This latest reissue of a reissue re-couples Stoki’s Carmina Burana, formerly attached to Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, with Loeffler’s A Pagan Poem, last seen alongside Gliere’s Third Symphony. Stoki must have been a plastic surgeon in a former life, judging from the nip and tuck job he performs on Mr. Orff’s masterpiece. He trims a few bars here and there, eliminates most of the percussion, diddles the winds, brass and strings, and comes up with a radically different sound picture from the one the composer intended. Add to this rough and ready singing and a rhythmic freedom that goes so far as to alter the notated time signatures (you have to hear the Tanz (Dance) in the first part to believe it), and the result will either fascinate or infuriate.
Loeffler’s luscious tone poem describes a scene from Virgil in which a girl from Thessaly attempts to win back her lover using sorcery. The plot doesn’t really matter, though. Loeffler’s late Romantic style will enthrall anyone who enjoys say, Bax, Boughton, and the “Celtic twilight” school. There’s no competing performance available, nor is one likely to come along anytime soon better than Stoki’s. Although primarily for fans of this conductor, and I can’t recommend the Orff as a first choice, there’s a good time for all here. Normal sonic standards don’t apply. Presumably Stokowski got exactly the sound he wanted, however strange that might be, and EMI offers it up cleanly.
