The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks is dazzling in its use of instrumental effect.
Gnomus is as sinister as you will ever hear, the creature snarling its way with a sense of palpable evil. Knussen and the Cleveland are both in their element, revelling in the kaleidoscopic opportunities Stokowski affords. Blocks of orchestral sound are often juxtaposed to considerable effect, as Colin Matthews puts it in his booklet note, painting with “broad brush strokes”.
Stokowski chose to leave out “ Tuileries” and “ The Market Place at Limoges” on the grounds that they were too French in style and creates a canvas that is altogether more bold, audacious and muscular than Ravel’s. It is an exhilarating shock to take in the sheer imaginative range of vivid, strikingly colouristic yet at times deceptively subtle use of huge orchestral forces. Indeed the familiarity that surrounds the Ravel is such that at first hearing the Stokowski comes as something of a shock to the system. Although there were a number of orchestrations in existence at the time, the former’s assertion that no one had been successful in exploiting the inherent Russian character of the music gave Stokowski the justification and motivation he needed to produce a version that is at times startlingly at odds with the more familiar Ravel. It could be said that Stokowski’s transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition was in some ways a reaction against Ravel’s orchestration which had been completed some seventeen years earlier. 1995/1996, Severance Hall, Cleveland, USA Night on Bare Mountain – Witches’ Sabbath (1940)
Symphonic Transcriptions by Leopold Stokowskiīoris Godunov – Symphonic Synthesis (1936)Įntr’acte to Khovanshchina (Act IV) (1922?) Déjà Review: this review was first published in October 2004 and the recording is still available.
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