Leopold Stokowski was not only one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century but a celebrity of international stature. He rose to fame as the music director of the PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA; when he left the directorship in 1940, he would spend the next four decades as a globetrotting guest conductor and frequent visitor to the recording studio.
Ever the showman, Stokowski courted publicity and constantly reinvented himself, changing his accent on a whim and giving varying accounts as to his place of birth (clearly finding Kraków or Pomerania more interesting than Marylebone) and age. His re-scoring of the Masters (‘you must understand that Beethoven and Brahms did not understand instruments’) and lavish orchestrations of Bach infuriated the establishment. He usually conducted without a baton, on occasion in near darkness with a spotlight trained on his head and hands, and frequently rearranged orchestra seating. His later marriages to wealthy heiresses Evangeline Brewster Johnson and Gloria Vanderbilt ensured constant media attention as did an affair with Greta Garbo. He appeared in several films including The Big Broadcast and 100 Men and a Girl (both 1937), Carnegie Hall (1947) and most famously Disney’s Fantasia (1940) thus enabling younger audiences to become familiar with his imaginative interpretations of the classics.
From 1958 to 1961, Stokowski made a series of recordings for independent American label Everest Records, utilizing a 35mm magnetic film system that redefined the state of the recording art and creating many of the best-sounding LP’s of strereo’s “Golden Age”. For the first time, all of Stokowski’s recordings for Everest are available on compact disc, drawing from high resolution digital transfers – and are coupled with all of Stokowski’s sessions for another American label renowned for its sonic excellence, Vanguard Classics. Included as a bonus are a selection of recordings of Leopold Stokowski and His Orchestra for various labels, recorded in the 1950s.