Frederick Stock

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Frederick Stock (November 11, 1872 in Jülich, Germany - October 20, 1942) was an American (German-born) conductor and composer.

1 Early Years
2 Chicago Symphony Music Director
3 Recorded Legacy
4 Evaluation
5 Notable Recordings

[edit] Early Years

As a youth, Stock was given his early musical education by his army bandmaster father. At the age of fourteen, Frederick Stock was admitted into the Cologne Conservatory as a student of violin and composition, where he counted Engelbert Humperdinck as one of his teachers, and Willem Mengelberg among his classmates. After graduating from the conservatory in 1890, Stock was accepted to the Municipal Orchestra of Cologne as a violinist.

In 1895, Stock met with Theodore Thomas, director of the then fledgling Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the man who was to have a decisive impact on Stock's future. Thomas, who was then visiting Germany in search of recruits for his Chicago Symphony, auditioned Stock and gave him a position as violist in the orchestra. Thomas soon realized, however, that his new violist was also a very talented conductor and in 1899, Stock was promoted to assistant conductor.

[edit] Chicago Symphony Music Director

After Theodore Thomas' sudden death in 1905, Frederick Stock took over the post of Music Director of the Chicago Symphony. At first filling in the position only on a temporary basis, Frederick Stock finally assumed the role of permanent Music Director in 1911 only after the Chicago Symphony's board of directors failed to persuade Gustav Mahler, Hans Richter, Felix Weingartner, Karl Muck, and Felix Mottl, among others, to take over the position.

Under Stock's direction, the Chicago Symphony became one of America's top orchestras, developing a distinctive brass sound that can already be heard in the orchestra's first recordings. An enthusiast of modern music, Stock championed the works of many then modern composers including Mahler, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky (his Symphony in C was commissioned for the orchestra's 50th anniversary), Prokofiev (whose Third Piano Concerto was given its world premiere in Chicago with the composer at the piano), Holst, Kodály (whose Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by Stock), Myaskovsky, Suk, Walton, Benjamin, Enescu, and many others.

[edit] Recorded Legacy

In 1916 the Chicago Symphony, under Stock's baton, made its first set of recordings for the Columbia label. In fact, these recordings were the first ever made by an American orchestra under its music director. The orchestra would later record for RCA Victor, then go back to Columbia, only to finally go back to RCA Victor in 1941-1942 for its final series of recordings under Stock. The orchestra's first electrical recordings were made in 1925, including a performance of Goldmark's In Springtime overture; these early recordings were made in Victor's Chicago studios and within a couple of years the orchestra was recorded in Orchestra Hall. Stock's last studio recording, Chausson's Symphony in B minor, was released posthumously in 1943.

Frederick Stock (Biddulph Recordings)

[edit] Evaluation

An underrated conductor, Stock wasn't a glamorous figure like Stokowski, Nikisch, or Toscanini. Self-effacing on the podium, Stock directed the listener's attention away from the conductor and to the music itself. This did not mean he was a boring conductor, however, as his thrilling recordings of Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Glière, Brahms and others testify. Unfortunately, because of his rather modest manner, Stock has failed to garner the attention, fame, and respect of listeners that he richly deserves. His recordings, hard to come by in the CD era, have been intermittently available from Biddulph, Dante/Lys, and from the Chicago Symphony's website.

Frederick Stock's thirty-seven year tenure as head of the Chicago Symphony was surpassed in America only by Eugene Ormandy's lengthy directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Soon after Stock's death, Désiré Defauw was chosen as his successor.

[edit] Notable Recordings

Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite No. 2 in B-minor, BWV 1067 (Recorded 1928, RCA Victor)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" (Artur Schnabel, pianist; Recorded 1941, RCA Victor)
Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 17-21 (Recorded 1926, RCA Victor)
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F-major, op. 90 (Recorded 1941, Columbia)
Ernest Chausson: Symphony in B-minor (Recorded 1942, RCA Victor)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 38 in D-major, K. 504 "Prague" (Recorded 1939, Columbia)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G-minor, K. 550 (Recorded 1926, RCA Victor)
Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C-major, D. 944 "Great" (Recorded 1939, Columbia)
Richard Strauss: On the Shores of Sorrento from Aus Italien (Recorded 1941, RCA Victor)
Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, op. 30 (Recorded 1940, Columbia)
Josef Suk: Folk Dance (a la Polka) from A Fairy Tale (Recorded 1941, Columbia)
Peter Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, op. 64 (Recorded 1928, RCA Victor)
Peter Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, op. 35 (Nathan Milstein, violinist; Recorded 1940, Columbia)
Peter Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite, op. 71 (Recorded 1941, Columbia)
Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg - Prelude to Act I (Recorded 1926, RCA Victor)
William Walton: Scapino - A Comedy Overture (original version; Recorded 1941, Columbia)