Frederick Stock and the CSO, Vol. 6 – Bach, Wagner, Dvorak, R. Strauss, Chausson – Pristine Audio

by Audiophile Audition | Jun 4, 2026 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

FREDERICK STOCK: Chicago Symphony Vol. 6 = BACH (arr. Stock): Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major, BWV 552 “St. Anne”; WAGNER: Siegfried: Forest Murmurs; DVORAK: In Nature’s Realm, Op. 91; R. Strauss: Aus Italien, Op. 16: On the Shores of Sorrento; CHAUSSON: Symphony n B-flat Major, Op. 20 – Chicago Symphony Orchestra/ Frederick Stock – Pristine Audio PASC 771 (75:40) [www.pristineclassical.com] *****: 

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer Mark Obert-Thorn concludes his ambitious revival of conductor Frederick Stock (1872-1942), whose 37-year tenure in Chicago bequeathed us a powerful musical legacy that well continues to reward listeners. True to his German training, Stock built his honed orchestral sound from the basses upward, and his lithe concept of music-making typically eschews the more turgid of “romantic” tricks of the trade in portamentos and glissandos. This Volume 6 provides the musical energies of two days in December 1941, 22 and 23, just weeks before Stock’s death. The “pristine” clarity of the restorations proves utterly engaging, even startlingly refreshed, with almost no trace of the shellac origins of the preserved performances. 

The program begins with Stock’s own transcription of J.S. Bach 1739 “St Anne” Fugue in E-flat Major, the fugue title borrowed from William Croft’s English hymn.  The composition abounds in Christian, theological symbolism, synthesized into Bach’s “Organ Mass,” in which the Prelude and Fugue serve as pillars on opposite ends of the colossal structure. The highly chromatic Prelude, constructed on the basis of the Holy Trinity, enjoys a lyrical resonance from Stock’s forces, immediate and pious. The 205 measures of this orison embody the Lord’s perfection, as flute and harp entries, accompanied by chirping woodwinds and strings, and finally brass, elevate the occasion to a thrilling, polyphonic unleashing of cosmic powers. Bach arranges his mercurial Fugue on no less “triadic” terms, setting the respective metrics in 4/4, 6/4, and 12/8. Albert Schweitzer, typical of his metaphysical rhetoric, defines this section as “the Pentecostal wind’s rushing in, roaring from heaven.” Combined choirs state the titular “St. Anne” subject, an aerial dance that exults majestically in a potent affirmation of irresistible faith. 

In his liner notes, Obert-Thorn reveals that that the 22-23 December recording of Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs” from Siegfried, Act II had no release in the 78 rpm shellac format. It comes to us now from a vinyl test pressing, immaculate in its sonic presence. The hero Siegfried rests beneath a linden tree, and all Nature responds to the imminent release of Siegfried’s powers, given his calling to awaken Brunnhilde and redeem the honor of the gods. The sheer intensity of the CSO winds, strings, and brass rivals the live Mitropoulos performance from New York  that has set my standard for ages. 

Dvorak’s In Nature’s Realm, the initial part of his “Nature, Life and Love” symphonic-poem triptych, celebrates the rural ecstasies of his native Bohemia, going so far as to invoke the Czech hymn “Let Us Sing Joyfully, Praise God the Father” to solidify his pantheistic convictions. Also a product of the two-day sessions, 22-23 December 1941, this outpouring of Nature’s rhythmical and melodic bounty may sound a bit hasty in bravura style (11:58) compared to the reading by Vaclav Talich (15:44), which rather basks in Dvorak’s mellifluous gestures.  Doubtless, the 78 rpm medium dictated Stock’s approach, but he has captured the elastic inventiveness of Dvorak’s consistent “Nature’s call” motif.

Stock has a fine rendition of the Richrd Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra, included in Volume 4 of the Pristine collection, so his credentials as an exponent of the master orchestrator seems assured; a pity that this single movement from the early 1886 Aus
Italien, a suite inspired by the composer’s sojourn to various areas of Italy, where once more creativity thrived: “being inspired by the beauty of nature; in the Roman ruins. . .the thoughts just flew,” as Strauss stated to the score’s dedicate, Hans von Bülow. “On the Shores of the Sorrento” serves as the third movement of the suite, a serene intermezzo that permits conductor Stock’s CSO winds, brass, and strings to approach something of Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs.” Obert-Thorn comments that Stock’s “way with the graceful swooping birds over Sorrento makes one wish [RCA] Victor had recorded the entire score.” 

