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Sonnova Sonnova is offline
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On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:25:38 -0700, Stephen McElroy wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Sonnova wrote:

That's intersting, becase according to 'Perfecting Sound Forever',
Stokowski
was all about
radically processing the recorded sound to make it 'better' than live.


Yeah, and Stokowski (real name Leo Stokes. Father was a coal miner from
Wales) was a pretentious loon. He insisted that RCA Victor let him adjust
the
levels on his Philadelphia Orchestra recording sessions. Of course, RCA
wasn't about to let him do that, so they gave him a VU meter with a knob
attached to it. All the knob did was vary the level of the meter, nothing
else. Stokowski would conduct and twiddle the knob to his heart's content.
On
playback. he would beam and say to the engineers: "See this is perfect,
this
is how it SHOULD be done. Why can't you overpaid recording engineers do
that?" The "overpaid recording engineers" would smile at each other and
wink.
OTOH, Stokowski WAS responsible for talking Musicians Union maven James C,
Patrillo out of doubling the recording fees for stereophonic recording
sessions (two channels? Two recordings)! Another Stokowski story that I
recall was that when he was the resident conductor of the Dallas Symphony
in
the late 1960's, he decided to marry the local Dallas Opera diva, a soprano
with a very plain name Jane Smith or some such (I don't remember her name).
Before he would marry her, he made her LEGALLY change her name to Countess
Vlotovsky or some such pretentious nonsense. He as a character. His
pretensions to technical audio knowledge are legendary, but he did promote
technical innovation in both the production and playback of recorded music.
The public trusted him as a famous "authority" and so he did a lot of good
for the business and the hobby. He wasn't a bad conductor either - as long
as he didn't try to "re-arrange" the works of the masters (which
unfortunately, he did all too often). His recording of the Virgil Thompson
Suites from "The River" and "The PLow That Broke The Plains" are THE best
recordings of those works and the only recording of them formally
acknowledged by the composer.


From wiki:


After Stokowski's death, Tom Burnam writes, the "concatenization of
canards" that had arisen around him was revived‹that his name and accent
were phony; that his musical education was deficient; that his musicians
did not respect him; that he cared about nobody but himself. Burnam
suggests that there was a dark, hidden reason for these rumors.
Stokowski deplored the segregation of symphony orchestras in which women
and minorities were excluded, and, so Burnam claims, the bigots got
revenge by slandering Stokowski.


Well, many people believed these stories, including some famous musicologists
such as Nicolas Slonimsky, which is where I got the stories about his "real
name" and his requiring his fiance to change her name.

--

http://www.stokowski.org/Leopold%20S...0Biography.htm

This page includes an image of his birth certificate.

Stokowski's first wife, Olga Samaroff, was born Lucy Mary Olga Agnes
Hickenlooper but performed under her stage name for years before their
marriage.

Touching up scores was standard practice for the early twentieth
century. Please provide an example of a "re-arrangement" that showed he
was a "bad conductor."


Sorry, I never stated nor even implicated that I thought he was a bad
conductor. He wasn't. Like I said yesterday, his recording, on Vanguard, of
the two Virgil Thompson pieces is considered definitive. But I don't
particularly care for his "arrangements" of Beethoven's 9th or Bach's D minor
Cantata and Fugue. That doesn't mean that his recordings of these
arrangements are in any way deficient or sloppy. But when I'm following the
score of a Beethoven symphony while listening to it and find that the
conductor has done such things as change the order of certain passages or
skipped repeats altogether, why, I tend to get a little testy. 8^)

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On Jul 10, 8:26*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



Neither the LPs I compared nor any of the analysis that
I did are currently in my possession


What can you tell us from memory?


Not much.

What specific titles
did you compare? What specific masterings and pressings
were they?


Too numerous to remember, but they included both classical and rock titles.

