# Vivaldi - New Philharmonia Orchestra - Leopold Stokowski ‎– Le Quattro Stagioni



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

This month. _Vinyl's Revenge_ returns with a somewhat nostalgic look (or should I say _listen_) at a "guilty pleasure" recording that has been part of my vinyl collection for years.

An Amazon reviewer says it best:


> Stokowski's performance of The Four Seasons made me enjoy this work as no other performance has […] If you already love this music, please listen to it as conducted by this great artist.


Indeed, as teased by my recent post on Leopold Stokowski, we are of course talking about Stokowski's "Phase 4 Stereo" recording of *Vivaldi*'s _Four Seasons_ with the "New" Philharmonia Orchestra featuring its then-concertmaster (leader) Hugh Bean as soloist.

Why is it a guilty pleasure? I guess it's the unashamedly "big band" sound... For the record, this recording was displaced in my music collection by the 1982 original instrument version by Simon Standage and the English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock.

Perhaps the finest "big band" Seasons comes from this oft-reissued Phase 4 recording which brims with the conductor's characteristic and highly personal tonal color, rescoring and inflection, but it's deeply heartfelt and thoroughly delightful. Indeed, the dynamic continuo and vivid recording even render it highly stylish.

At 45 1/2 minutes it's seductively slow, but as our soloist Hugh Bean once said of Stokowski's generation," they made time vanish".

And Bean would know a thing or two about that generation of conductors, having served as co-leader, and later leader of the "old" Philharmonia under the great Otto Klemperer. Hugh Bean was, by all accounts, one of the finest British violoinists of his day, a tenured teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music and an accomplished chamber and orchestral performer. Bean is also well-known for performances of great British violin works: the *Elgar *_Violin Concerto_ and *Vaughan-Williams*' _The Lark Ascending_, which he both recorded at around the same time as these Vivaldi concerti.

Happy Listening!








*Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741)*
_The Four Seasons_ from "Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione" op. 8 (nos 1-4)
Hugh Bean violin
Charles Spinks, Harpsichord
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Leopold Stokowski, conducting
Recorded at Kingsway Hall, London, 11 June 1966 
AAA, London VIVA Series, VIV 3

_YouTube_ URL - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6swnss9F7SHDHhB54ea5NZhEEGp_hOFk

TEASER


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

We are repurposing the music from this post as a new montage in our ongoing A la Carte series on the For Your Listening Pleasure podcast June 10, 2022. The following notes are an update .

This week’s new podcast is part of our A la Carte series, and extends an October 2015 Tuesday post dedicated to Leopold Stokowski’s 1966 recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by adding some more works featuring the soloist from that session, Hugh Bean.

Hugh Bean attended the Royal College of Music where at age 17 he was awarded the principal prize for violin. A further year's study with André Gertler at the Brussels Conservatory on a Boise Foundation travelling award brought him a double first prize for solo and chamber music playing, and in 1951, he was awarded second place in the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition.[

He was appointed professor of violin at the RCM at the age of 24 and became a freelance London orchestral player, until he was made sub-leader and then leader (1956–67) of the Philharmonia Orchestra. He was co-leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1967 to 1969. In 1989, he returned to the Philharmonia Orchestra as co-leader, and became Leader Emeritus.

Hugh Bean performed concertos with many leading orchestras, both in the UK and abroad. With the Philharmonia Orchestra he recorded Vivaldi's The Four Seasons with Leopold Stokowski, and Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending with Sir Adrian Boult (featured on today’s playlist. He made many recordings of chamber music with the Music Group of London, and together they toured extensively.

I think you will (still) love this music too.

All works feature Hugh Bean, violin 

*Sir Lennox Randal Francis BERKELEY (1903 –1989)*
Sonatina For Violin & Piano, Op. 17 
David Parkhouse, piano
[NEW]

*Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)*
The Lark Ascending (1914)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Sir Adrian Boult, conducting
[NEW]

*Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741)*
Le Quattro Stagioni, Op.8, Nos.1-4 
[Vinyl’s Revenge #11]
La primavera in E Major, RV269
L'estate in G Minor, RV315
L'autunno in F Major, RV293
L'inverno in F Minor, RV297 

New Philharmonia Orchestra
Leopold Stokowski, conducting

Archive Page - Hugh Bean (1929 – 2003) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive


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