On last Monday's 'University Challenge' programme, Jeremy Paxman told the students they were going to hear a piece of classical music and had to identify the composer. A few bars of Vaughan Williams's 6th Symphony wafted through the air and were immediately identified. Paxman told the students that the music just heard "was from the first recording of Vaughan Williams's 6th Symphony conducted by Leopold Stokowski, renowned for his concert and recording premieres of many 20th century works." For their bonuses, the students had to identify three more works that had been given their first recordings by Stokowski, namely Shostakovich's 6th Symphony (which they incorrectly identified as being a Prokofiev work); Messiaen's "L'Ascension" and Sibelius's 4th, both of which they got right. If you'd like to hear the extracts, they start at about 17:20 into the programme ...
Coincidentally, Guild Historical have just released a CD on which Stokowski conducted three more "firsts": the 1945 World Premiere in New York of Nathaniel Shilkret's Trombone Concerto with Tommy Dorsey; the Italian Premiere of Morton Gould's "Latin-American Symphonette" with the RAI Turin Orchestra in 1955; and Paul Creston's Saxophone Concerto from the Hollywood Bowl in 1945 with James Abato as soloist in its West Coast Premiere ...
I suspect few other conductors could match the New York Times' estimated tally of 2,000 "first performances" given by Stokowski over his 60-year conducting career. Among them were the US Premiere of Elgar's 2nd Symphony in 1911 in Cincinnati and the Vaughan William's 9th in New York in 1958. Luckily the RVW9 was broadcast and issued on Cala and easily has the most exciting 'Scherzo' of them all! ...
Coincidentally, Guild Historical have just released a CD on which Stokowski conducted three more "firsts": the 1945 World Premiere in New York of Nathaniel Shilkret's Trombone Concerto with Tommy Dorsey; the Italian Premiere of Morton Gould's "Latin-American Symphonette" with the RAI Turin Orchestra in 1955; and Paul Creston's Saxophone Concerto from the Hollywood Bowl in 1945 with James Abato as soloist in its West Coast Premiere ...
I suspect few other conductors could match the New York Times' estimated tally of 2,000 "first performances" given by Stokowski over his 60-year conducting career. Among them were the US Premiere of Elgar's 2nd Symphony in 1911 in Cincinnati and the Vaughan William's 9th in New York in 1958. Luckily the RVW9 was broadcast and issued on Cala and easily has the most exciting 'Scherzo' of them all! ...
