Bizet: Symphony No. 1; L'Arlesienne (Complete Suites); Messiaen: L'Ascension

Archipel's Stokowski Conducts Bizet & Messiaen includes three of conductor Leopold Stokowski's studio recordings from the late 1940s and early 1950s; his Bizet Symphony in C and both L'Arlesienne suites recorded for RCA Victor with "his" orchestra in 1952 and his Messiaen L'Ascension, recorded with the New York Philharmonic in 1947 and 1949 for CBS Records. The front cover touts that this is the "first time on CD" for these recordings, but in truth this only applies to the Bizet works, as the very same Messiaen performance appears on Cala Records' Stokowski Conducts the New York Philharmonic Vol. 1. These Bizet recordings most likely have not appeared on CD heretofore as they are monophonic renditions of things that Stokowski had a shot at later, in better sound; in the case of the Symphony in C it was much later, as that 1977 recording with the National Symphony Orchestra turned out to be the maestro's last. L'Ascension was another work that enjoyed a second recorded performance from Stokowski, as he returned to it in 1970 with the London Symphony Orchestra in an excellent version for Decca, available on Leopold Stokowski: Decca Recordings 1965-1972.

The "hi-end restoration technology" employed here is pretty heavily applied; while the Symphony in C doesn't sound bad apart from being gated rather obviously, both L'Arlesienne suites comes off as being brittle and unstable sounding. The transfer of L'Ascension is inferior to that of the Cala release, and for this important artifact of early modern music recording one is best off obtaining it in that form, rather than this. The Archipel is cheap, and through its vagueness of annotation, one might conclude that this release is somehow special or unusual. But it isn't. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide