Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), one of the members of Les Six, retains a strong repute for his prolific musical output in a syntax that embraced both the influence of jazz and polytonality. The Four Seasons (rec. June 1958 for Philips) appears as a composite of concerted works assembled between 1934 and 1953. The Concertino de Printemps, Op. 135 here features the gifted violinist Szymon Goldberg in the solo for this nine-minute piece of breezy and amiable cast.  Indeed, we do hear polytonal moments in the course of its busy intricacies in the manner of Stravinsky, a light work of no great mental perspicacity but obviously a delight to perform.

The Concertino d'Ete, Op. 311 features Ernest Wallfisch in the extended viola part, sharing the spotlight with a wind ensemble and double-bass. The neo-classical strain from Stravinsky guides the style of expression, the wind section pungent or lyrical, as required. Despite the obviously high level of execution between Wallfisch and fellow principals, there hovers within this intricate exchange a sense of hollow busy-work, effects that either lyrically charm or casually sachet without much purpose. That the Summer Concertino provides a viola solo of gratifying distinction is not an issue. The so-called Autumn Concertino, Op. 309 Milhaud composed with the duo-pianists Gold and Fizdale in mind: here, the duo is Genevieve Joy and Jacqueline Bonneau. The mood of the work becomes more somber, the colors of the brass mingling with the broken chords of the keyboards to produce stringent jabs, percussive riffs, and angry declamations of some pain. A flute solo midway eases the affect, the harmony's taking a pentatonic turn, occasionally mimicking Ibert, dark Poulenc, or Stravinsky's Symphony in 3 Movements.

Finally, the Concertino d'Hiver, Op. 327, with the talented Maurice Suzan, trombone solo. A busy piece for the trombone solo, Suzan rarely catches his breath, but the long strings and runs of notes daunt him not at all. A perfect vehicle for one of Eugene Ormandy's old "First Chair" display discs, the piece does reveal a modal soft side, a moody nocturne with the trombone muted. The spirited mood returns, moto perpetuo, the trombone and angular strings ending on an uneasy truce.

The 1922 Overture and 13 Saudades do Brasil (rec. 10-12 September 1956) reflect "an ardent longing for an absent place," in this case districts, landmarks, and streets in Brazil. The challenge for Milhaud lay in imitating the natural pause and inflection Brazilian syncopation brings to the musical table. As authentic as this performance is under the guiding hand of the composer, I can vouch for an extraordinarily scintillating reading once led by Sergiu Celibidache from Stuttgart. The "Leme" and "Copacobana" sections are the longest at about two-and-one-half minutes; but even within the brief tone pictures, they resonate with Brazilian dance patterns whose simultaneous insistence and simplicity suggest Satie or Ravel. "Ipanema" Milhaud dedicated to Artur Rubinstein, with its ninth chords in weirdly martial clusters. "Gavea" has a festive quality we might associate with the movie Black Orpheus. Pianist Ricardo Vines received the dedication of "Tijuca," a popular piece despite its angular modality. "Sumare" captures the wild, sultry Amazon aspects of Brazil, music with a touch of curare. For a sense of the Mayan, we have "Paineras," an exotic song for flute and woodwinds over an ostinato percussion. A bit of rustic jazz infiltrates "Larenjeiras"; and we conclude with "Paysandu," an evocation of the feminine spirit in Brazil that leads Milhaud to higher realms of self-expression.

PASC272 Milhaud   

In 1999, I took a trip to Detroit. While my purpose was to experience a game at Tiger Stadium before it was too late, I also made a sort of pilgrimage to the recording venues used by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra when it recorded for Mercury. If I could have found it, I would have looked at the United Artists Theater, where Antal Doráti's London recordings were made. Parking problems and the likelihood that I couldn't get in, anyway, discouraged me from doing anything more than a drive-by look, but I saw the Masonic Temple, the Ford Auditorium, Cass Technical High School, and, finally, the DSO's present home, Orchestra Hall, built in 1918, abandoned in 1939 when the orchestra lost its lease, and eventually saved by determined citizens after the city condemned it. Wilma Cozart, who was involved in the production of Mercury's Detroit recordings, told me that when Mercury moved its activities there after the Ford Auditorium proved to be unsatisfactory, she could see the sky through a hole in the roof! Once the building had been condemned, Mercury made Paul Paray's final batch of recordings at the auditorium of Cass Technical High School.

Although the annotations claim that some folks touted the DSO as the world's greatest "French" orchestra during Paul Paray's tenure, it didn't sound particularly French to me-more like a very good American orchestra, which it was and is. Paray, it is true, recorded a lot of French music, but he also made perfectly good recordings of music by, among others, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, and Wagner. During one of the early sessions, a take was ruined by a mysterious tapping sound. Mercury's team eventually discovered that the problem was that the conductor was tapping his feet in time to the music. From then on, Paray wore slippers while recording!

