Sokoloff Makes the Skeletons Dance

It's getting close to Halloween, so this might be a good time to upload a performance of Saint-Saëns' popular masterpiece, Danse Macabre, which is set on the night when all hallows come out to dance.

And dance they do in this vivid (if abridged) performance by the vintage Cleveland Orchestra under its first music director, Nikolai Sokoloff. This piece is tailor-made for the conductor's sorcery. 

Its coupling is another splendid (if again abridged) performance, this one of the delightful overture to Nicolai's opera The Merry Wives of Windsor, a work that sparkles rather than scares.

In my previous posts devoted to Sokoloff (here and here), I've described both his improvisatory approach to conducting and his authoritarian manner in leading the orchestra. Both reached their limits after a time in Cleveland, and his contract was not renewed in 1933 despite his molding an excellent ensemble in a short period of time.

Nikolai Sokoloff

Sokoloff went on to direct the depression-era Federal Music Project. I recently came across a 1935 New York Times article (included in the download) that describes the similar labor problems he ran into in Washington, with the musicians union trying to expel him from its ranks and Sokoloff threatening to fire those who didn't agree with him. After these familiar flare-ups, the conductor would move on, again.

But in happier days, Sokoloff and the Clevelanders made a good number of recordings for Brunswick, dating from 1924-28. This disc comes from 1926, during a period when Brunswick was using the so-called GE "Light-Ray" method, which was inferior to the Western Electric process used by other companies. 

Mark Obert-Thorn, who has produced an edition of all Sokoloff's Cleveland recordings for Pristine Classical, wrote of the GE system, "At lower volume levels, the results could be acceptable; however, anything forte and above came out congested and harshly distorted." Actually, the sound on the Light-Ray discs I've processed is not as bad as this might suggest, although I will acknowledge that there is congestion above forte and some distortion. And this particular Internet Archive transfer does retain some surface noise even after my ministrations. [Note (June 2023): This recording is now available in ambient stereo.]

The important matter is the music in the grooves, and it could not be more enjoyable. Please have fun cavorting with the dancing ghouls and merry wives.

1932 GE ad - Sokoloff would move on the following year