Ormandy dream box?

[Wolfgang Sebastian Beethoven]

In this age of mega box sets:

Mozart 225
Jascha Heifetz Complete
Karajan Complete Recordings
etc.

could there be an Ormandy box in the works (hopefully presented like the Gould, Rubinstein, Yo Yo Ma boxes). How many discs would it contain if in the original jacket format? What percentage would be mono?

[Marc P.]

I would be thrilled but I'd be stunned if it happened.

[Precious Roy]

On Friday, September 1, 2017 at 10:15:33 PM UTC-7, Marc P. wrote:
> I would be thrilled but I'd be stunned if it happened.

Really? I think it's likely. When you get a giant Cluytens box can giant Ormandy be far behind? I just hope it contains everything including his mono recordings, like the recent Serkin box.

[drh8h]

It would also have to include all of his prewar RCAs with the Minneapolis and Philadelphia Orchestras. This could be a huge box. Maybe issue in two parts-mono and stereo? But I think we are dreaming. Only a tiny fraction of his pre-stereo records have ever been officially issued on CD. They would all have to be remastered, unless Sony did that already, doubtful, and have them in queue somewhere. I am still wondering if they will ever put out an absolutely complete Bernstein set, RCAs and Columbias. They dance around it, but never do it, now less than one year from LBs 100th birth anniversary.

Dennis

[john.s....@gmail.com]

My sense is that Sony may not remaster all of Bernstein's Columbia and Rca albums and put them in one box given the size of the Bernstein catalog. I think this is why Sony has decided to remaster 100 discs worth of his output: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leonard-Bernstein-Remastered/dp/B072M4GVVB. Of course this doesn't preclude Sony from remastering the rest (or a subset of the rest) if this box sells well. My view is that this could apply to Ormandy as well - we might see a selection of remastered recordings in a huge box like the aforementioned Bernstein box. Personally, I hope Sony is working on a complete Columbia/Epic Szell box first.

[Bob Harper]

On 9/2/17 10:02 AM, john.s....@gmail.com wrote:
> (snip) Personally, I hope Sony is working on a complete Columbia/Epic Szell box first.
>

From your keyboard to Sony's decision makers!

Bob Harper

[LarryLap]

I wonder if the possibility of a complete Ormandy collection is as remote as we might think. Certainly, it is a huge project, but consider how much has already been done. To begin with, there is the 10-disc "Original Jacket" set of a few years ago that includes many of the most important stereo recordings of the palmy days of 1958-65. Then, there are the more recent budget boxes of "20th Century Masters," Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and **Music for Winds**! How likely is it that a lab would undertake a remastering of Ormandy's recordings of wind concertos if they were not actually engaged in a much broader survey? We also have to take into account the large number of remasterings of Ormandy recordings that have helped fill boxes with Serkin's, Graffman's, Cliburn's and Istomin's names on the front cover. How about all the Ormandy-led performances in the compendious Issac Stern Collection? The more one thinks about it, the more likely it seems that we shall someday see an Ormandy "Dream Box." If this were a rational world, they could have magnificent remasterings of many of the post-war mono material all taken care of, simply by acquiring Lani Spar's nonpareil restorations and popping them into replicas of the original jackets.

Larry

[Thornhill]

I don't know if we really need it.

There is so much duplication because he recorded everything in stereo and mono, and then plenty of triplication because there are stereo remakes for RCA. And, there's even quadruplication because he recorded a piece twice in mono. Heck, there are even some pieces he did five times between RCA and Columbia!

A complete Ormandy box has to be over 300 discs (Karajan's DG recordings are 330, Bernstein's Sony and DG come out to 317); at a modest $1.5 per disc the box is at least $450.

I don't see many people paying that much so they can have all five versions of Ormandy's Finlandia.

Obviously the Karajan DG box has the same issues and costs much more, but Karajan has a lot more fans.

I think a curated box where someone makes an executive decision if we really need all four versions of Prokofiev's Symphony No.1, for example, or if just two are enough.

[drh8h]

I just don't see it. More subsets of the Ormandy legacy, perhaps. But I would be very surprised if they did anything extensive in the pre-stereo catalogue. The percentage who ever heard of Ormandy is far less than Bernstein and they sort of did him finally, but not a full remaster job.

DH

[Thornhill]

While a lot of the mono concerto recordings have been released in various soloists' boxes, few of the orchestral mono recordings have been released. And there are a ton of them.

[drh8h]

Don't forget if we want to be really complete, then an Ormandy orchestral box would go back to 1934, and the Victors probably "commercial 78" restorations. The Columbias likely have all lacquer masters, so they might be a little easier, but now we are talking labor and cost intensive work. There does not seem to be quite the demand for pre-stereo orchestra only. Toscanini is the only large-scale project of this kind I can think of. And when there is a set with large numbers of mono orchestrals, such as the Monteux box, many of them have been recycled from previous Western and JP issues. I don't see much chance of the Ormandy monos coming back en masse.

