
Stokowski fans.