With one exception, all the pieces on this CD were recorded only monaurally; the one that was redone in stereo was La Valse. This is the mono version. Paray's energetic, vigorous approach to the music suggests that he doesn't see the piece as an allusion to the collapse of decadent European civilization (which is a possible way of interpreting it) but a brilliantly orchestrated showpiece for a virtuoso orchestra and conductor (the way most conductors seem to interpret it). It obviously gave Mercury's team an opportunity to show off its technique, too. Given technical competence, La Valse cannot fail in concert.

It's pretty hard to ruin the melancholy but stately Fauré Pavane, too. Fauré wrote the piece for orchestra and chorus but specified that the vocal parts could be eliminated, an option that I suspect most conductors exercise, as does Paray, who does not dawdle over it.

Paray's performance of three of the orchestral sections of Franck's Psyché shows a (to me) gentler side to the conductor, who struck me as more drawn to energy and power in his performances. The orchestra's strings sing here and Paray seems to have considerable affection for what must be Franck's most sensuous music. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough affection to include the movement called "The Garden of Eros," or perhaps it was believed that there wasn't enough space on the LP. I might point out, though, that Eduard van Beinum's more-or-less contemporaneous recording includes all four movements on one side of an LP; it's also a lovely performance and has a richer sonority than Paray's.

Paray seems to relish The Sorcerer's Apprentice but more for its possibilities as an orchestral showpiece than its quirkiness, and on that level the performance is certainly a success. The clear, powerful recording helps, too. Paray's approach to the Pelléas and Mélisande excerpts is refined and, mainly, unsentimental. The symphonic fragments from The Spider's Feast are right up his alley (a pity he didn't record the complete score), giving the music an edge that it sometimes lacks in other performances. I wonder what he might have done with the symphonies.

PASC240 Paray conducts French Music   

Unfortunately, I was on Christmas vacation from college when Leopold Stokowski, at age 75, made his first appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (he remarked that they must have been waiting for him to reach maturity). By the following week, I was back in town and did hear the Friday matinee concert on January 10. The concerts must have been considered a success because Stokowski kept returning in subsequent seasons and even made some studio recordings with the orchestra. Sadly, only one season of the Fritz Reiner era was taped, that of 1957-58, and it was done by a New York radio station (WBAI) that was operating on a very limited budget. WBAI's engineer/producer would fly to Chicago, tape the Thursday evening concert, and then head back to New York the next day. I would guess that the concerts were broadcast on Saturday night in New York, but it's been a long time. One night, Reiner, who must have been pleased that someone was broadcasting his concerts, offered WBAI's man a lift back to his hotel. Not wanting to reveal what a low-budget enterprise he was involved in, the WBAI producer asked Reiner to drop him at the posh Palmer House. He entered the lobby, waited about five minutes, and when the coast was clear, exited and headed for the local YMCA where he was actually staying! Fortunately, the orchestra and now Pristine Audio have been able to use copies of the WBAI tapes to, at least, preserve one Reiner season in respectable sound (the CSO also did regular TV appearances, but those kinescope recordings are sonically compromised).

But back to Stokowski. No one's Bach transcriptions throb quite like Stokowski's, especially if he was conducting them. These four are Stokowski standards and he and the orchestra deliver the goods. They are effective even though they are a half-tone flat and, while I'm on the subject, the Shostakovich Prelude in E♭-Minor, orchestrated in a very Shostakovich-like way, plays back in D Minor. As far as I can tell, nothing else on either CD is below pitch.

The Polish composer Boleslaw Szabelski lived from 1896 to 1979. After late-Romantic beginnings, he began to compose atonal music during the 1950s. He was a student of Karol Szymanowski and was a teacher of the late Henryk Górecki. The Toccata, a busy 1938 showpiece for orchestra, predates his switch to atonality. Did Stokowski ever conduct it again?

The sheer warmth of the Prokofiev excerpts inspire wishes that he had recorded the complete score (but please, no cuts!). He recorded some selections with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1954. Unfortunately, all he did was "Romeo and Juliet," "Romeo at the Tomb of Juliet," which are included here, and three others. He recorded excerpts from acts II and III of Swan Lake with "his" symphony orchestra, brilliantly played but somewhat streamlined probably to squeeze as much music onto the LP as possible. As for the Chicago performance, I wish I could hear the entire ballet performed with such suppleness and warmth, and the playing is as good as you might imagine. For some reason, the Hungarian Dance is labeled "Danse Russe."

The two symphonies take up the second CD. With respect to the Brahms, I haven't heard Stokowski's late-career recording with the National Philharmonic but I do have the early Philadelphia Orchestra version on hand. Aside from Chicago's being a shade faster and little more "punctuated" for emphasis, the Chicago and Philadelphia performances are similar. They are pretty much mainstream readings. As expected, the Chicago taping is more detailed and has louder brass playing. Compared with the Philadelphia recording, there's little use of portamento. The CSO really digs into the last movement...

(continues in the magazine) 

PASC242 Stokowski's Chicago debut