Leopold Stokowski - Walt Disney's Fantasia: Remastered Original Soundtrack Edition
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Artist: Leopold StokowskiBrand: Disney
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording remastered, Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 2001-07-31
Music Label: Walt Disney Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Toccata And Fugue In D Minor - (by Bach)
- The Nutcracker Suite Op.71A: Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy
- The Nutcracker Suite Op.71A: Chinese Dance
- The Nutcracker Suite Op.71A: Dance Of The Reed Flutes
- The Nutcracker Suite Op.71A: Arabian Dance
- The Nutcracker Suite Op.71A: Russian Dance
- The Nutcracker Suite Op.71A: Waltz Of The Flowers
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice
- Rite Of Spring
- Symphony No.6 ('Pastoral') Op.68: I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo
- Symphony No.6 ('Pastoral') Op.68: II. Andante Molto Mosso
- Symphony No.6 ('Pastoral') Op.68: III. Allegro/IV. Allegro/V. Allegretto
- Dance Of The Hours (From The Opera 'La Gioconda')
- A Night On Bald Mountain
- Ave Maria Op.52 No.6
Music reviews of Walt Disney's Fantasia: Remastered Original Soundtrack Edition
Music Review: Optical soundtrack recording limitations
Rating: 3 Stars
The soundtrack recordings for "Fantasia" were provided
to the theaters of 1940 as optical tracks on the side
of the film being shown. Such recordings cannot be
compared to the magnetic tape recordings made after WWII
(using captured or "liberated" German machines at first),
to say nothing of the current digital technology.
An analog optical soundtrack on motion picture film was
bad enough, but the film itself was nitrate, notorious
for disintegrating over a relatively short period of time,
as well as for its flammability. The prints in
circulation wore out until "the sound had gotten so bad,
theaters were refusing to book the film" according to a
Disney spokesman quoted in the New York Times of March
11, 1982.
Stokowski knew what a difference stereo recording made,
compared to mono, because almost a decade earlier, he and
the Philadelphia Orchestra participated (without the
players' knowledge) in a series of experimental high
fidelity and stereo disc recordings made by Bell
Telephone Labs. At the time, Bell Labs and Western
Electric tried to interest several manufacturers of
phonographs in the new technology, but the Great
Depression was underway, and the idea of marketing
phonographs with two stylii and two loudspeakers was
deemed unfeasible. (The Bell system had 33-1/3 rpm
discs with two parallel grooves, requiring two stylii
for playback.)
The Fantasound process, as I understand it, required a
theater to install a single loudspeaker behind the screen
and three loudspeakers along each of the two side walls,
resembling somewhat today's "surround sound." But the
idea was not to produce true stereo sound, but rather
the "ping-pong" stereo concept, with the sounds from the
loudspeakers following the cartoon characters as they
moved back and forth across the screen.
I sometimes wonder if the original recordings were made
with discs, not on soundtrack film -- in which case they
might still exist somewhere in the Disney archives. The
many thousands of original cartoon animation cels used to
create the film images were not treated as archival
material, such as the original Technicolor negatives
of "Gone With The Wind" which were stored in underground
Kansas caves, where the temperature remained steady for
decade after decade. Instead, the cels were either
destroyed or individually distributed to interested
parties. All told, it's remarkable that the film and
soundtrack have survived almost seventy years in the
shape they're in.
Stokowski was not thrilled with the end product
of "Fantasia" because, reportedly, Disney engineers
played with his recording, snipping off beats to match
the animation and enhancing crescendos. Stravinsky --
the only composer represented who was still living at
the time -- also was appalled at Stokowski's rearrangement
of his work (which Stravinsky sold to Disney for $5,000
because he needed the money at the time), to say nothing
of the dinosaurs prancing about to his ballet. The 1940
audiences were either outraged (the purists), puzzled or
bored (the general public), or snickering that Disney
had "lost it" (the film industry). But some of us loved it.
Yet "Fantasia," like "The Rite of Spring," proved far
more durable than its critics could imagine. At the
time, I was familiar with the music of Beethoven's Sixth
Symphony, Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker", Bach's "Ave Maria,"
and even Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours," but "The Rite
of Spring," and "The Sorceror's Apprentice," and "Night on
Bald Mountain" as well as Bach's "Toccata and Fugue" were
revelations for me. I didn't know then that Stokowski
tinkered with those scores, but now I have a large number
of various performances of all of them in my recording
collection. My "Fantasia" recordings were issued on LPs
in the 1970s and are treasured as historic artifacts.
In effect, that is what this two-CD album is. It's a
mistake to listen to it as performances comparable to
modern digital recordings. Enjoy them for what they are
- historical efforts to popularize classical music.
Richard Q. Hofacker, Jr., Basking Ridge, NJ
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Description of Walt Disney's Fantasia: Remastered Original Soundtrack Edition
Double CD set - two jewel cases shrink wrapped together. Small crack on the back of one.It's hard to believe now that Walt Disney's bold 1940 impressionistic experiment in wedding then-state-of-the-art animation with classical music was a rather resounding failure upon its release. The cliché proves the rule: Fantasia was decades ahead of its time (Disney even launched a "psychedelic"-themed rerelease campaign in the late '60s). It's even harder to fathom that then-Disney management spent over a million dollars in the early '80s replacing the muscular Leopold Stokowski score with a digitally recorded clone, then another undisclosed fortune to digitize Leo and put him back alongside Mickey at the conductor's podium in the '90s! This much-traveled Stokowski score will gain no points for subtlety (a symphonic Shaq attack is more like it), but it was Walt's first--and only!--choice and has never sounded better. --Jerry McCulley
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