DH

[meyers...@gmail.com]

Do you really think an Ormandy complete box would sell enough copies to justify the expense of producing it

[drh8h]

I am not even sure if we could get a complete stereo box of the late RCAs out of them. Wasn't there an issue that some people said the JP issues were not from the master tapes? Then they would have to be done over. As I said before, if you are interested in early or even later Ormandy, probably the best course is to haunt the thrift stores, library sales, ebay and buy a good turntable with a suitable cartridge/stylus and if you are really serious get a preamp with old equalization curves.

dH

[weary flake]

Grateful Dead fans are more generous. High demand items like the '72
Europe box
become quickly out of print at $450 for 77 or so CDs, including 22
versions of one song,
like "Mr Charlie". So what's so special about having 5 versions of
Finlandia, as to
be undesirable? When there are different recordings of the same piece
by the same artist
in a completist box, I like it. A box that included all 12 versions of
Furtwangler's
Eroica would be desirable, and not as it is, parcelled out to different
companies, some
of them terrible, like Membran. So why should a selection of Omandy's
78s and early monos
be restricted to such companies like Membran (Artone, Documents, etc.)
with their noise
reduction, fake stereo and other remastering techniques. If the
expense of full
remastering is too high then remaster it less. Most of us don't have a
complete Ormandy
mono collection of 78s and LPs sitting around in the basement, so the
desire to have a
complete set on CD is not simply a case of being too lazy to play our
turntables.

[Randy Lane]

My gut feeling is an Isaac Stern isn't too far away.

[Randy Lane]

The 40 CD Japanese Tahra Furtwangler box has 5 recordings each of Beethoven 3 and 9 as well as 5 of Brahms 1

[JohnA]

On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 10:32:10 AM UTC-5, Randy Lane wrote:
> My gut feeling is an Isaac Stern isn't too far away.

His 100th Birthday is in 2020. So maybe you're right

[weary flake]

On 2018-08-05 15:37:30 +0000, Randy Lane said:

> The 40 CD Japanese Tahra Furtwangler box has 5 recordings each of
> Beethoven 3 and 9 as well as 5 of Brahms 1

Tahra did Japan releases? I haven't heard of that. I've got many Tahras,
which can be hard to find and figure what was what even when they had their
catalog online.

[Frank Berger]

HMV Japan has the 6-cd Tahra wartime set, 1031-1036. The bad google
translation seems to say that King International acquired the rights to
the 1998 Tahra releases (Tahra itself being defunct) and even remastered
them and released them this year. Not sure how King could improve on
the Tahra masterings.

I couldn't find a 40-cd Furtwangler box on any label. Could have missed it.

[drh8h]

I don't know how one could remaster something less. Go back to 20-bit? Analogue tape? I think as an aspect of pride, it would have to be done to current standards. I don't think Ormandy is still sufficiently
famous to entice them to do anything on such a massive scale.

DH

[Randy Lane]

Tower ReEcords Japan collected 40 Tahra Furtwängler titles together in a box entitled the Furtwängler Memorial Edition

Long OOP

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tahra-furtwangler-memorial-edition-102196232

[robert...@outlook.com]

To be a "dream box" it would have to include this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAcqufflwRc

He didn't get a label credit on the Okeh 78, but that's Ormandy conducting the Dorsey Brothers orchestra.

[LarryLap]

It is true,however, that, much as we might wish it to be otherwise, George Szell is not a household name, either; at least not in the vast majority of households. More to the point, however, is that Szell is a great and important conductor, who left an indelible stamp on the history of musical interpretation and performance in the 20th century, while Eugene Ormandy was an efficient repetiteur with a keen ear and a freakish memory, whose greatest gift may have been for shmoozing affluent residents of Philadelphia. His name may not have been writ on water, but neither is it engraved in granite.

Larry

[drh8h]

The irony may be that most of Szell's recordings are from 1955 on. Even in the first ten years at Cleveland, Columbia showed little interest in him. Due to that, his legacy is a much more manageable size, with only limited duplications.

Think of this. What other conductor associated with Philadelphia made a large number of mono recordings for Columbia and RCA, has had complete boxes devoted to him, but Sony has made no move I have heard of to mine that treasure trove? Stokowski, who I suspect has far more cache than Ormandy. Stoky would likely sell more than EO, but nothing from that era so far. As I said, if you want early Ormandy, you probably have to search it out.

DH

[Thornhill]

You're going to have the same duplication problem with Stokwoski. Most of what he recorded in mono he later remade in stereo.

I just don't see many people buying a box set of his mono recordings when there are stereo remakes. And the diehard Stokowski fans probably already have these recordings. Many were issued by RCA in the early 1990s. More recently labels like Cala have issued them.

[weary flake]

An example of too much remastering is the Sony Essential Classics of Szell.
People complain about it's noise reduction, EQ and overdubbed reverb; that is
an example of too much remastering. Presumably, the tranfers that are the
source of the Essential Classics releases sound much better than the finished
product, that would be an example of less remastering being cheaper and
higher quality, and less work for the engineers. As it's been, to take
a mastertape and degrading the sound with remastering takes much more work
than selling CDs that are dubs of the mastertape.

