Not content with beating the life out of music of the 16th – 19th centuries, the period performance cult in the last two decades has turned its sights onto the music of the 20th century. Their puritanical, hairshirt conjectures have been able to stubbornly survive given that there is no contemporary recorded evidence for earlier music that disproves their negatives. With music of the 20th century, however, their inflexible dogmas are revealed as just that as such evidence of the composer’s intentions survive, often from the creators directly and sometimes abundantly so. The latest installment of Les Siècles’ ongoing Ravel project under François-Xavier Roth is a perfect case in point.

The gushing liner notes state: “[T]he approach of François-Xavier Roth with his ensemble Les Siècles, which gives pride of place to period instruments, is the obvious way to do full justice to this masterpiece. . .” Fair enough. Only problem is that Ravel composed the work for Serge Koussevitzky, who left behind not one, but two recordings of the work.

Comparison with his 1930 RCA Victor recording, the first ever made of Ravel’s arrangement and set down only eight years after it was premiered (while the composer was still very alive, it should be noted), reveals a performance that is the polar opposite of Roth’s bland, featureless recording. Under Pierre Monteux, Koussevitzky, and Charles Munch, the former “aristocrat of orchestras” cultivated a tangy, lithe Gallic sound that was in keeping with Ravel’s expectations. The color they were capable of defies the limitations of their era’s sound reproduction. Fruity winds beautifully complement and contrast Boston’s sleek strings; cumulatively their orchestral palette is Technicolor to Les Siècles’ monochrome. Listen, for example, to the Bostonian trumpet principal on “Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuÿle,” whose bittersweet solo verges on words, mingling sarcasm, anger, and pity. Roth’s soloist, on the other hand, merely plays a series of difficult repeated notes (albeit splendidly). “Baba Yaga” and “The Great Gate of Kiev” under Koussevitzky possess a cinematic breadth, a sense of structural cohesion and dramatic line that continues to impress nearly a century later. The blazing coda of the latter movement is the triumphant end of a long journey, its joy daubed with pathos. Roth, for all his “period” conceits, is unable or unwilling to actually conduct in the period style of podium auteurs like Koussevitzky.

Its discmate, La valse, is no better. As so happened, Monteux conducted the first recording of the score in Paris in 1930. That performance—alive with vibrato, portamenti, and tempi fluctuations—sounds nothing like the perfunctory blandness masquerading as “authenticity” of the Les Siècles recording. Not only that, but evidence suggests that Ravel himself preferred hearing the work interpreted in a far more virtuosically dramatic manner than what Roth is capable of.

“I have never heard [La valse] shine so bright,” the composer wrote to Willem Mengelberg, not exactly a conductor known for his interpretive reticence, following a performance in Amsterdam. “I would like to tell you once more how pleased I was at the beauty of what you performed. . . You are not only a great conductor, but a great artist.”

Then there is the unforgettable nightmarish vision of this music from Victor de Sabata, another conductor whom Ravel praised, with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1951.

Wherefore Roth and Les Siècles’ scrupulous adherence to period performance practices then? So much for scholarship and fidelity to the composer’s intentions!

Leopold Stokowski was certainly one of the most versatile conductors of the 20th century. His affinities matched his vast repertoire, which ranged from the centuries old to the freshly inked. Though his living composer contemporaries (and critics) may have bristled at the liberties he allowed himself, there is little doubt that his discography preserves a consistently high level of engaging interpretive commitment, not to mention sonic opulence.

A born cosmopolitan, Stokowski was home nearly everywhere in the realm of music, but there were certain corners of the orchestral literature which were especially tailor-made for his talents. This selection of his NBC performances of Debussy, Milhaud, and Ravel, for example, finds him at his opulent best; especially in the shimmering colors of the older two composers, whose post-Wagnerian sensibilities called out to Stokowski’s own.

The NBC Symphony, for all the excellence of its individual members, was not exactly celebrated for the beauty of its corporate sonority. Most of the blame can be laid on the powder dry acoustics of Rockefeller Center’s Studio 8-H, which Stokowski helped to mitigate during his brief tenure at the orchestra’s helm 1941 – 1944. But the ensemble’s fierce loyalty to Toscanini, which made them skeptical of ideas from other conductors, also did not help. Despite those challenges, Stokowski conjured from them playing of spellbinding gorgeousness.

Listeners here are treated to two of his sumptuous orchestrations of Debussy’s piano music—La cathédrale engloutie and La soirée dans Grenade respectively—with the former opening this compilation, followed by the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. A Stokowski favorite, he recorded the score he praised as a “dream world of pagan loveliness” several times. They all follow the same basic interpretive outline, although each has telling details unique to them. This NBC performance from 1944 is no different, boasting a number of retouchings that, while not “faithful” to the score, are undeniably effective. Take a listen to the evocative 3-D effect achieved by the last of the horn calls that echo the opening flute motif, which Stokowski directs to play stopped. Or try his use of chime bars at the coda; very different from the fragile timbre of Debussy’s crotales, but lending a haunting glow to the work’s closing pages.

The present performance of two “symphonic fragments” from Debussy’s incidental music to Le Martyre de saint Sébastien, on the other hand, are the only ones in Stokowski’s discography. They are quite fine, too, if a tad steelier than one would prefer in this ethereal score.

Also making its only appearance on his programs is this New York City premiere performance of Milhaud’s brief Symphony No. 1. Although his catalog of works had already by then swollen into triple-digits—with a number of operas, oratorios, ballets, and string quartets already under his belt—he was a symphonic late-bloomer, not penning his first essay in that form until he was nearly fifty. (Perhaps his friend Honegger’s own Symphony No. 1 from ten years earlier had deterred him.) It is a sprightly, lively work alive with Milhaud’s typical harmonic and rhythmic playfulness, all of which Stokowski does proud in this zestful performance.

Closing is this compilation is an impassioned rendition of the second suite from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, which turns urgent unto hectic in its “Danse générale.” If its finale could have benefitted from a more measured approach, the preceding “Lever du jour” and “Pantomime” are practically erotic desire itself manifested in sound. While some may prefer Stokowski’s later, more relaxed Decca recording, this performance has its own rewards which demand to be heard.

Abetting these performances are the superb remasterings from Pristine’s Andrew Rose, who skillfully imparted the illusion of space around the NBC Symphony. One could imagine the sonic wizardry on these restorations having elicited the approval of Stokowski, himself no stranger to the possibilities afforded by the studio mixing console. Especially benefitting from this are the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Daphnis et Chloé. Stokowski’s lushly atmospheric stereo recording of the former for Capitol has been my favorite for as long as I can remember, but the sound on this Pristine issue, which markedly improves upon the sound of the Cala transfer from two decades ago, helps carry this performance to the top.

A welcome companion for the languid summer afternoons just around the corner.

Stoki and the NBC get steamy in all-French program from Pristine Audio.