The Archive - Leopold Stokowski

The Archive - Leopold Stokowski

This episode of ‘The Archive’ pays homage to Leopold Stokowski, a magician of great music. This exceptional conductor changed the seating arrangement and took the liberty of arranging and transcribing works by the great composers. This program shows us the maestro in full performance. Firstly, in 1969, when Stokowski conducted Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Later, in 1972, at age ninety, he gave his last concert with the London Symphony Orchestra. We show two extracts: a part of Wagner’s ‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’ and Debussy’s ‘Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune’. We conclude this episode with a brief flashback to 1954, where we join Stokowski with the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing two short extracts from Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, recorded for the BBC.