This disc captures a colorful stretch of the American classical music mainstream half a century ago. The music is credited simply to Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra -- how many present-day conductors could get away with that? The short works included were mainstays of concerts by the likes of the Hollywood Bowl Symphony, which Stokowski founded, and which had considerable popular reach. Many of the performances here were released on RCA-label 45 rpm records. Anyone with a large collection of 45s, classical or ...
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This disc captures a colorful stretch of the American classical music mainstream half a century ago. The music is credited simply to Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra -- how many present-day conductors could get away with that? The short works included were mainstays of concerts by the likes of the Hollywood Bowl Symphony, which Stokowski founded, and which had considerable popular reach. Many of the performances here were released on RCA-label 45 rpm records. Anyone with a large collection of 45s, classical or popular, can tell you how quickly sound engineering advanced as the, well, quantum leaps in physics during World War II filtered down to record-company lab levels, and the sound of these recordings is startlingly good, with excellent clarity and wide dynamic range. The eccentric old Brit who put on Polish airs has proved impressively accurate in the composers he championed, a list that included Mahler and Ives when both were rarely present on concert programs. The list also includes...
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