When we come to the Stock recording of the 1890 Symphony in B-flat Major of Chausson, we recall that the 78 rpm medium offered three fine interpretations: by Piero Coppola (1934), by Frederick Stock (1941), and by Dimitri Mitropoulos (1949). Chausson took Franck’s cyclic principle of symphonic construction to heart, even improving upon sonata-form development and instrumental color. When Stock passes through the dark introduction to the Allegro vivo, the effect startles then sooths us in the suave transitions of gesture. The orchestral definition and vibrancy adumbrate what Fritz Riener would accomplish with this ensemble an administration further in the future.

In the LP era, Charles Munch in Boston would surpass Stock’s achievement. Meanwhile, the D minor Lent movement echoes Wagner’s Tristan momentarily, staidly and sternly chromatic even in its lyrical passages. The second subject in B-flat derives from the man theme of movement one, moving to a glorious peroration in D major. Despite Stock’s penchant for classical literalism in his interpretations, he makes a decisive alteration in the tempestuous, 16^th-note-driven Animé finale, his having substituted an organ (at 8:00) for the brass utterance of a (trumpet) chorale tune, perhaps in homage to Saint-Saen’s Third Symphony. The intimate effect proves endearing, if eccentric. Some of the prior marcato passages in fact quote Franck’s D Minor Symphony, as if Chausson were announcing his fellowship of modern triumvirate, the French masters of the symphony genre. 

Kudos to Mark Obert-Thorn and the Pristine production team for this fine series to ensure our appreciation of Frederick Stock.

—Gary Lemco

From Pristine, Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchsestra concert recordings of Bach Strauss, Wagner Dvorak.  Classical Music Review by Gary Lemco.

MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 in G Major – New York Philharmonic Orchestra/ Bruno Walter – Pristine Audio

by Audiophile Audition | May 31, 2026 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 in G Major – New York Philharmonic Orchestra/ Bruno Walter – Pristine Audio PASC 729 (53:14) [www.pristineclassical.com] *****:

I well recall my LP version of Bruno Walter’s 1945 reading of the 1900 `Mahler Fourth Symphony on CBS (ML 4031) with Viennese soprano Desi Halban (1912-1996), and my appreciation of Walter’s realization of this music’s songful sympathy both with Nature and childhood, dependent upon the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the “folk” hybrid collection of poems substantially invented by Arnim and Brentano.  Given that Mahler’s score had been conceived “in reverse,” with the original “Das himmlische Leben” omitted from the 1898 Third Symphony, so that Mahler had to create a new three movements to precede it, the work depends upon the sustaining of Wordsworth’s “childlike wonder” at the joys and Heaven in their often contradictory impulses. Frankly, my real quibble with Bruno Walter’s reading lay with Halban, whose voice I found unsympathetic to the moment, while I found in Teresa Stich-Randall (1927-2007), the so-called “white soprano,” a perfect vehicle for Mahler’s phantasmic vision, though her conductor in the Epic recording, Willem van Otterloo, lacked the immense, poetical monumentality Walter accords the third movement Ruhevoll.  So this 4 January 1953 radio broadcast with lyric soprano Irmgard Seefried (1919-1998) proves most ingratiating, a collaboration transparent, mystical, and wise, at once.

Walter compared Mahler’s Fourth Symphony to a “Fairy tale. . .weightless and unburdened,” an epithet that does not quite accommodate the occasional shadows that appear in this score.  The first movement Bedachtig (well considered) offers a festival journey, beset with sleigh bells, Nature calls, and mountain-train whistles, that proceeds with fervor and insistence, rife with visionary passion. The New York Philharmonic trumpets and battery inject an alert, vivid presence to the occasion, the music’s often capturing the sense of maerchen, musical fairytales or allegories that marked the musical excursions of Ribert Schumann.  Played without exaggerated sentimentality, the performance enjoys a sober relish of Mahler’s inspirational forces, realized in that liberal, Viennese style endemic to his musical identity.

The juxtaposition of life and death becomes immediate via the second movement, in which the principal violin scordatura (“mis-pitched”) initiates a scherzo in which insinuates Death’s fiddle as dominant in a rustic, country dance shared by horns, winds, strings, and timpani. A breezy secondar motif embraces the dance to give it an unearthly, vaporous quality. A (Schubert-like) laendler in the winds imposes a graceful pulse; so, if Death hovers, he makes a casual, gracious presence. Mahler intentionally submits the genial, gemütlich quality as the rule. Suddenly, the expansive, luminous character of the occasion erupts, only to retreat into the quirky scherzo motif in the winds and solo violin. Pizzicato strokes and timpani herald a distorted vision and dissonant component to the music, compressed into in the winds’ aerial coda.

