Background
Frederick was born on November 11, 1872 in Julich, near Cologne, Germany, the only child of Friedrich Karl and Louise (Leiner) Stock.
(very rare)
very rare
https://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Nutcracker-Suite-Record-Set/dp/B00VCLOAU2?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00VCLOAU2
https://www.amazon.com/Schumann-Frederick-Stock-M%C3%BAsica-Cl%C3%A1sica/dp/B005N89J56?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B005N89J56
(American recordings of Artur Schnabel playing Beethoven P...)
American recordings of Artur Schnabel playing Beethoven Piano Concertos.
https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Concertos-Schnabel-Orchestra-Frederick/dp/B000AP0GE0?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000AP0GE0
(These 1942 versions were neither Artur Schnabel's first n...)
These 1942 versions were neither Artur Schnabel's first nor last recordings of these concertos; he recorded the cycle for HMV in 1932 and remade four of the five after the war. They were, however, the final recordings of Frederick Stock, who built the Chicago Symphony into a major orchestra. These collaborations do cause sparks to fly between soloist and orchestra, resulting in intense performances with palpable expression in every bar. The recorded sound is only fair, but this kind of music-making easily transcends such limitations. --Leslie Gerber
https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Concerti-Ludwig-van-Beethoven/dp/B000003FCK?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000003FCK
Frederick was born on November 11, 1872 in Julich, near Cologne, Germany, the only child of Friedrich Karl and Louise (Leiner) Stock.
His father, a bandmaster in the Prussian army, gave the boy his first music lessons. At fourteen, young Stock entered the Cologne Conservatory as a violin pupil of Georg Japha, studying theory and composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and Gustav Jensen.
Stock joined the violin section of the Cologne Municipal Orchestra (also known as the Gerzenich Orchestra) in 1891. Theodore Thomas, the conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, heard him there and engaged him. When Stock arrived in Chicago in October 1895, however, there was no vacancy in the violin section, and he was assigned to the violas.
In 1899 Thomas, in his sixties and wishing to ease his burdens, chose Stock as assistant conductor. Although he continued to play viola, Stock began to conduct occasional rehearsals and to direct accompaniments for soloists, especially on tour. He thus obtained matchless training under one of the world's great conductors. Some critics grumbled about entrusting the orchestra to so young and unknown a musician, but Thomas had confidence in his protege. Stock's growing gifts as a composer were recognized when Thomas conducted his "Symphonic Variations" in 1903.
When Thomas died on January 4, 1905, three weeks after the opening of Orchestra Hall, the orchestra's first permanent home, Stock was asked to serve until a new permanent conductor could be found. Unsuccessful negotiations with several eminent Europeans followed, after which, in April 1905, the trustees elected Stock conductor.
He was not yet thirty-three and relatively unknown outside Chicago, but the local press warmly approved. Continuing and broadening the policies that Thomas had developed, Stock gave careful attention to the construction of his programs, introduced works by contemporary composers, encouraged young performers, and took the orchestra on tours throughout the Middle West and South, greatly extending its sphere of influence. He also made significant innovations. Thomas had conducted occasional popular and children's concerts, but Stock expanded these into regular series: the popular concerts, for which low-priced tickets were distributed through civic organizations, in 1914 and the children's concerts in 1919.
The steady growth in influence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Stock's direction was disrupted by anti-German prejudice during World War I. Although Stock had applied for United States citizenship on his first day in Chicago, he had neglected taking out his second papers within the allotted time, and in 1914 he was not an American citizen. With the declaration of war in Europe, he announced to the orchestra that henceforth rehearsals would be conducted in English rather than in German, as they had been since the orchestra's inception.
Feeling against Germans increased with America's entry into the war, and on August 17, 1918, believing that his presence was damaging the orchestra, Stock resigned as conductor. The trustees regretfully acquiesced and appointed Eric DeLamarter, a local organist and composer, as assistant conductor to fill what they hoped would be a temporary interregnum. During the season of 1918-19 Stock observed the orchestras in such cities as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
On February 7, 1919, he filed his application for second papers; on February 19 the orchestra's trustees invited him to resume conducting; and on February 28 he appeared on the stage for the first time since the close of the preceding season, receiving an ovation. He became a citizen on May 22. The dislocations of the war had made evident the shortcomings of the United States as a training ground for orchestral performers. In a farseeing plan, Stock suggested to the trustees of the Chicago Symphony the formation of a training orchestra designed to teach the orchestral repertoire and the necessary routine in ensemble work. The formation of the Civic Orchestra was announced on December 4, 1919, with Stock as director; he conducted its first concert on March 29, 1920.
He also gave much attention to encouraging musical education in the public schools and sometimes conducted concerts by high school orchestras. Besides his regular conducting in Chicago, Stock participated in numerous music festivals and served as guest conductor for the New York Philharmonic (1926, 1927) and Philadelphia orchestras. Conductors of his generation had no prejudice against altering or cutting the works of the masters, and he did not hestitate to amplify or change orchestrations, even of Beethoven symphonies.
Yet his daring conceptions, supported by solid musicianship and common sense, enabled him to draw from the orchestra precisely the effects he wanted. He made the orchestra an integral part of the community by striving to serve the musical needs of broad sectors of the population through well-planned special programs.
Under Stock, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra dominated the musical life of the Middle West by its brilliant performances and by a repertory more extensive and catholic than that of any other American orchestra of his day. He conducted a Mahler Festival in 1917 and performed works by other major composers, such as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, years before they were heard in New York.
When Howard Hanson in 1938 made a survey of American performances of works by American composers over the previous twenty years, he reported that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra headed the list, having played 272 compositions by eighty-five composers. Yet Stock, while hospitable to new music, was at his best conducting the late romantics, the music of his youth.
Stock died at his Chicago home of a coronary thrombosis in 1942, shortly before his seventieth birthday.
Under the direction of Frederick August Stock, the Chicago Symphony became one of the best orchestras in America, developing in particular its own characteristic brass sound that is already audible in its early recordings. A great promoter of modern music, Stock supported the works of many modern composers, including Gustav Mahler , Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky , Sergei Prokofiev, Gustav Holst and many others. But the memorable recordings of Stock are with the romantic repertoire of Schubert, Schumann, Weber, Goldmark and Glazunov. Stock received honorary degrees from several universities including Northwestern (1915), Michigan (1924), and Chicago (1925); he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor (France) in 1925.
(These 1942 versions were neither Artur Schnabel's first n...)
(American recordings of Artur Schnabel playing Beethoven P...)
(Set of five records in a storing album)
(very rare)
Stock was not a spectacular or particularly graceful conductor; of only medium height, somewhat round-shouldered, with a ruddy complexion and prominent blue eyes, he was not physically impressive.
He married Elizabeth (Elsa) Muskulus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 25, 1896; they had one child, Vera Fredericka.
