Valued archives Stokowski and the classic Columbias - reviewed by PATRIC STANDFORD '... a powerful performance ...'

Volume 3 of the series of recordings sponsored by the Leopold Stokowski Society, aiming to reissue all his rare and live broadcast performances with the New York Philharmonic, has at least three major reasons to place it in our valued archives.

To begin with, it contains the first recorded American performance of Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony. Stokowski, ten years his junior, had been a fellow student with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College in London and felt a close affinity with his music. He had given performances of the Pastoral Symphony in Philadelphia as early as 1924, the 4th Symphony with the NBC in 1943, and this performance of the 6th was given in Carnegie Hall in January 1949, barely nine months after its British premier. It is a powerful performance, with speeds close to those indicated in the score and so quicker than Sir Adrian Boult's 1953 recordings for HMV and Decca. It is also a rare recording of the original version of the Scherzo the detail of which was revised before the British recordings. The haunting Epilogue has a particularly strong atmosphere, living well in the memory long after.

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