The New York Philharmonic cellos have rarely shone with the radiance they project for Mahler’s third movement, a gorgeous adagio suffused with an anguish quite ineffable. The horns presage the later explosion in E major that separates the Walter molds this music with ardent care, allotting it the same breadth Beethoven achieves in his slow movement to the Ninth Symphony, though without the double-theme-and-variation procedure. We hear the first violin amongst the interwoven patterns, intimations of mortality. The urgent pulse of the scherzo returns, voluptuous and nostalgic at once, but the momentum fails, turning the music into a darkly moody, polyphonic serenade with klezmer elements. These impish riffs dissipate into a cosmic ether that literally holds its breath in awe of some Eternal Truth. The E major unveiling occurs, in hammer blows to be revealed again later, in Symphony No. 6. Harp and strings insinuate the “heavenly” vision that initially impelled this music out of the Third Symphony.

We will eventually bask in the key of E major, where in Irmgard Seefried has depicted the child’s naïve configuration of a Heaven feast, wherein blessed events converge with animals’ slaughter.  Saints and martyrs somehow attend the festivities, the dancing and playful cavorting among the incongruous amalgam of chefs. Saint Martha, patron saint of cooks, presides over this grand grotesquerie, almost a forecast of one of Gatsby’s summer parties. The Pristine note mentions to the “decorative innocence” of the extended scene, enunciated with fervent clarity by Irmgard Seefried. The ravishing invocation of Des Knaben Wunderhorn could scarcely find more suitable collaborators, and Seefried and Walter invoke a storm of grateful applause.

—Gary Lemco

Yehudi Menuhin plays Contemporary Sonatas – Bartok, Prokofiev – Pristine Audio

by Audiophile Audition | May 22, 2026 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

MENUHIN plays Contemporary Sonatas = BARTOK: Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz. 117; PROKOFIEV: Violin Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80 – Yehudi Menuhin, violin/ Marcel Gazelle, piano – Pristine Audio PACM 132 (53:04) [www.pristineclassical.com] *****:

I met violinist Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) for the first time in Atlanta, Georgia in 1980, on a Saturday, after having heard him perform the previous evening the Elgar Violin Concerto, one of many of his personal, prized specialties. He greeted me in his suite at the Fairmont Hotel, glad that I bore many of his vinyl LPs. Early in our conversation he beamed, “I am so touched to find someone so familiar with my work!” I must state that Menuhin’s demeanor, in conversation, totally fixated on his guest, as though my words and presence were all that meant anything at that moment. 

I inquired into Menuhin’s decision in 1947 – the same year he committed to recording history his performance of the Bartok Solo Violin Sonata – to return to Germany, only just beginning to recuperate after the destruction of WW II and actively pursuing, under international jurisdiction for retribution, various, guilty parties of the Holocaust: 

“Mr. Menuhin, there are fellow Jews who consider you ‘a dirty Jew’ because you opted to participate in German cultural reconstruction.”

“Yes, I am only too aware. But I received an invitation to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto in Berlin with Wilhelm Furtwaengler – the greatest of concertos with the greatest of orchestra conductors, and I had to make a decision. Obviously, with the recent revelations of the mass destruction of human beings in Germany, many people felt every German ought to be pushed into the sea. Absolutely, a legitimate reaction.  I felt, however, deeply, that if the world were to heal, I must be part of the process. My presence would be unique – after all – my name “Yehudi” means quite literally ‘the Jew.’ There would be no ambivalence.” 

“Among my many recordings of you, one of my favorites is that of the Nielsen Concerto with Mogens Wöldike.”

“Thank you. You know, we achieved such good harmony together, that some of the musicians asked if I had Danish in my heritage? But more significantly, in my meeting with the composer Sibelius, he asked me directly whom I thought was the greatest living composer! I felt caught between honesty and courtesy. But he saved me any embarrassment: he stated directly that Bartok was the greatest living composer.”  

Which brings us to consider Menuhin’s recording 2-3 June 1947, of Bartok’s Solo Sonata, commissioned by Menuhin, dedicated to him, and premiered in New York City – after minor alterations to facilitate the realization – on 26 November 1944.  Given Bartok’s intellectual penchant for academic rigor – he read Beethoven string quartets at bedtime – we experience a pungent stridency, a severity of demeanor that dominates the emotional affect of the work, even in spite of the Magyar, rhythmic vitality that infiltrates the last movement. Bartok has synthesized much of the Bach sonata and partita craftsmanship to his own ends for this work in four movements. The opening Tempo di ciaccona alternates between agonized gestures and ardent, plaintive assaults into the harmonic atmosphere. Either in dialogue or in chromatic ariosi, the musical line exudes a rich but dissonantly poised tautness, rife with folk harmonies in counterpoint. Menuhin’s plaintive tone imbues a tragic humanity to the occasion. 