Such is the nature of memory. It is very unreliable. So we have the
admitted extreme unreliability of your distant memory coupled wih the
unreliability of your lack of use of bias controls. That makes your
assertions about European vinyl v. U.S. vinyl pretty useless as any
indicator.
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Stephen McElroy Stephen McElroy is offline
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In article ,
Sonnova wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:25:38 -0700, Stephen McElroy wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Sonnova wrote:

That's intersting, becase according to 'Perfecting Sound Forever',
Stokowski
was all about
radically processing the recorded sound to make it 'better' than live.

Yeah, and Stokowski (real name Leo Stokes. Father was a coal miner from
Wales) was a pretentious loon. He insisted that RCA Victor let him adjust
the
levels on his Philadelphia Orchestra recording sessions. Of course, RCA
wasn't about to let him do that, so they gave him a VU meter with a knob
attached to it. All the knob did was vary the level of the meter, nothing
else. Stokowski would conduct and twiddle the knob to his heart's content.
On
playback. he would beam and say to the engineers: "See this is perfect,
this
is how it SHOULD be done. Why can't you overpaid recording engineers do
that?" The "overpaid recording engineers" would smile at each other and
wink.
OTOH, Stokowski WAS responsible for talking Musicians Union maven James C,
Patrillo out of doubling the recording fees for stereophonic recording
sessions (two channels? Two recordings)! Another Stokowski story that I
recall was that when he was the resident conductor of the Dallas Symphony
in
the late 1960's, he decided to marry the local Dallas Opera diva, a
soprano
with a very plain name Jane Smith or some such (I don't remember her
name).
Before he would marry her, he made her LEGALLY change her name to Countess
Vlotovsky or some such pretentious nonsense. He as a character. His
pretensions to technical audio knowledge are legendary, but he did promote
technical innovation in both the production and playback of recorded
music.
The public trusted him as a famous "authority" and so he did a lot of good
for the business and the hobby. He wasn't a bad conductor either - as
long
as he didn't try to "re-arrange" the works of the masters (which
unfortunately, he did all too often). His recording of the Virgil Thompson
Suites from "The River" and "The PLow That Broke The Plains" are THE best
recordings of those works and the only recording of them formally
acknowledged by the composer.


From wiki:


After Stokowski's death, Tom Burnam writes, the "concatenization of
canards" that had arisen around him was revived‹that his name and accent
were phony; that his musical education was deficient; that his musicians
did not respect him; that he cared about nobody but himself. Burnam
suggests that there was a dark, hidden reason for these rumors.
Stokowski deplored the segregation of symphony orchestras in which women
and minorities were excluded, and, so Burnam claims, the bigots got
revenge by slandering Stokowski.


Well, many people believed these stories, including some famous musicologists
such as Nicolas Slonimsky, which is where I got the stories about his "real
name" and his requiring his fiance to change her name.

--

http://www.stokowski.org/Leopold%20S...0Biography.htm

This page includes an image of his birth certificate.

Stokowski's first wife, Olga Samaroff, was born Lucy Mary Olga Agnes
Hickenlooper but performed under her stage name for years before their
marriage.

Touching up scores was standard practice for the early twentieth
century. Please provide an example of a "re-arrangement" that showed he
was a "bad conductor."


Sorry, I never stated nor even implicated that I thought he was a bad
conductor. He wasn't. Like I said yesterday, his recording, on Vanguard, of
the two Virgil Thompson pieces is considered definitive. But I don't
particularly care for his "arrangements" of Beethoven's 9th or Bach's D minor
Cantata and Fugue. That doesn't mean that his recordings of these
arrangements are in any way deficient or sloppy. But when I'm following the
score of a Beethoven symphony while listening to it and find that the
conductor has done such things as change the order of certain passages or
skipped repeats altogether, why, I tend to get a little testy. 8^)


No worries. I jumped to conclusions when you said he wasn't a bad
conductor except when he was rearranging works. If it sets your mind at
rest, the famous Toccata and Fugue probably isn't by Bach, and Stokie
was in good company touching up Beethoven.

