Leopold Stokowski - Philadelphia Orchestra Other
Acoustic Recordings from 1917 and 1919
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Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Other Acoustic Recordings from 1917 and 1919
Leopold Stokowski perhaps Sept 1920
on SS Olympic from Southampton, England
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra Acoustic Recordings of
1917 and 1919
The period 1917 through 1919 was a transition for Stokowski and
the Philadelphia Orchestra as to acoustic recording techniques.
According to the Victor ledgers, the orchestra had been recording with
a nearly full orchestral complement of 93 musicians during 1917 6.
However, only 5 of the sides recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra in
1917 were approved for release by Stokowski.
Stokowski made no recordings in 1918, probably due to the war-time
restrictions on the Victor company. According to
Benjamin L. Aldridge
, in his history of the Victor Talking Machine Company, "...In
1918, the fuel administration curtailed all talking machine production to
70% of 1917. This was reduced later to 40%...."1
By the time of the 1919 recordings, Victor had
decided to reduce the recording complement to typically 46 players,
approximately half the musicians of the 1917
recordings. There were now 10 violins,
rather than 31. and 4 string basses, rather than
8. This reduction was apparently not for economic
reasons, unlike the reduction of orchestra players which would
happen during the economic depression of the 1930s, which was
specifically to save money. Rather, the reduced orchestra of
the acoustic era was said to be for improved "clarity" in the
recorded result.
It was also physically difficult to place the
musicians of a full orchestra in physical
proximity to the recording horn. Raymond
Sooy, the pioneering Victor recording engineer
in his memoires summarized some of the problems:
"...It was also necessary to place the musicians
who were playing the 'cello, oboe, clarinet,
cornet, trombones and some of the other
instruments, on high chairs or stools, so that
they could concentrate their tones directly
toward the recording horns. They had to be
placed so close together that it was almost
impossible for them to play - the violinists,
while playing, would oft times run their bows up
the bell of the clarinets which were being
played directly above them or in one of the
other musician's eyes, which would cause a
heated argument..." 4
Supplementing Instruments of the Orchestra
in Acoustic recording
Also, beginning in 1919, Stokowski and
Victor began supplementing or even replacing
instruments of the orchestra to improve the
reproduction of low and high frequencies.
String basses, which
failed to record effectively, began to
be supplemented or even completely replaced by
tubas and bass Saxophones.
The acoustic process did not
reproduce much acoustic energy below 200 Hz.
String basses typically play in the range of 40 Hz to 200 Hz,
so they recorded faintly, or perhaps not at all.
Furthermore, what bass was
captured caused larger excursions of the stylus,
and could disrupt the delicate cutting
stylus inscribing the wax master. In 1919, we
can hear tubas augmenting the string basses, for
example in the
Weber - Invitation to the Dance.
Similarly,
during the acoustic era, timpani were frequently replaced entirely by
contra-bassoons, and other percussion
instruments were often
avoided. The 1917 recording of the
Scherzo from a Midsummer's Night Dream
for example used a contrabassoon, not in the
score, rather than a timpani. As well as
the reproduction of the frequencies, the sudden sound transients of
percussion could cause the cutting stylus to
skip off the wax surface.
Further, in the higher frequency range above
about 2,400 Hertz, the acoustic process
reproduced only very faintly, if at all.
The meant that the harmonic overtones of the
higher instruments were not reproduced. As
a result, violins, flutes and clarinets tended
to sound the same. For this reason, violins,
high in their range to about 3,100 Hertz were
supplemented by flutes and piccolos, which
produced more sound energy at these higher frequencies.
Also, as shown in the photograph below, Stroh
violins, fitted with horns to project the violin sound
toward the recording horn had to be used.
Victor Orchestra
as it looked in 1925 with Stroh violins and cello on a riser.