The Fuga, curiously, exerts a degree of melodic freedom to the procedure, despite its four-voice, initial motif. The episodes introduce new subjects, each of them clearly articulated whether by the bow of by pizzicato inversions of the material. The rapid shifts in register and bow technique display no mean gymnastics from Menuhin, who often advised Bartok on the technical resources demanded of the solo. Late in the Fuga, a buzzing motif sallies forth to allow a throbbing, rasping contour in harmonics. The Melodia projects something of Bartok’s patented “night-music” affect, proceeding in expanded degrees of the intervals: sixths, octaves, and tenths, settling high on the instrument’s flute tone or descending low into viola regions. Intensely meditative, the music virtually asks for our silence as it luminously proceeds.  

The concluding Presto meant to realize true Magyar tonal elements in quarter tones, but Menuhin convinced Bartok to remain in the traditional chromatic system. The muted, buzzing introduction breaks off precipitately into a driving series of agonized scalar passages and quick alternations of register. A degree of humor persists in the juxtaposition of flighty motifs and ardent, even voluptuous, passages of multiple stops. The coda, too, opens with a quiet scalar synthesis of the three main impulses, only to sail upwards into the realm of the gods. 

Menuhin and Marcel Gazelle (1907-1969) recorded Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata (1938-1946) for EMI on 1 October 1948, the 1946 debut having been given by Russian virtuoso David Oistrakh with pianist Lev Oberin. Likely sympathetic in tone to Prokofiev’s “war” pain sonatas, this Violin Sonata opens, Andante assai, with a series of low, hazy, descending chords pregnant with uneasy sentiments, the melodic content anguished and pleading over persistent grumblings from Gazelle. A rising gesture attempts to bring a degree of light into this malevolent darkness, but the (buzzing) gloom persists. The pizzicato riffs offer no relief from the meandering scale, while the piano intones a bass dirge that has left us in die straits.

The ensuing Allegro brusco injects strident, rasping impulses in C major, and arising melody maintains a martial contour. The activity becomes fierce, combative, but just as suddenly obsessive in a demented character. The texture lightens grudgingly, always ready to engage in combat. A lyrical impulse struggles upward but gets swallowed in the heaving, percussive sonorities. The lyrical strain finally gains a kind of nervous ascendancy, but the underlying agitation had become more unforgiving as the violin sweeps upward to the coda.  Gazelle has solo entry in the Andante, to which Menuhin has equal access, and the two sing a wavering arioso in F major. A melancholy intimacy takes form, in a three-note pattern that serves as a persistent plea. The texture lightens to allow the orison an aerial space, while Gazelle plays a parlando line that joins Menuhin in the most emotionally rapt occasion experienced thus far. It stutters to a flighty, diminished call that evaporates.

The Allegrissimo finale opens with a furor in the major mode of F that does relent, in its own way, to a series of stuttered phrases over Gazelle’s extended parlando. A pizzicato pattern begins a new section, aggressively impassioned, that bears a kind of gypsy rapture, only manic. The music has modulated back into its minor mode, Andante assai, dark and menacing, as Menuhin weaves a series of hazy scalar patterns. The opening of the sonata proper emerges, sadly plaintive, and the music leaves us lamenting for the fate of our century. 

Despite its relative brevity, this album stands as a potent document of the connection between composer and loyal performer, given Menuhin’s singular conviction that music bears a moral purpose.

—Gary Lemco

Michael Tilson-Thomas Conducts, Vol. 2 – Bach, R. Strauss, Brahms – Yves St-Laurent

by Audiophile Audition | May 19, 2026 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

BACH: Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068; R. STRAUSS: Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30; BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 – Malcolm Frager, piano/ Boston Symphony Orchestra. Michael Tilson-Thomas – Yves St-Laurent YSL T-1815 (2 CDs = TT: 106:46) [www.78experience.com] ****:

The recent death of conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas (1944-2026) stirs a host of musical and artistic memories, especially given my own residence as a reviewer and broadcaster in the Bay Area, 2000-2025. Tilson-Thomas had assumed the mantle of both Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein, tirelessly championing American musical composition and music education, while continuing to deliver a wide-ranging repertory from the Classics. One particularly glowing occasion involved Sibelius’ symphonies six and seven, in incandescent realization, these with the San Francisco Symphony. Another striking moment occurred after a piano recital in Atlanta by Tilson-Thomas that included Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, where while waiting on the line of congratulatory admirers, I spotted actor Jeff Corey – a friend of the conductor’s family, as it turned out – who invited me to join his acting class.

