The story of Frederick Stock's career is extraordinary in its simplicity. He was born in Germany during 1872, studied at Cologne Conservatoire played in the local orchestra as a violinist, and then moved to America and to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where after four years as a player he was appointed Assistant Conductor to Theodore Thomas. When Thomas died in 1905 Stock took over, and remained as Music Director for 37 years until his death in 1942.
The fact that Stock confined his activities almost entirely to Chicago, and that he was apparently an unassuming personality, may have contributed to his reputation, mirrored faithfully in reference books, as a good, decent local practitioner without any particular ability or flair.
That this judgement is incorrect may first have dawned on more recent listeners when they heard his magnificent accompaniments to Schnabel's wartime RCA Victor recordings of Beethoven's Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos, as reissued on LP and ultimately CD ((CD) 09026 61393-2). Then there was a superlative 1929 performance of Schumann's Spring Symphony contained in RCA's three-disc centenary tribute to the Chicago orchestra ((CD) GD60206). Now we have an illuminating survey from Biddulph, whose hero is Mark Obert-Thorn, responsible not only for the firstrate transfers, but also the excellent set of notes.
Stock's qualities are, unsurprisingly, shown best in the larger works, but there is not one smaller piece in this collection which lacks vitality and personality. Also sprach Zarathustra is shaped in a masterly fashion. The piece flows in a seemingly inevitable manner, and its episodes are drawn together in such a manner as to create very clearly a sense of wholeness: Stock controls the ebb and flow of tension with great skill, and there are many incidental beauties of paragraph and phrase. There was no need for Obert-Thorn to apologize for the sound here, since it is perfectly adequate. Dohnanyi's Suite receives a neat, witty, precisely articulated performance which suits the more modest scope of this work to perfection and the Goldmark overture, in a very early and somewhat attenuated electric recording, is played in an appropriately fresh, vernal fashion.
Stock commissioned Walton's Scapino comedy overture for the orchestra's fiftieth anniversary celebrations. His spritely. vivacious recording, made soon after the work's first performance, is the only one to preserve the score in its original form: differences between this version and the familiar revision are quite marked. There is a magnificent sonority in the Meistersinger Prelude which shines even through the 1926 sound: in a majestic, characterful performance Stock uses rubato in an old-fashioned romantic way to great effect. Still more so in the Tchaikovsky symphony does he frequently change tempo and pulse, rather after the style of Mengelberg or Furtwangler. The last movement is cut, as it often was in 1927, but otherwise I find his account very exciting and stimulating.
What is particularly interesting about this conductor is that he could change his style convincingly and idiomatically to suit the repertoire in hand: sharp rhythms and 'modern' attack in the Walton, objectivity and balance in the Strauss, old-fashioned German romanticism in the Tchaikovsky and Wagner. He was also a considerable orchestral trainer, to judge from the consistently high quality of playing he obtained. We can't hear Theodore Thomas's band, of course, but maybe Stock's ensemble was the first great Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Stock himself certainly sounds almost like a great conductor on this evidence.'