These changes must have been particularly unsatisfying for
Stokowski, since one of the basic
characteristics of Stokowski's orchestral
balance, at least as we know it from later
years, were the string basses. This bass
resonance, rising up though the 'celli and then
through the rest of the orchestra was one of the
fundamental Stokowski building blocks of his
orchestral sonority, which could not be replaced
by tubas or contrabassoons. On a related
subject, read about Stokowski's use of orchestra
seating to gain sound clarity, including
projection of the string bass sound by clicking
on
Stokowski Innovations in Orchestral Seating.
One aspect of the
acoustic process which was relatively favorable
was the dynamic range, which sometimes reached
40 db. This was in spite of the presence of the "frying egg"
noise resulting from the surface of the shellac of the disc,
which was mixed with an
abrasive. The rough surface of the disk reduced the signal-to-noise
ratio of the recording. However, since the process
was mechanical, transients were captured.
In fact, transients could not be controlled in
the mechanical acoustic system except by limiting the
performers, by distance or their performance
volume.
The effective
recorded range of the acoustic process was
therefore reduced to a range of about the
E or F below middle C, or about 190 Hz to
about three octaves above middle C, which is
about 2,100 Hz 2. Within
this range, Stokowski and the Philadelphians learned
to capture what they could with the equipment,
the instrumentation, and the musical arrangements with
which they were constantly experimenting.
Changes in Recording of Stokowski and the
Philadelphia Orchestra 1917 to 1919
This transition of orchestral composition
from 1917 to 1919 can be witnessed by three
recordings from this period by Mendelssohn,
Gluck and Grieg.
1917 - Mendelssohn's Midsummer's Night
Dream - Scherzo
First is the Scherzo movement from
Mendelssohn's Midsummer's Night Dream.
Following Stokowski's first recording
sessions of September, 1917, two weeks
later, on November 8, 1917, Stokowski and
the Philadelphia Orchestra returned to
Camden to record short, popular movements of
works by Mendelssohn, Gluck and
Grieg.
The incidental music for A Midsummer's Night
Dream was written by Mendelssohn in 1842
when he was 33. The Scherzo is one of
several famous movements and the recording
of
The Scherzo from "A Midsummer's Night Dream" was
issued on a Victor 12 inch Red Seal
disk 74560, matrix C-21056-4 which was
released by Victor in February 1918.
This Mendelssohn Scherzo, as well as the
Grieg "Anitra's Dance", and the Gluck "Danse
of the Blessed Spirits" were all recorded
with a full orchestral complement of
86 musicians. Contrast these
1917 recordings with the sound with the Weber
"Invitation to the Dance", or the Strauss "Blue
Danube Waltz" recordings of 1919, below
which were recorded with the smaller 46
musician
orchestra.
Click here to listen to the 1919 Mendelssohn's
Midsummer's Night Dream Scherzo
1917 - Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice - Dance of the Blessed Spirits
At the November 8, 1917 Camden recording session, Stokowski next recorded the
"Danse of the Blessed Spirits', or 'la
Ronde des esprits bienheureux' in its
original title. This music comes from Christoph
Willibald Gluck's opera 'Orfeo ed Euridice', originally composed in 1761-1762
when Gluck was living in Vienna.
Later, in 1774, the French version. 'Orphée et
Eurydice' was expanded for the Paris Opera,
with ballet music added, as was the Paris fashion of the
time. The ballet which begins Act 2 scene 2 includes the
music of The Dance of the Blessed Spirits -
Ronde des esprits bienheureux.
This recording has a nostalgic flavor of a salon
orchestra performance, and shows that the Philadelphia Orchestra
strings were already of the first rank. The music also includes a
sadly beautiful and soaring flute solo, presumably performed by
Daniel Maquarre,
solo flute of the orchestra 1910-1918. In 1918,
Daniel Maquarre moved to the New York Symphony. Daniel was
then succeeded by his older brother
André Maquarre,
previously solo flute of the Boston Symphony, who became Principal
flute of the Philadelphia Orchestra for three seasons, 1918-1921.
The 'Danse of the Blessed Spirits' was issued in
July, 1918 on a single faced Victor Red Seal 12 inch
disk 74567, matrix number C-21066-1.
