Leopold Stokowski Orchestrations

Stokowski, Orchestrations, and Musical Arrangements

As described in the short Biography of Leopold Stokowski , as an organist in New York, prior to his conducting career, Stokowski transcribed many instrumental works for the organ.  The 1907 advertisement for a Wagner - Palestrina concert, below, is one example.

These transcriptions were, of course, instrumental scores transcribed for the organ.   Transcription of Stokowski's favorite organ and other keyboard works for symphony orchestra were a natural counterpart.  Stokowski seems to have wanted to present his favorite music in whatever medium in which he happened to be working.

Stokowski Orchestration of Music of Johann Sebastian Bach

Stokowski's love and understanding of Bach is of course not surprising, given his ten years as a church organist.  Stokowski made at least 37 orchestrations or transcriptions of the music of Bach.   His first transcription seems to have been prepared in the Summer of 1914 during Leopold and Olga Stokowski's stay at their villa in Munich.  This was of the aria from Saint John's Passion Es ist vollbracht, BWV 245, which Stokowski eventually recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934 on a double sided 10 inch Victor Red Seal disk Victor 1985.

The first Stokowski orchestration of a Bach organ work for full symphony orchestra which Stokowski performed seems to have been of the Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor BWV 582, which Stokowski first performed with the orchestra on February 10, 1922 ².  Stokowski later recorded the Passacaglia in 1929 (click on 1929 Bach Passacaglia and Fugue to read about and listen to this transcription.)  He also performed it several times during every Philadelphia Orchestra season he conducted from 1922 to 1940, excepting only in 1928 and 1933.

In a later interview, Stokowski stated that the first Bach work he orchestrated was the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582.  However, the first Bach orchestration, or perhaps better described as an arrangement seems to have been the Wachet auf portion of the famous cantata of 1731 ('Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme', or 'Sleepers Awake!', BWV 140), which John Hunt's Leopold Stokowski Discography and Concert Register (1996) with additonal information from Robert M. Stumpf, II, lists as being performed March 19 and 20, 1915.  The famous transcription of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in February 1926.  Also, at the concerts of December 8 and 9, 1926, Stokowski gave the first performance of his Bach transcription of Komm Susser Tod.  This was arranged for viola and string orchestra.

There have been a number of authors seeking to demonstrate that Stokowski did not orchestrate these works, in particular claiming that Lucien Cailliet of the Philadelphia Orchestra conceived and created the orchestrations.  However, contemporary accounts give support to Stokowski as the originator of these transcriptions, even if Cailliet prepared the score.  The image below of the Stokowski manuscript of BWV 565 from the University of Pennsylvania Library archives shows the orchestration with Stokowski's labeling and notes.

Stokowski orchestration of Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Stokowski's Orchestration of French Music

In his orchestration of Debussy's tenth Prélude of Volume I, La cathédrale engloutie, Stokowski used a contrabass clarinet in his orchestration, perhaps inspired by his re-orchestration necessary with acoustic recordings where the contrabass clarinet was added to reinforce or in fact replace string bass instruments which did not record effectively. 

In fact during the mid 1920s, the Philadelphia Orchestra employed a full-time contrabass clarinet.  Frédéric Parme was the orchestra's contrabass clarinetist from 1925 to 1927, continuing Stokowski's practice of hiring predominantly French-trained wind players.

The Stokowski orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition