• Album cover for Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony, Vol. 4 (2-CD), conducted by Frederick Stock, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony, Vol. 4 (2-CD)

Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony, Vol. 4 (2-CD)
$39.99
$39.99

A superb account [of Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra] ... which, even in today’s competition, would shine as one of the great recordings of the score.

Fanfare

The fourth volume in Pristine Classical’s series devoted to Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra documents the ensemble’s return to commercial recording after nearly a decade away from the studio. Following Stock’s final Victor sessions in 1930, the CSO went largely unrecorded during the Great Depression before rejoining its original label, Columbia, in November 1939.

These historic 1939-40 recordings include Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D Major (Prague), Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C Major (The Great), alongside music by Sibelius, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Saint-Saëns and Weber. The opening Nutcracker session was especially significant: it became Columbia’s first master recording made directly onto lacquer disc, a new process that captured a wider frequency range than the shellac technology used previously.

Recorded at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and restored by Mark Obert-Thorn, the collection preserves Stock and the CSO at the beginning of a new era in orchestral recording. It also includes Stock’s first Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording of Also sprach Zarathustra, a work that would later become closely associated with the Orchestra under conductors including Fritz Reiner and Georg Solti.

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