Click here to listen to (download) the 1917 recording of Gluck - Dance of the Blessed Spirits
1917 - Grieg - Anitra's Dance from the Peer Gynt Suite
At the November 8, 1917 recording session, Anitra's Dance
from the Peer Gynt Suite, opus 23 was also
recorded with a full orchestra of 86 musicians.
Ibsen had asked Grieg to compose incidental music for Ibsen's
play 'Peer Gynt', which was performed with Grieg's music
in 1876. The original incidental music for the play
the makes use of solo voices, chorus and orchestra. However,
Grieg arranged his music into two orchestral
suites. These suites include many famous movements, often
performed and often recorded, such as 'Morning', 'Aase's Death',
'Anitra's Dance' and 'In the Hall of the Mountain King'.
'Anitra's Dance' was the third recording from
this session occurred
on November 8, 1917 in the eighth floor
Auditorium of the Victor executive office
building (Building no 2). It was issued on
a 10 inch single faced Victor Red Seal disk
64768, matrix number B-21067-2.
Click here to listen to (download) the 1917 Anitra's Dance from the Peer Gynt Suite
Two great composers with whom Stokowski seems to
have had little affinity were Mozart and
Bruckner. This 1919 recording of a movement of
Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 is the only surviving
example of Stokowski in a commercial recording
of a Mozart symphony known to us so far, with
the exception of a New York Philharmonic
performance of the Haffner recorded by Columbia
in 1949, but apparently never commercially
released by them.
Nearly all the Mozart from Stokowski’s legacy is
from live performances, other than the
Philadelphia Orchestra recording of the Sinfonia
Concertante with the first chair soloists of the
PO at the very end of Stokowski's Philadelphia tenure
in 1940, and the German Dances KV 509, number 3 in a
Victor recording of March 2, 1949 with 'His Symphony Orchestra'.
Haydn was featured in Stokowski's Cincinnati and
Philadelphia concerts somewhat more than Mozart,
according to Robert Stumpf's excellent
concert
registry. Stokowski seems to have performed
several late Haydn symphonies once, or with some
works, twice. He also performed the Haydn
Symphony no 45 in 1926. The Haydn Symphony no
88 he regularly performed.
Regarding Bruckner, in an interview, which I
remember, but cannot locate, Stokowski mentions
that Bruckner is a composer whom he recognizes
as great, but whom he cannot appreciate (he
qualified it as being “up to now”).
Stokowski did in fact conduct Bruckner twice.
He programmed the Symphony no. 4 with the
Philadelphia Orchestra on October 20 and
31, 1914. Perhaps Stokowski was trying it out
to determine his assessment of Bruckner.
Playing Bruckner's music with his orchestra may
have been his only means to find out, since live
performances of Bruckner then, and for the
next 40 years would be rare, and the
first Bruckner recordings listed by Arnold
7 were
not until 1924.
His second, and apparently last ever Bruckner
performance was of the massive and soaringly majestic
Symphony no 7 in 1925. Have a look at the program for that
concert3, which is unlike what most other
conductors of then (or now) would construct.
What a mix!
Academy of Music, Philadelphia January 2, 3,
1925
Bruckner: Symphony no.7
Joslyn: War Dance
Eichheim: Japanese Nocturne
Pierné: le route de Poggio-Bustone
It would seem that Stokowski concluded that Bruckner was, as he
said, a 'closed book' for him. This would seem to me surprising,
given the sonority, the building of ever-growing structures of noble
sound, and the glorious emotional heights of Bruckner. These
characteristics would seem to me more likely congenial to Stokowski's art
than, for example Mahler (a few of whose works Stokowski conducted
throughout his career).
However, after 1925, no Bruckner performance
is listed in the concert registries I
have seen covering the next 50 years of
Stokowski's music making. Later performances of
Mozart were also remarkably few, given the
popularity of this great composer, although not so few as Bruckner, whose music Stokowski
seems not to have performed at all after 1925.
