Get ready to get Stoked!
Today is the birthday of Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977), legendary music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Houston Symphony, chief conductor of the NBC Symphony/the Symphony of the Air, chief guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and founder of the All-American Youth Orchestra, the New York City Symphony Orchestra, and the American Symphony Orchestra.
A consummate showman, Stokowski was often dismissed as a charlatan. He could resort to a magic trunk full of tricks, ostentatiously tossing away sheet music to demonstrate that he didn’t need to conduct from a score, eschewing a baton to accentuate his expressive hand movements, and employing dramatic lighting effects to cast long shadows while he was on the podium.
His theatricality may have raised a few eyebrows, and there is no doubt that his popularity was envied. But Stokowski might be said to have laughed all the way to the bank. How many conductors were well enough known by the general public to have been parodied by Bugs Bunny or to have enjoyed an onscreen handshake with Mickey Mouse?
Say what you want about his sense of style, the man certainly knew his way around an orchestra, and he wasn’t afraid to try something new to achieve unique sonorities. He was also fascinated by recorded sound and remained at the cutting edge of developing technology, often pushing the frontier himself, throughout his long career. In addition, he gave the world and U.S. premieres of dozens of works that have gone on to become imperishable classics.
This Tuesday afternoon on The Classical Network, following our Noontime Concert and until 4 p.m., we’ll enjoy a representative cross-section of recordings Stokowski made both in the studio and from live concert performances, including his own arrangement of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
At 12:00, we’ll have the perfect counterbalance to Stokowski’s excess: a Harvard performance, captured in June of 2014, of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera, “Il re pastore” (The Shepherd King). The period instrument ensemble Grand Harmonie will present this 1775 “serenata,” a setting of a libretto by Metastasio, which in turn was based on Tasso’s 1573 play, “Aminta.” The opera explores the conflict of the demands of love versus the demands of kingship. Mozart was 19 at the time of the work’s composition. In retrospect, some of the elements could be said to look ahead to “Idomeneo” and “La clemenza di Tito.”
Grand Harmonie will take part in a recreation of the musical world of Philadelphia in 1776 with a concert at the Powel House, 244 S. 3rd St., in Philly, on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Also participating in this all-Mozart affair will be The Franklin Quartet and mezzo-soprano Julia Mintzer.
Other concerts of interest include Harvard performances of Haydn’s “The Creation” with the Harvard University Choir, on April 29, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, “Lobegesang,” with the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, on May 5.
Grand Harmonie will collaborate with On Site Opera for a production of Mozart’s “La finta giardiniera” (The Secret Gardener) at West Side Community Garden, 123 West 89th St., in New York City, May 11-13. For more information, visit the ensemble’s website at http://www.grandharmonie.org.
It’s all Wolfgang and Leopold this afternoon, from noon to 4 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