[weary flake]

There is no duplication with different recordings. Duplication is when you
issue the same recording over and over again, which has been the result of the
"no duplication" policy, so "no duplication" ends up meaning duplication of
the same stereo recording over and over again.

Stoky's recordings are all different.

[hankdra...@gmail.com]

Sadly, I have to agree that a complete Ormandy RCA/Columbia box is highly unlikely at this juncture - although I would certainly buy one if it was made available. The work involved in remastering any recordings not previously issued on CD - which would mean the bulk of his mono recordings - would be more than Sony could ever hope to turn a profit with. Further, if Sony sank big $$$ into this set, it would be at the expense of other worthy sets. The same would be the case for a complete Stokowski set. Btw, there's a site - http://www.stokowski.org/ - which has many of his 78rpm recordings.

I hold Ormandy in higher regard than some others here. But he was in a no-win situation when he took over the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1936 - a time when the orchestra was at its peak and considered by some (including Rachmaninoff) to be the world's finest. If Ormandy maintained the standards Stokowski had instilled, Stokowski still got the credit. If there was any slippage under Ormandy, then Ormandy got all the blame. Even any lateral changes (which some might consider improvements but others not) would prompt comparison with Stokowski.

In a way, it's the opposite of what Szell faced. Cleveland was a very fine orchestra under Sokoloff and Rodzinski - and generally considered one of America's Big Five under the latter. But with the war reducing the orchestra staff and a relatively inexperienced, part-time conductor under Leinsdorf, quality slipped until the orchestra was just a shadow of its former self by the time Szell took over. But Szell gets the credit - and there are still those in Cleveland (who've likely never heard the Rodzinski or Sokoloff recordings) who think Szell deserves sole credit and that it represented "one man's triumph".

Hank

[Frank Berger]

I'm not sure I would call would you describe "too much" mastering. I'd
just call it a bad job.

[joey7c...@yahoo.com]

I’d be happy with s Szell Complete Columbia and RCA Strreo collection. A separate mono box can always be done later if there’s enough interest.

[joey7c...@yahoo.com]

Sorry, above should read Ormandy Complete Columbia and RCA Stereo Collection. (I’ve got Szell on my mind...)

[hankdra...@gmail.com]

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 8:44:34 AM UTC-4, joey7c...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Sorry, above should read Ormandy Complete Columbia and RCA Stereo Collection. (I’ve got Szell on my mind...)

Lol, so do I. Counting the days till the Szell ships. I've already got my duplicates set aside for my niece, who plays viola.

Hank

[drh8h]

As examples of orchestral refinement and team work, they are almost nonpareil. As statements of music, well, there is plenty to provide for divided opinions. I have heard every one of these recordings, but I am still eagerly awaiting this set. How to explain?

DH

[drh8h]

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 8:44:34 AM UTC-4, joey7c...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Sorry, above should read Ormandy Complete Columbia and RCA Stereo Collection. (I’ve got Szell on my mind...)

Maybe if they split the Columbias from the RCAs. Even not going for Original Jacket concept, either set would be huge. On balance, I have more, if not most, of the Columbias. Generally, what little I have heard of the RCA stereos seems to be a bit of decline. But then there are RCA one-offs like the Mahler Titan and a superb Dvorak 7. I hope it happens too; just not optimistic.

DH

[LarryLap]

Pretty easy to explain, I would say: For over fifty years, we (some of us, at any rate) have enjoyed the outstanding interpretive and executive qualities of Szell's recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra, while at the same time feeling more than vaguely dissatisfied with the reproduction of the sound of the orchestra. Now, we are looking forward to the removal of that veil of dissatisfaction. What's not to eagerly await?

Larry

[Rich Sauer]

.
>
> could there be an Ormandy box in the works (hopefully presented like the Gould, Rubinstein, Yo Yo Ma boxes). How many discs would it contain if in the original jacket format? What percentage would be mono?

I'm surprised the Japanese have not issued a complete Asahina box... even leaving out the airchecks (found on Fontech etc..) that would be one heavy item. Back to Ormandy: if Sony gets around to it..the question is what's left? As far as big names go... isn't that about it?

[Randy Lane]

Stokowski, Isaac Stern, Biggs, Juilliard Quartet, Leinsdorf, Reiner (Complete!).

[hallr...@gmail.com]

-. Now, we are looking forward to the -
-removal of that veil of dissatisfaction. -What's not to eagerly await?

-Larry

True, but for myself and I suspect others too, this Szell box represents a very high duplication of material, in recording performances burned, and etched into memory. Mostly the outlay would be for improved sonics. At $80-90 very tempting but >$200 not so much.

Ray Hall, Taree

[drh8h]

Well, the price does seem to be going down. I just wonder how many Szell boxes are being produced? As for watching out for Ormandy, I suggest checking the JP sites like HMV and Tower. If a huge spate of Ormandy remastered hybrids start appearing, that may be the signal for a future box. I strongly suspect those JP issues defray the cost of remastering, making the boxes more economical propositions. Often JP issues are bellwethers of more general releases.

DH