Yannick's homage to Stokowski (2nd review)

The weekend of June 21-24 witnessed a series of spectacular events honoring Leopold Stokowski and starring the Philadelphia Orchestra with its conductor-designate, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. My expectations were high, and the performances surpassed them.

Four separate programs had to be rehearsed and performed, with only minimal overlap. In addition, Yannick had to synchronize his conducting with projections of scenes from the 1940 Walt Disney-Stokowski film, Fantasia. Alternations of pace, and portamenti, had to match the animated sprites who sprinkled fairy dust on flower blossoms during Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and the explosions of thunderbolts hurled by Jove in Beethoven's Pastorale.

This is tough to do when an orchestra is in a recording studio, and more so when performances are live, as these were.

Then, too, Nézet-Séguin was being scrutinized on the virtual eve of his debut as the Orchestra's music director. Yannick was allowing— nay, inviting— comparison with a predecessor of gigantic stature. And the Orchestra itself was being watched to see if its historic standards had slipped amid its recent bankruptcy problems.

The Academy of Music lobby was filled with giant photographs of Stokowski and displays of letters, scores and magazine clippings documenting Stokowski's career "“ even one of his tailcoats and his customized podium— marvelously displayed and annotated by Jack McCarthy of the Orchestra's staff.

The excitement was palpable. Cheers and standing ovations greeted the raising of the Academy's chandelier and almost every piece of music. A dauntingly high standard has been set.

Voluptuous favorites

The four concerts included Stokowski's debut program from 1912 as well as a series of showpieces associated with Stoky's career. Colorful, voluptuous compositions were emphasized, and when audiences were polled for Saturday night's all-request program, they asked for more of that genre: Nutcracker, Firebird, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Ride of the Valkyries and such.

Five of the week's 11 compositions were written in the 20th Century, a reminder of how much attention Stokowski gave to music of his own time (although the programs avoided cutting-edge Stokowski premieres by Berg, Schoenberg, Varese and Antheil).

Yannick made no attempt to copy the Stokowski sound, or Stoky's tempi, except for synchronization during the film excerpts. Nézet-Séguin has researched Stokowski's accomplishments, and he honors them. But his interpretations are his own.

Nézet-Séguin accentuated many melodies with singing tones. During the Tchaikovsky ballet score, his tempi danced; during West Side Story he was as soulful as Leonard Bernstein. It's amazing how this young Canadian with his background in choral music is able to channel Bernstein's urban, street-smart ethos.

Better than Sawallisch

As for the famous Stokowski orchestration of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor, I haven't heard such a convincing interpretation since Stoky's departure. Not from Wolfgang Sawallisch, who recorded a disc of Stokowski transcriptions, and certainly not from the lesser-known conductors who have attempted this challenging piece. Yannick knows that this arrangement needs sonority and over-the-top emotion. Passion is the Toccata's essence, combined with its classic structure.

Some may think of Caucasian Sketches as an antique. Actually, Ipolitov-Ivanov was a contemporary composer, 52 years old and the head of the Moscow Music Conservatory, when Stokowski gave the American premiere of his piece a century ago. Its style was exotic, derived from that of Ivanov's teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov.

The piece could be dismissed as "tourist" music (Ivanov's other compositions include On the Steppes of Turkmenistan and Musical Pictures of Uzbekistan), but it contains catchy melodies as well as opportunities for solos by first-chair players.

"'It sounded this way every week'

In fact, most of the weekend's pieces spotlighted individual instrumentalists. Solos by first-desk players— a tradition of Stokowski as well as his successor Eugene Ormandy— were ravishing, indicating that financial crises haven't diminished the Orchestra's playing standards.

Amid the euphoria, I'm reminded of a remark uttered to me years ago by Adolph Vogel, a Philadelphia Orchestra musician who later became a music publisher and sole American representative for Debussy, Ravel, Dukas and other French composers.

"When Stokowski came back in 1960," Vogel said, "after the concert, young people came up to me and they were just enraptured and they couldn't conceive that an orchestra sounded this way. How could an orchestra sound like this? They couldn't get over it. And did I ever hear an orchestra sound like this? I said, 'My dear young ladies, it sounded this way every week when I was in the orchestra with Stokowski.'"

So, can this week's standards be maintained? To paraphrase Angels in America, for Nézet-Séguin, now the work begins.♦


To read another review by Victor L. Schermer, click here.