As mentioned above, Stokowski and the
Philadelphians made no recordings in 1918, due
to war time restrictions. However, in
1919, following the end of the 1918-1919
Philadelphia Orchestra season, on May 8, 9 and
10 (Thursday, Friday and Saturday), 1919
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra made a
series of recordings of which 7 works were
approved for release by Stokowski. These
works were:
May 8, 1919 - Bizet - Carmen - Prelude to Act 1
May 8, 1919 - Wagner - Rienzi Overture
May 9, 1919 - Rimski-Korsakov - Scheherazade - Part IV - Festival
at Baghdad
May 9 1919 - Chabrier - España Rhapsody
May 9, 1919 - Mozart - Symphony no 40 - movement 3 (minuetto)
May 9, 1919 - Weber - 'Invitation to the Dance' ('Aufforderung zum Tanz')
May 10, 1919 - Strauss - On the Beautiful Blue Danube
All of these recordings were done in the newly refurbished
Camden Church Studio building in Camden, New Jersey
1919 - Mozart - Symphony no 40 - movement 3 (minuetto)
One of the approved recordings from Friday, May 9, 1919 was
of a symphonic movement from one of Mozart's
greatest symphonies. This was,
incidentally, the last Mozart recorded by
Stokowski as music director of the Philadelphia
orchestra, excepting only the Mozart Sinfonia
concertante in E flat, one of the very last recordings
Stokowski made with the Philadelphian Orchestra as its permanent
conductor. This Sinfonia concertante
recording was made in December, 1940, more than 20 years
following this acoustic Symphony no 40, K550, Minuetto movement.
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra's
performance of this movement from Mozart's
Symphony no 40 seems to me somewhat stiff and
lacking in flexible grace. However, it would
have been a satisfactory experience for
listeners in that far-off era who wanted to be
able to experience this great music whenever
they wished to do so, and had few other choices.
Also, the playing of the Philadelphia Orchestra
is fully satisfying. Contrast their
playing with the recording of the Mozart Symphony no 39 made by
the scholar and composer Eduard Künneke with the
'Large Odeon String Orchestra'. This is a complete
(although cut) recording of the Symphony on six Odeon disk sides in
October, 1913. The Odeon house orchestra,
like its Victor counterpart of the same period,
the Victor Concert Orchestra, would likely have
been made up of leading musicians, in this case of Germany.
However, although Künneke's performance is reasonably lively, the
scrappy orchestral performance would seem today
to compare to a local amateur orchestra at best. This again
reminds us of the lack of precision and ensemble of orchestral
playing of this era, to the extent that we may evaluate it from
surviving sources. Contrast this scrappy performance from
Berlin with the polished playing of the Philadelphians which
Stokowski had obtained by 1919. It is striking.
One of the interesting impressions from the past
is that the orchestral playing of even famous
orchestras, including well-known European groups
from the 1920s and 1930s could be remarkably
poor, as we can hear from the surviving 78
RPM recordings of the era. In both ensemble and
precision of playing, there is often a lack of
virtuosity that is striking to our ears today,
so used to the great orchestras filled with the
gifted graduates of the world-famous
conservatories.
In this 1913 Odeon recording, listen to the use of what sounds like true
timpani in the early Künneke performance,
compared with what sounds like a contra-bassoon in the
Philadelphia Orchestra recording. To me, this
is an interesting comparison, which you can hear
by clicking on the link below.
Click here to hear Eduard Künneke' performance of the finale of Mozart Symphony no 39 from 1913
1919 Recording of Weber 'Invitation to the Dance'
Later that Friday, May 9, 1919, and the next
day, Saturday May 10, Stokowski and the
Philadelphians recorded two works that we would
now refer to as being "pops". First was Felix
Weingartner's orchestration of the Karl Maria
von Weber piano work "Invitation to the Dance"
(Aufforderung zum Tanz), opus 65, recorded May
9 ,1919.
Unlike the 1917 sessions, this recording was
done with a greatly reduced orchestra of
46 players 6, with bass parts reinforced by a bass
Saxophone, contra-bassoon, and tuba. The second
take of four takes done on that Friday recording session was
issued on Victor Red Seal 12 inch disk 74598, Matrix C-22821-2.
