FREDERICK STOCK and The Chicago Symphony, Volume 5 (1940-1941) - PASC749

The current volume of our series devoted to Frederick Stock’s purely orchestral recordings with the Chicago Symphony begins with his final recordings for Columbia, as well as the first disc made upon his return to Victor at the end of 1941, placed here because it would not have fit with his remaining late Victors on the single release that will conclude this series.

Between the end of Volume 4 and the first work on this volume, Stock made his only two concerto recordings for Columbia.  On the same day (6 March 1940), he set down the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Milstein and the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 with Piatigorsky.  As both of these have seen several CD reissues already, they are omitted from this series.  

The next session, held on 23 November 1940, featured Stock’s only electrical recording made in New York while the orchestra was on tour, the Brahms Third Symphony.  Stock’s reading here, like many of the other performances on this release, is filled with an energy and forward momentum that belies his reported health problems which had led to the engagement of Toscanini’s assistant from the New York Philharmonic, Hans Lange, to join the CSO as assistant conductor several years earlier to help shoulder the workload.

The remaining Columbias in this release were all set down during two very fruitful days of recording the following year, Friday and Saturday April 25th and 26th, 1941.  These were given over to recording mainly shorter pieces (overtures and “pops” material), with the only extended work being the Schumann Fourth.  It is noteworthy that of the seven complete symphonies Stock recorded over his career, two were by Schumann (this and the 1929 Victor recording of the “Spring” Symphony on Volume 2 (PASC 684)).  By this time in his career, Stock’s approach had changed from the rather gemütlich approach of the earlier recording to a more driven, Toscanini-like reading, entirely appropriate to this more dramatic score.

Stock’s largely conservative discography might blind us to the fact that he was a champion of contemporary repertoire throughout his career.  He was the first to perform the Mahler Seventh in the USA; and a year after Stokowski had given the American première of the Eighth in Philadelphia in 1916, Stock programmed it in Chicago.  In 1921, he conducted the world première of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the composer as soloist, and was the first to champion Florence Price by conducting her First Symphony in 1933.

For the orchestra’s 50th season (1940-41), Stock commissioned a number of famous composers to contribute new works to be premièred by the ensemble, including Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, Miaskovsky’s Symphony No. 21, Kodaly’s Concerto for Orchestra and Milhaud’s First Symphony.  The only work which Stock recorded from this endeavor was Walton’s Scapino Overture.  Scapino was an Italian Commedia dell’Arte figure known to escape scrapes and close calls with his wits, and Walton constructed an aptly fleet work to showcase him.  This disc, recorded three weeks after its première on 3 April 1941, utilizes the original scoring for large orchestra.  In 1950, Walton revised the score for smaller forces in a version that was first given by Furtwängler and the Philharmonia Orchestra that year.  The work is close in spirit to Arthur Benjamin’s “Overture to an Italian Comedy” which closes this release, although the Benjamin predated the Walton by several years.

As far as the rest of the repertoire goes, Glazunov must have been one of Stock’s favorite composers, because his works are featured in his discography as far back as his early acoustic recordings as well as in his late-Twenties Victors.  Here, he gets to record three full discs of the composer’s works.  The Liadov was never issued on 78s, probably because it was an “odd side” that didn’t have a coupling.  And Stock’s arrangement of Paganini’s “Moto Perpetuo”, with its quotations from Beethoven’s Eroica/Prometheus music in counterpoint, is much cleverer than Toscanini’s more straightforward all-string arrangement recorded two years earlier.

Our next volume will be the final one in this series, featuring the remainder of Stock’s non-concerto Victors from 1941.

Mark Obert-Thorn