Description

“Leopold Stokowski conducting ‘Music of France’ is a natural for this most flamboyant of maestros. …this is Stokowski live, and consequently full of the unexpected: the transcendent ritardando at the end of Afternoon of a Faun for example. Good clear sound.”

– CD Review

“No conductor of his generation was better than Stokowski at bringing out the brilliant colors in orchestral music, and that is precisely what these French works demand. All of these performances are vintage Stokowski, and it’s wonderful to have them available.”

– Ron McDonald in Fanfare

“Escales is given a neat, colorful and lively reading, with superb artistry. The Alborada receives a vigorous, up-beat performance, but the first movement of Iberia is taken far too quickly. There is more atmosphere in the work’s middle section and the festive atmosphere of the last part emerges very faithfully. L’après-midi was a Stokowski favorite (he left five studio recordings of the work), and he persuades the Frankfurt orchestra to play in a lush, sensuous fasion. Stokowski recorded no works by Milhaud commercially, and it is good to have his idiomatic account of the brief Percussion Concerto. The recording here is very efficient, and the German orchestra captures Milhaud’s smart Gallic style with splendid panache.

– Alan Sanders in Gramophone

THE STOKOWSKI EDITION, VII. IBERT: Escales; RAVEL: Alborada del gracioso; DEBUSSY: Prelude l’Apres-midi d’un faune, French National Radio Orchestre (1958); DEBUSSY: Iberia, Hessian Radio Orchestra (Frankfurt, 1955); MILHAUD: Concerto for Percussion & Small Orchestra, Südwestfunk Orchestra (Baden-Baden, 1955).

UPC #0-17685-47782-9

Sound Clips (MP3):

1. Ibert- Escales – Leopold Stokowski

2. Ravel- Alborada del gracioso – Leopold Stokowski

3. Debussy- Images Images No- 2- Iberia – Leopold Stokowski

4. Debussy- Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune – Leopold Stokowski

5. milhaud- Percussion Concerto, Op- 109 – Leopold Stokowski