They don’t make ’em like this anymore! Stoky’s version of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 roils with more rubato than you’ll get from the average pianist. This is impulsive, truly rhapsodic playing, and the same is true, if to a lesser extreme, in the Enesco. The Smetana pieces flow beautifully and are full of atmosphere, with the dance section of “The Moldau” and all of the overture getting a quick, light treatment. Stoky’s Wagner, in contrast, is expansive and lush; the orchestra here has a much richer sound than in its NBC Symphony days, with plush strings, burnished brass, and liquid woodwinds. In the Tannhäuser music, Stokowski tends to ease into phrases cautiously, as if afraid of making his attacks too sharp; he had a tendency to do this in anything German (including his Bach transcriptions).

Refurbished as a three-channel SACD, this Living Stereo collection (recorded in 1960–61) seems to place the violins and percussion closer than the other instruments, including the cellos, and the woodwinds don’t cut through as clearly as they should in tutti sections. But that’s the sound Stoky wanted on this occasion, and the DSD re-mastering reproduces it faithfully. You really should have RCA’s big Stoky-in-stereo box, in which all this material appears (but not on the same disc). If you consider that too much of an investment, or too much Stokowski, this is a perfect consolation disc, showing what Stokowski could do best in music that doesn’t resist him.

FANFARE: James Reel