Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition / Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite / Scriabin: Le Poeme de l'extase

Leopold Stokowski's own orchestration of "Pictures at an Exhibition" is not as accomplished as Ravel's more famous one, but he conducts it like the music has no business sounding any other way, and it's an extraordinary sonic experience in any event. In fact, Stokowski's arrangement have turned out to be so effective that they're actually being played and recorded by other conductors now. So there! As for the remainder of the program, the "Poem of Ecstasy" already sounds like a Stokowski transcription anyway--he simply owned the piece- -while the "Firebird" has a lot more Romantic sheen than it usually does. A great memento of one of music's true originals. --David Hurwitz