Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock (Friedrich August Stock) (November 11, 1872, Jülich, Rhine Province – October 20, 1942, Chicago, Illinois) was a German conductor and composer, most famous for his 37-year tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Biography

Born in Jülich, Germany, Stock was given his early musical education by his army bandmaster father. At the age of 14, 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.

Career

In 1895, Stock met with Theodore Thomas, founder and first music director of the then fledgling Chicago 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 Orchestra, 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.

After the death of Theodore Thomas on January 4, 1905, Frederick Stock took over the immediate duties of music director. That year, he wrote a symphonic poem Eines Menschenlebens Morgen, Mittag, und Abend, dedicated to "Theodore Thomas and the Members of the Chicago Orchestra." The work was first performed on April 7 and 8, 1905.

Initially, the board of trustees approached Hans Richter, Felix Weingartner, and Felix Mottl to succeed Thomas. However, the board's executive committee met on April 11, 1905, and resolved: "Frederick Stock unanimously elected Conductor. Trustees voted that the Orchestra should now be known as 'The Theodore Thomas Orchestra.'" (The ensemble's name was ultimately changed to Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1913.)

Under Stock's direction, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra 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 Gustav Mahler; Richard Strauss (who, at Theodore Thomas's invitation, had been the CSO's first-ever guest conductor on subscription concerts in April 1904); Stravinsky, whose Symphony in C was commissioned for the orchestra's 50th anniversary; Sergei Prokofiev, who was soloist in the world premiere of his Third Piano Concerto in Chicago; Gustav Holst; Zoltán Kodály, whose Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by Stock; Nikolai Myaskovsky, whose Symphony No. 21 was commissioned for the orchestra's 50th anniversary; Josef Suk; William Walton; Arthur Benjamin; George Enescu; and many others.

Frederick Stock's 37 year tenure as head of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was surpassed in America only by Eugene Ormandy's lengthy directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Soon after Stock's death in Chicago on 20 October 1942, Désiré Defauw was chosen as his successor.

In 1936, when Stock was less and less able to conduct himself, Hans Lange, formerly assistant of Toscanini in New York, was hired as conductor at CSO. He remained at CSO also during Defauw's tenure and was one of the mentors of Chicago composer Leon Stein.

Recorded legacy

In May 1916, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Stock's baton, made its first set of recordings for the Columbia label in New York's Aeolian Hall, while on tour. The orchestra later made its first electrical recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in December 1925, including a performance of Karl 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. Abandoning recording for several years after 1930, the CSO then went back to Columbia for a long series of recordings, only to finally return to RCA Victor in 1941-1942 for its final series of recordings under Stock. Stock's last studio recording, Ernest Chausson's Symphony in B-minor, was released posthumously in 1943.

Notable Recordings

• Johann Sebastian Bach: Suite No. 2 in B-minor, BWV 1067 (Ernst Liegl, flute [appointed CSO Principal in 1928]; Recorded December, 1927, Victor)
• Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Anne Prelude and Fugue, BWV 552 (arr. Frederick Stock) (Recorded December, 1941, RCA Victor)
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerti Nos. 4 & 5 "Emperor" (Artur Schnabel, pianist; Recorded July, 1942, RCA Victor)
• Arthur Benjamin: Overture to an Italian Comedy (Recorded in December, 1941, RCA Victor)
• Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 17-21 (Recorded December, 1926, Victor)
• Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F-major, Op. 90 (Recorded [in New York City] November, 1940, Columbia)
• Ernest Chausson: Symphony in B Flat, opus 20 (Recorded 1942, RCA Victor)
• Ernö Dohnányi: Suite for Orchestra in F-sharp minor, Opus 19 (Recorded December, 1928, Victor)
• Antonín Dvořák: In Nature's Realm Overture, Op.91 (Recorded December, 1941, RCA Victor)
• Sir Edward Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 in D (Recorded December, 1926, Victor)
• Georges Enescu: Roumanian Rhapsody No.1 (Recorded April, 1941, Columbia)
• Karl Goldmark: In Springtime Overture, Op.36 (Recorded December, 1925, Victor)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 38 in D-major, K. 504 "Prague" (Recorded November, 1939, Columbia)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G-minor, K. 550 (Recorded December, 1930, Victor)
• Nicolo Paganini: Moto perpetuo, Op.11 (orchestrated by Frederick Stock) (Recorded April, 1941, Columbia)
• Camille Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor, Op.33 (Gregor Piatigorsky, cello; Recorded March, 1940, Columbia)
• Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre, Op.40 (Recorded January, 1940, Columbia)
• Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C-major, D. 944 "The Great" (Recorded January, 1940, Columbia)
• Robert Schumann: Symphony No.1 in B-flat, Op.38 "Spring" (Recorded December, 1929, Victor)
• Robert Schumann: Symphony No.4 in D-minor, Op.120 (Recorded April, 1941, Columbia)
• Jean Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela (from the Four Legends of the Kalavela, Op.22) (Recorded November, 1939 or January, 1940, Columbia)
• Frederick Stock: Symphonic Waltz, Op.8 (Recorded December, 1930, Victor)
• Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Recorded January, 1940, Columbia)
• Richard Strauss: On the Shores of Sorrento from Aus Italien, Op.16 (Recorded in December, 1941, RCA Victor)
• Josef Suk: Folk Dance (à la Polka) from A Fairy Tale (Recorded December, 1926, Victor)
• Peter Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Suite, Op. 71a (Recorded November, 1939, Columbia)
• Peter Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, Op. 64 (Recorded December, 1928, RCA Victor)
• Peter Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, Op. 35 (Nathan Milstein, violinist; Recorded March, 1940, Columbia)
• Ernst Toch: Pinnochio - A Merry Overture (Recorded April, 1941, Columbia)
• Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg - Prelude to Act I (Recorded December, 1926, Victor)
• William Walton: Scapino - A Comedy Overture (original version; Recorded April, 1941, Columbia)
• Carl Maria von Weber: Euryanthe - Overture (Recorded January, 1940, Columbia)

External links

• Frederick Stock at Allmusic
• Free scores by Frederick Stock at the International Music Score Library Project
• Frederick A Stock Papers at Newberry Library