Leopold Stokowski’s transcriptions have been getting a lot of attention on disc lately. Most particularly, DG reluctantly released an excellent disc of Mussorgsky pieces featuring Oliver Knussen and the Cleveland Orchestra, magnificently played and very different in conception from Stokowski’s own. That disc vindicated his work by showing convincingly that these arrangements can have a successful existence independently of the great old wizard himself. José Serebrier’s interpretations, while not quite so radical in their emphasis on laser-like clarity of texture, achieve much the same sort of validation while preserving more of the physical excitement and cinematic flamboyance of the original recordings.
This isn’t just a question of the exceptionally splashy and colorful use of heavy percussion at the end of A Night on Bare Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition, impressive (and necessary) though that is. Serebrier, who worked as Stoki’s assistant conductor at the American Symphony Orchestra for about five years, brings a keen ear for those luscious string sonorities that also give these editions much of their magic at lower dynamic levels. I’m thinking, for example, of the shimmering closing pages of the Boris Godunov Symphonic Synthesis, among other places. Serebrier also captures the tragic intensity of the Khovanshchina Entr’acte as well as Stokowski ever did: he’s slower, darker, and heavier than Knussen, more raw and “Russian” sounding, as he also is in the terrifying Catacombs section of Pictures at an Exhibition.
There’s further icing on the cake that you won’t find on the Knussen disc: the two lovely Tchaikovsky transcriptions (the Humoresque will be familiar to knowledgeable listeners from its use in Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss), and Stokowski’s own Traditional Slavic Christmas Music, a setting where once again Serebrier shows himself able to conjure a truly authentic “Stokowski sound”. Mind you, these aren’t mere imitations. Serebrier’s flexible approach to tempo and willingness to inject a jolt of extra electricity make something quite special out of the climaxes in A Night on Bare Mountain, and it’s very clear that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is having as much fun playing this music as you will have listening to it. The engineering stands among the best from this source as well. Spectacular, sensational, skirting the boundaries of “good taste”–this is the real deal. [6/17/2005]