I'm surprised Sloniminsky retold that "Stokes" canard. I remember
reading, I believe, an introduction to the Cyclopedia in which he wrote
he believed nothing unless he had seen the original documentation.

Stephen
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On Jul 11, 12:01*am, Scott wrote:
On Jul 10, 8:26*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
Too numerous to remember, but they included
both classical and rock titles.


Such is the nature of memory. It is very unreliable.


Yeah, just like one's memory of the sound of things.
It makes judgements and comparisons of non-
proximal presentations of aural stimuli very
unreliable without the use of careful controls
to ameliorate such effects.

That memory sword has a double edge, it seems.

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Steven Sullivan Steven Sullivan is offline
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Sonnova wrote:
Vlotovsky or some such pretentious nonsense. He as a character. His
pretensions to technical audio knowledge are legendary, but he did promote
technical innovation in both the production and playback of recorded music.
The public trusted him as a famous "authority" and so he did a lot of good
for the business and the hobby. He wasn't a bad conductor either - as long
as he didn't try to "re-arrange" the works of the masters (which
unfortunately, he did all too often). His recording of the Virgil Thompson
Suites from "The River" and "The PLow That Broke The Plains" are THE best
recordings of those works and the only recording of them formally
acknowledged by the composer.


His orchestral arrangements/recordings of JS Bach's Toccata & Fugue
in D minor, and Debussy's 'Engulfed Cathedral' are guilty pleasures
of mine.

--
-S
We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine


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On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:36:57 -0700, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
Vlotovsky or some such pretentious nonsense. He as a character. His
pretensions to technical audio knowledge are legendary, but he did promote
technical innovation in both the production and playback of recorded music.
The public trusted him as a famous "authority" and so he did a lot of good
for the business and the hobby. He wasn't a bad conductor either - as long
as he didn't try to "re-arrange" the works of the masters (which
unfortunately, he did all too often). His recording of the Virgil Thompson
Suites from "The River" and "The PLow That Broke The Plains" are THE best
recordings of those works and the only recording of them formally
acknowledged by the composer.


His orchestral arrangements/recordings of JS Bach's Toccata & Fugue
in D minor, and Debussy's 'Engulfed Cathedral' are guilty pleasures
of mine.



I'll have to admit that I really like his arrangement of "the Engulfed
Catherdral" as well. But the "Toccata and Fugue" and his messing with
Beethoven are not to my taste.
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Jenn[_2_] Jenn[_2_] is offline
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In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:


His orchestral arrangements/recordings of JS Bach's Toccata & Fugue
in D minor, and Debussy's 'Engulfed Cathedral' are guilty pleasures
of mine.


There's no doubt that "Stokie" was a fine musician, as well as a supreme
egotist and control freak, even for conductors of his generation, which
is REALLY going a ways!

The question of his arrangements is always a popular subject when
discussing his work. In my view (which is fairly common), there's
nothing wrong with arranging the work of a master, as long as it is
stated that it's an arrangement (or "edition"). With the Bach, he did
so state. With others, he didn't, which is too bad. For example, when
he first performed and composed some works by Percy Grainger, he didn't
state that they were arrangements, which really shocked the composer, of
course. After heated discussion, Grainger went along with LS's
arrangements, but demanded that they were identified in program notes
and liner notes that they were indeed arrangements.

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Stephen McElroy Stephen McElroy is offline
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In article ,
Jenn wrote:

In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:


His orchestral arrangements/recordings of JS Bach's Toccata & Fugue
in D minor, and Debussy's 'Engulfed Cathedral' are guilty pleasures
of mine.


There's no doubt that "Stokie" was a fine musician, as well as a supreme
egotist and control freak, even for conductors of his generation, which
is REALLY going a ways!

The question of his arrangements is always a popular subject when
discussing his work. In my view (which is fairly common), there's
nothing wrong with arranging the work of a master, as long as it is
stated that it's an arrangement (or "edition"). With the Bach, he did
so state. With others, he didn't, which is too bad. For example, when
he first performed and composed some works by Percy Grainger, he didn't
state that they were arrangements, which really shocked the composer, of
course. After heated discussion, Grainger went along with LS's
arrangements, but demanded that they were identified in program notes
and liner notes that they were indeed arrangements.