Click here to listen to (download) the 1919 Weber Invitation to the Dance
1919 Recording of Johann Strauss "On the beautiful Blue Danube"
After unsuccessful attempts to record this Strauss waltz
on April 7 and 8, 1919, on Saturday May 10, 1919,
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra succeeded in
recording what was the first of a number of
best-selling Johann Strauss recordings made by them
over the next two decades. This was 'On the beautiful Blue Danube' ('An der schönen blauen Donau'),
by Johann Strauss the Younger. This was issued as Victor 74627, a 12 inch single
sided Red Seal disk, matrix number C-22825-4, indicating this was take number 4
of that day.
Of course, both the Weber and the Strauss selections were heavily cut to fit, each, onto one
12 inch 78 RPM side.
Links to other pages of Stokowski -
Philadelphia Orchestra Acoustic Recordings are shown
below.
A chronological discography of the issued Stokowski - Philadelphia
acoustic recordings is available by clicking:
Leopold Stokowski - Philadelphia Orchestra Chronological Acoustic Discography
.
Note on listening to the Stokowski recordings:
The recordings in this site are files in mp3 format (128 mbps)
encoded from my recordings. Links to the mp3 files are located in two places:
First - in the page covering the year of the recording.
For example, links to a 1926 recording are found in the page:
1926 - Stokowski - Philadelphia Orchestra Recordings
Second - in the Chronological Discography page.
For example, links to a 1926 recording are also found in the
electrical recordings chronological discography page:
Chronological Discography of Electrical Recordings
This page lists all the electrical recordings from 1925 to
1940 made by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold
Stokowski and issued by Victor, including of course the 1926 recordings.
The mp3 files in this site are encoded at 128 mbps. This means that the
files are of different sizes, according to the length of
the music. For example, the second electrical recording, the
April 29, 1925 Borodin ‘Polovetzki Dances’ is small (3.6MB). In contrast,
the 1929 Le Sacre du Printemps file is large. Le Sacre part 1 is 14MB
and Le Sacre part 2 is 16MB.
This means that a large file will take a longer time to
download, depending on your internet connection speed.
Please keep this in mind when you click to listen to -
download a particularly music file. You may click
the link to the music file, but need to wait a number of
seconds or even minutes to listen to the file.
If you have any comments or questions about this Leopold Stokowski site, please e-mail me (Larry
Huffman) at e-mail address:
leopold.stokowski@gmail.com
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1 Page 80 Aldridge, Benjamin. L.
The Victor Talking Machine Company (edited
by Frederic Bayh) RCA Sales Corporation. June, 1964.
2 Intervals and Notation at
http://mathandmusic.tripod.com/notes.htm
3 Year 1925 listing from Robert M. Stumpf II
Concert Registry
4 Sooy, Raymond.
Memoirs of my Recording and Traveling Experiences for
the Victor Talking Machine Company. Manuscript,
not dated, but ending with events of 1931. An
important contribution to the history of recording,
the David Sarnoff Library edited and reproduced these
memoires on their website.
http://www.davidsarnoff.org/soo-maintext.html
5 See the excellent Stokowski Discography, including
his acoustic disks by Enno Riekena. Mr. Riekena, a Stokowski
expert and scholar has carefully prepared and researched this
discography, including correct names of the works recorded,
which may often vary from the title selected by
Stokowski or by Victor for the record label.
Mr. Riekena's discography includes information on the
acoustic recording sessions attempted from which no recording
was released. This discography may be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/stokowskisite/disco/lsdiscs.htm
6 Victor Talking Machine ledgers as
reported by the The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor
Recordings (EDVR) University of California,
Santa Barbara.
http://victor.library.ucsb.edu
7 Arnold, Claude Graveley, C.S.B.
The Orchestra on Record, 1896 - 1926,
An Encyclopedia of Orchestral Recordings Made by the
Acoustical Process. Discographies,
Number 73, Greenwood Press, Westport Connecticut.
1997. ISBN 0-313-30099-2.
