Gustav Holst: The Planets, Op.32
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Composer: Gustav HolstComposer: Claude Debussy
Composer: Morton Gould
Conductor: Leopold Stokowski
Orchestra: NBC Symphony Orchestra
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-11-20
Music Label: Cala
Music reviews of Gustav Holst: The Planets, Op.32
Music Review: Stokowski in the 40s with a thrilling "Planets"
Rating: 4 Stars
Anyone looking for audio thrills won't find them in this historic "Planets" made in the 1943-44 season of the NBC Sym. -- the sound is a very good AM radio broadcast of the era. But musical thrills are another matter. Stokowski plays the score as real music, offering an exciting "Mars" that also contains real phrasing. All the subsequent movements sustain this high standard; we aren't simply on a scenic tour of the solar system. I am no great fan of this warhorse, but I was engrossed from beginning to end by Stokowski's vibrancy and energy. My version being a download, I can't offer many specifics. The acoustic sounds less dry than Toscanini's Studio 8-H recordings of the time, but there's some distortion in loud passages and no real bass response. to enjoy this performance, you have to indulge in a little time travel and imagine that you are listening to the actual broadcast.
Tolerance is required for the Prelude to the Afternoon of a faun, taken from a shellac disc that contains repetitive surface noise at first but is otherwise quite listenable. Stokowski's reading is forthright and superbly judged -- this piece was one of his specialties, I believe. He made several recordings of is own arrangement of Debussy's 'Cathedrale engloute," and tis one is lovely despite rather wobbly sound. A curio ends the program, in the form of two marches by Morton Gould, a tribute to Stokowski's taste for light program music by young American composers.
In all, this is one of the more sonically limited releases by Cala in their extensive Stokowski series -- recently ended with the demise of the Leopold Stokowski Society, which provided the master recordings -- but it has its delights for us fanciers.
Description of Gustav Holst: The Planets, Op.32
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