It was also a time when Kreisler and others could compose pieces and
attribute them to dead masters.

My Stokie story is from the American Symphony: the celeste was
under-pitch, earning the keyboardist Stokie's glare. Once more, in tune!
The celeste's pitch is fixed and can't be adjusted quickly. The player's
solution was to raise a shoulder as he played, 'raising' the pitch.

Stephen
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On Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:24:33 -0700, Jenn wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:


His orchestral arrangements/recordings of JS Bach's Toccata & Fugue
in D minor, and Debussy's 'Engulfed Cathedral' are guilty pleasures
of mine.


There's no doubt that "Stokie" was a fine musician, as well as a supreme
egotist and control freak, even for conductors of his generation, which
is REALLY going a ways!

The question of his arrangements is always a popular subject when
discussing his work. In my view (which is fairly common), there's
nothing wrong with arranging the work of a master, as long as it is
stated that it's an arrangement (or "edition"). With the Bach, he did
so state. With others, he didn't, which is too bad. For example, when
he first performed and composed some works by Percy Grainger, he didn't
state that they were arrangements, which really shocked the composer, of
course. After heated discussion, Grainger went along with LS's
arrangements, but demanded that they were identified in program notes
and liner notes that they were indeed arrangements.


I certainly have no problem with musicians "arranging" the works of the
masters as long as you have no problem with me exercising my right to reject
them. I prefer, in most cases, to hear the composer's intentions (to the
extent possible in any performing art) as opposed to someone who chooses to
second-guess the composer by actually changing what the composer wrote.
Conductors have enough latitude with regard to tempi and dynamics to express
their interpretations of a work without having to resort to actually
physically changing them. Just my opinion, you understand. This subject is
largely a matter of taste and I'm certainly not dogmatic about it.
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In article ,
Sonnova wrote:

I certainly have no problem with musicians "arranging" the works of the
masters as long as you have no problem with me exercising my right to reject
them. I prefer, in most cases, to hear the composer's intentions (to the
extent possible in any performing art) as opposed to someone who chooses to
second-guess the composer by actually changing what the composer wrote.
Conductors have enough latitude with regard to tempi and dynamics to express
their interpretations of a work without having to resort to actually
physically changing them. Just my opinion, you understand. This subject is
largely a matter of taste and I'm certainly not dogmatic about it.


I very much agree with you. I greatly prefer my Beethoven straight up,
thanks! I'm just saying that arranging a composer's work is a legit
activity, as long as the changes are stated up front.


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In article ,
Stephen McElroy wrote:

My Stokie story is from the American Symphony: the celeste was
under-pitch, earning the keyboardist Stokie's glare. Once more, in tune!
The celeste's pitch is fixed and can't be adjusted quickly. The player's
solution was to raise a shoulder as he played, 'raising' the pitch.

Stephen


lol This reminds me of an encounter with a well-known conductor back in
the days when I was gigging as a trombonist more than I am today. The
conductor had quite a jazz background as well as classical (he's
American/British; you can probably guess who this is!) We were playing
a "pops" concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and I had a little solo on a
ballad. He's stopped and asked for more vibrato from me. I increased
my lip/diaphram vibrato. He asked for more. I gave him more; a bigger
vibrato than is normally used in any style. He said, "No, I want more,
you know..." and made a hand motion like a jazz style slide vibrato. I
did a slide vibrato. "Perfect!" he said. The truth is that my slide
vibrato was exactly like my lip vibrato was originally! But now he
could SEE it happening. It was a big joke in the brass section for
months!
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In article ,
Jenn wrote:

In article ,
Stephen McElroy wrote:

My Stokie story is from the American Symphony: the celeste was
under-pitch, earning the keyboardist Stokie's glare. Once more, in tune!
The celeste's pitch is fixed and can't be adjusted quickly. The player's
solution was to raise a shoulder as he played, 'raising' the pitch.