The Boston Symphony concert of 8 December 1973 opens with J.S. Bach’s ever-popular Suite No. 3 in D Major, (c. 1717-1723), whose revered “Air” receives a brisk andante realization, devoid of romantic sentimentality. The opening “Ouverture” enjoys a ceremonial pomp and resonance that maintains an elastic, dignified lyricism hose contrapuntal grandeur shines through. The playing by concertmaster Joseph Silverstein (1932-2015) illuminates Bach as well as Richard Strauss for his tonal richness and technical security. At the time of this concert, first trumpet Roger Boisin had retired, but his successor plays most admirably. The inflections for the two “Gavotte” movements, bouncily animated, remind me of Hermann Scherchen’s approach. The last two movements proceed with the same luster and graceful momentum, with the concluding “Gigue’s” igniting a grateful audience response.

Tilson-Thomas’ gift for leading large forces finds a happy vehicle in the Richard Strauss 1896 symphonic poem Thus spake Zarathustra, after the philosophical meditation by Friedrich Nietzsche. Recall that Nietzsche himself embraced contradiction as a viable element of human nature, so it comes as little surprise that the various appearances of Strauss’s “world riddle” motif will remain unresolved and even blatantly dissonant. The famous C-G-C opening has girth and immediacy, which Koussevitzky no less relished in his 1930 recording. The second section, Von den Hinterweltern, enjoys lyrical breadth but not the sustained intensity Fritz Reiner provided in Chicago.

“The Grave-Song,” juxtaposed with the succeeding “Of Science and Learning” pits the two dramatic forces in human finitude at odds, with the intricate figure of the latter section’s embracing, a la Liszt’s Faust-Symphonie, the tones of the whole chromatic scale, for their pursuit of all possibilities. Tilson-Thomas urges the BSO “The Convalescent,” to its joyful culmination in the luxuriousDas Tanzlied, Nietzsche’s assertion of amor fati, love of fate. Late in this section, set in C major, the B minor Das Grablied recurs, if only to complete the total acceptance of Man’s finitude. The “chimes at midnight” toll for a lonely existence of the Night Wanderer, exactly what Nietzsche chose to relish. An enthusiastic Boston audience applause reassures our conductor that he is not alone.

Joining Tilson-Thomas for the Brahms 1881 Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, we have American virtuoso Malcolm Frager (1935-1991), one of the more noted pupils of the great Brahms and Schumann disciple, Carl Freidberg (1872-1955). Clarity and optimism of spirit define the large opening movement, Allegro non troppo, which often beckons its poignant, “symphonic” texture out of the Black Forest. We can appreciate Frager’s huge landings in the various periods that define the first movement’s sonata-form progress, the alternation of huge block chords and fluent arpeggios with staccato filigree that easily transition into monumental gestures. The alert character that emanates between solo and individual orchestral choir members enjoys a palpable congeniality of effect, given the warm patina the BSO projects throughout the entire score.

The “tiny wisp of a scherzo” in D minor ensues, the structural innovation that added a new dimension and girth to the concerto format, with an emotionally turbulent character that testifies to the composer’s own concept of sturm und drang. Frager urges the momentum breathlessly forward, the intervening, meditative riffs notwithstanding. Both collaborators maintain the epic scale of the score, even permitting the softer periods a degree of refined intimacy. The central D major section enjoys a hymn-like sonority, answered by Frager in his most brisk toccata style, then relenting into a warm salon moment that soon explodes into a jubilant exclamation of the opening motif in a hazy then stentorian mode.

The wonderful Andante relishes two minutes of cello arioso with strings and woodwinds before Frager enters, so we have soon succumbed to the idyll’s enchantments. The easy ballade darkens into passionate tumult in B-flat minor, in which we can savor Frager’s vibrant trills and large or broken chords. The needed calm, here in F# major,  attains an almost static serenity in the mode of a pian and winds serenade or intermezzo. The uncredited cello soloist leads us, by circuitous routes, back to the tonic key along with a lithe Frager, whose upper register sings most transparently.

The five-part Allegretto grazioso communicates a large, buoyant (Mozart-like) dance character, with an occasional Hungarian flavor that can erupt into some volcanic bravura. The long singing lines – an alternation of march and ardent, romantic lyric – revel in their mixed orchestral blends, with Frager’s injecting that degree of virtuosic impetus which thrilled us in movement two. Frager and French horn invite us to the closing energies, mostly in triple meter, the keeps the flightiness fresh and bold. This long concert has had the audience in the palm of its hand, and now all  hands are free to explode in admiration.

—Gary Lemco