Brahms: Tragic Overture (Frederick Stock)

Frederick Stock

In his 37 years as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock (1872-1942) molded the organization into one of America's top orchestras. Originally hired by the orchestra's founder, Theodore Thomas, as a violist, Stock ended up succeeding Thomas as chief conductor after the older man's death in 1905. In 1916, Stock's Chicago Symphony became the first major American orchestra to make recordings, preceding Stokowski's Philadelphia Orchestra and Karl Muck's Boston Symphony by over a year. Stock's recorded legacy is sizable - some 200 issued 78-rpm sides - but not as extensive as someone of his stature would warrant. It fell into four distinct periods: a handful of acoustics for Columbia in 1916-17; a group of early electric Victors in 1925-30; another batch for Columbia in 1939-41 (which included concerto recordings with Nathan Milstein and Gregor Piatigorsky), and a final group for Victor in 1941-42 (including two Beethoven concertos with Artur Schnabel). From his last Columbia session in 1941 (the same session that also produced this recording of Toch's Pinocchio Overture) came this crackling, dynamic account of Brahms' Tragic Overture:

Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op. 81 and
Brahms: Minuet (from Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock
Recorded April 26, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set MX-214, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 42.50 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.72 MB)

Toch: Piano Quintet

Ernst Toch

Last fall, when I was doing my "reissue" series, one of my posts was "The Composer as Accompanist" in which I offered chamber music by John Ireland and Walter Piston with the composers presiding at the piano.  In the same vein, here is a recording of the 1938 Piano Quintet of the Vienna-born Ernst Toch (1887-1964), with the composer at the piano, and accompanied by a quartet consisting of Louis Kaufman and Grisha Monasevitch, violins; Ray Menhennik, viola; and Julian Kahn, cello:

Toch: Quintet for Piano and Strings, Op. 64
Ernst Toch, piano, with the Kaufman Quartet
Recorded February 20, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set MM-460, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 68.09 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 36.69 MB)

The work is unusual in that, instead of the usual tempo marks for movement headings, Toch calls his movements "The Lyrical Part," "The Whimsical Part," and so on.  Otherwise the piece is conventional in form, and the harmonic language reminds me of Hindemith.  However, while Hindemith often sounds as if he is channeling Bach, Toch here could be channeling Schumann, for the gestures and intent surely stem from the 19th century rather than the 18th.

Columbia had, in the early 1940s, exactly two works by the expatriate, Jewish Toch (he settled in California in the mid-1930s) on its catalogue, both of which were deleted by the end of the Second World War.  Here is the other one:

Toch: Pinocchio - A Merry Overture (1935)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock
Recorded April 26, 1941
Columbia Masterworks 11665-D, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 15.77 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 7.59 MB)

After the war it fell to independent West Coast labels, such as Alco, to further Toch's cause.  (In fact, Toch recorded the Piano Quintet again for Alco, on an early LP.)  An excellent Toch discography can be found here.  Its compiler, Claude Torres, has an impressive site devoted to music of Jewish composers impacted by the Holocaust.