Stephen


lol This reminds me of an encounter with a well-known conductor back in
the days when I was gigging as a trombonist more than I am today. The
conductor had quite a jazz background as well as classical (he's
American/British; you can probably guess who this is!) We were playing
a "pops" concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and I had a little solo on a
ballad. He's stopped and asked for more vibrato from me. I increased
my lip/diaphram vibrato. He asked for more. I gave him more; a bigger
vibrato than is normally used in any style. He said, "No, I want more,
you know..." and made a hand motion like a jazz style slide vibrato. I
did a slide vibrato. "Perfect!" he said. The truth is that my slide
vibrato was exactly like my lip vibrato was originally! But now he
could SEE it happening. It was a big joke in the brass section for
months!


He got what he wanted! :-)

I heard an anecdote about the same man concerning recording session
including chorus. The tenor section was anticipating an entrance but
weren't corrected or helped by the maestro so one of them used a gesture
to bring them in at the right time, earning him a note that there was
only on conductor on the job.

I can see both sides of that one, but, sheesh.

Stephen

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"Jenn" wrote in message

In article ,
Stephen McElroy wrote:

My Stokie story is from the American Symphony: the
celeste was under-pitch, earning the keyboardist
Stokie's glare. Once more, in tune! The celeste's pitch
is fixed and can't be adjusted quickly. The player's
solution was to raise a shoulder as he played, 'raising'
the pitch.


lol This reminds me of an encounter with a well-known
conductor back in the days when I was gigging as a
trombonist more than I am today. The conductor had quite
a jazz background as well as classical (he's
American/British; you can probably guess who this is!)
We were playing a "pops" concert at the Hollywood Bowl,
and I had a little solo on a ballad. He's stopped and
asked for more vibrato from me. I increased my
lip/diaphram vibrato. He asked for more. I gave him
more; a bigger vibrato than is normally used in any
style. He said, "No, I want more, you know..." and made
a hand motion like a jazz style slide vibrato. I did a
slide vibrato. "Perfect!" he said. The truth is that my
slide vibrato was exactly like my lip vibrato was
originally! But now he could SEE it happening. It was a
big joke in the brass section for months!


This sort of thing happens incessantly in the realms of audio production,
except we do it to ourselves and we discover it ourselves. We have a lot
less ego on the line, so there is a far wider instance of the guilty parties
admitting their failings to themselves and even others.


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In article ,
"Arny Krueger" wrote:

"Jenn" wrote in message


lol This reminds me of an encounter with a well-known
conductor back in the days when I was gigging as a
trombonist more than I am today. The conductor had quite
a jazz background as well as classical (he's
American/British; you can probably guess who this is!)
We were playing a "pops" concert at the Hollywood Bowl,
and I had a little solo on a ballad. He's stopped and
asked for more vibrato from me. I increased my
lip/diaphram vibrato. He asked for more. I gave him
more; a bigger vibrato than is normally used in any
style. He said, "No, I want more, you know..." and made
a hand motion like a jazz style slide vibrato. I did a
slide vibrato. "Perfect!" he said. The truth is that my
slide vibrato was exactly like my lip vibrato was
originally! But now he could SEE it happening. It was a
big joke in the brass section for months!


This sort of thing happens incessantly in the realms of audio production,
except we do it to ourselves and we discover it ourselves. We have a lot
less ego on the line, so there is a far wider instance of the guilty parties
admitting their failings to themselves and even others.


Oh, that is usually the case in music as well. We're very self critical
and we tend to correct ourselves very quickly. For one thing, it's part
of survival in the business. But this conductor isn't, in my opinion, a
"real" conductor. Good conductors rely on ears only. This guy, whose
name any classical music fan would recognize, came up in a different
tradition in Hollywood and is known among players to, well, kind of make
it up on the spot ;-)

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