Frederick Stock conducts Chicago Symphony, Vol. 3 – Pristine Audio PASC 699 (67:21) [complete content listing below] [www.pristineclassical.com] ****:
Restoration engineer and producer Mark Obert-Thorn extends his thorough celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of German conductor Frederick Stock (1872-1942), who led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1905 until his death thirty-seven years later. Except for the 1929 Glazunov offerings, all of the remaining sound documents date from RCA ,1930.
Stock begins the program (rec. 18 December 1929) with two excerpts from Glazunov’s 1898 ballet Les ruses d;amour, a suite of five movements. The “Introduction,” engaging a pair of melodies, sways in lulling, bucolic scoring, especially for the Chicago flutes and strings. The waltz tempo finds enrichment in the swelling progress of the strings, low and high. The second selection, “Ballabile des Paysans et Paysannes,” offers a rustic dance that features lively castanets. The typical Glazunov busy energies and melodic formulas apply, charming and colorfully engaging.
The reading of the Mozart G Minor Symphony (22 December 1930) focuses on linear, clear textures, and a firm sense of architecture. The first movement repeat adds girth to the essentially athletic approach. Stock takes care with Mozart’s shifting dynamics, creating a sense of antiphons between his divided strings. Occasionally, a touch of rubato or portamento intrudes a bit of old-world musicianship to the moment. The latter pages, marked by polyphony and stretto effects, emerge with a decisive authority and control. The string counterpoints that open the Andante emerge with studied attention to the buoyant sonorities that soon add woodwind filigree. The heart of this melancholy symphony, the Andante under Stock provides a good sense of the conductor’s gracious style. The churning, martial dissonances and syncopations of the Menuetto rather assault us, but the Trio section offers a fine wind and string serenade. The finale, Allegro assai, takes a middle course to speed of execution, with some truly whistling tempos assigned to the strings and winds, and then a slow, studied molding of the arioso melody. The polyphony emerges in strong, clear sonority, with a firm resolve in the procession. With the development’s repeat of the arioso theme, a decided galanterie invests the texture before the real hustle to the coda.
The remaining five, relatively brief works – each recorded at the same 23 December 1930 session – exhibit style, grace, and moments of humor. The Kaiser-Walzer of Strauss basks in suave invocations of pageantry and elegance. The energy and enthusiasm for the waltz genre saturates the performance, beautifully remastered. The Strauss influence manifests itself in Stock’s own 1907 Symphonic Waltz, which blatantly quotes the earlier Wine, Women and Song while borrowing elements from Glazunov and Richard Strauss.
The Tannhäuser Fest-Marsch illustrates the fine resonance of the Chicago string, brass, here in the episode’s truncated form. My favorite version remains that of Giuseppe Sinopoli. The ballet music from Act III of Goldmark’s 1875 The Queen of Sheba demonstrates the composer’s limited melodic gift, but a talent for colorful, “exotic” scoring. A solo cello makes a warm moment in the course of activities, an accompanied aria to compete with Saint-Saëns’ swan. The exalted, vivacious pageant of Wagner’s Act III Prelude to Lohengrin always makes a fine, exuberant vehicle for brass, strings, winds, and timpani, and Stock’s version claims all the virtues.
—Gary Lemco
Frederick Stock conducts Chicago Symphony, Vol. 3
GLAZUNOV: Les ruses d’amour, Op. 61: Introduction et Scene 1; Ballabile des paysans et des paysannes;
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550;
J. STRAUSS II: Emperor Waltz, Op. 437;
WAGNER: Tannhäuser – Fest March; Lohengrin: Prelude, Act III;
GOLDMARK: The Queen of Sheba- Ballet Music;
STOCK: Symphonic Waltz
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