Stokowski conducts Brahms Symphony No. 3 - NBC Symphony (1941)
Leopold Stokowski's first recordings, made on acoustic 78s in 1917 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, were of two of Brahms's Hungarian Dances. Four years later, he made the the first recording of any movement from a Brahms symphony, the "Poco allegretto" from the 3rd Symphony. With the advent of electrical recording in 1925, he became the first conductor to record all four symphonies as a complete cycle. In fact, his 1928 78rpm set of the 3rd Symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra was the work's first recording.
After a quarter of a century in Philadelphia he felt it was time to move on. Coincidentally, Toscanini became disenchanted with the management of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been specially created for him in 1937, so he declined to sign a new contract for the 1941 season. Now that Stokowski was a free agent, he immediately became engaged as the NBC Symphony's new music director on a three-year contract. This can't have pleased Toscanini, so he had an abrupt change of mind and came back as Stokowski's co-conductor for the second and third seasons of the latter's contract.
As it happened, Brahms featured on Stokowski's very first NBC Symphony concert on 4 November 1941 with the performance heard here of the 3rd Symphony. He introduced it to the audience himself and referred to the work's "many contrasting moods." These were realized in what might be called a "rhapsodic" performance, rather than a strictly symphonic one, with the NBC Symphony fully at home with a conducting style totally different to what they'd been used to! ... (From 'Pristine Audio' PASC 602).
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