Ormandy as advocate

[Ed Presson]

Like many, the release of the big Ormandy box led me to reconsider the
conductor. When I first started listening and reading, Ormandy was written
up as a moderately good conductor. It was granted that he had a fine sense
of pacing, and that "The Philadelphia Sound" was, as he insisted, the
Ormandy sound. But his interpretative approach was largely objective and
neutral, and beautifully played, nothing more.

It seemed to me, however, that when he and his orchestra were making the
first recording of a work (perhaps the first in the West), he could get
energized to "sell" the new work. His recordings of the Rachmaninoff First
Symphony and the Shostakovich Fourth and Fifteenth were exceptional in their
forceful advocacy.

Are there any other instances when Ormandy seemed especially energized by
work?

[mswd...@gmail.com]

I can't answer the question, but I'll disagree with the notion of Ormandy as "objective and neutral, and beautifully played, nothing more." The way his orchestra handles accents and phrasing made him a great exponent of Russian music and other composers like Bartok or Sibelius, but those characteristics are not as enjoyable in central German classical/romantic rep. The bite, heft of the strings just doesn't lend well to Beethoven and Brahms where more even colors and enunciation work better. Take the alert opening of his Brahms 3 and the lack of repose that in movement IV that is positively tone-deaf to the idiom. I recognize that is is impressive in its way, and perhaps something you could learn to love, but I find it exhausting. The movement ends in a manner that is as awake and alert as any you will hear. Ironically, this may help improve a composer like Strauss, but it just doesn't work for me in a lot of cases.

I don't blame Ormandy for not being all things- he has unique strengths, and we'd be foolish to miss them.

[Ed Presson]

"mswd...@gmail.com" wrote in message
news:ffb9cbc8-d330-400e...@googlegroups.com...

I take your point and I concur. I don't know his Brahms.

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On Thursday, May 13, 2021 at 7:51:08 AM UTC-7, mswd...@gmail.com wrote:
> I can't answer the question, but I'll disagree with the notion of Ormandy as "objective and neutral, and beautifully played, nothing more."...

https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/rec.music.classical.recordings/c/N7LPWXIY4gs/m/-tx6sv7wAgAJ

[mswd...@gmail.com]

Listening to some of his Beethoven, I don't hear the same alertness form the strings. The performances perhaps a bit flat for this.

[Mark Obert-Thorn]

I definitely thing you're onto something here, Ed. I'm working right now on a transfer of Ormandy's first (1940 Victor) recording of Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler", a work which was then "new music" (six years old), for reissue next month on Pristine. He and the Philadelphians are on fire! There's a sense that they all feel this is great stuff that you've GOT to hear. It's amazing that it's never been reissued before, not even on Camden LPs (where it would have been out-of-the-way repertoire for a drug store/supermarket-based series).

Mark O-T

[raymond....@gmail.com]

Fwiw, I believe that Ormandy only got a tad underrated because he was around at a time when so many other great conductors were practising their art. In addition Ormandy was never a volatile-like whiplash type artist, such as Ancerl, or a charlatan type like Stokowski (sorry but the way I have always felt), and neither was he associated overly much with the great 19th century German repertoire. But he excelled in the Russian repertoire, and he used his Philly orchestra's strengths, strings especially, to their best advantage. His Sony Tchaikovsky 6 is still fabulous, (just listen to the articulation after the great climax in the first movement). His Rachmaninov exuded great warmth without unnecessary wallowing, and he could be excellent in a lot of Shostakovich too.

He recorded very few duds, stuck to music he liked, and was also a very good accompanist.

I would have gone for his box, except that I collect by composer, and very rarely by artist.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Ed Presson]

"Mark Obert-Thorn" wrote in message
news:ff476cdb-4ebe-49b3...@googlegroups.com...

Thanks for this reply; it really sounds like a "must-hear."
I hope I remember this correctly: Ormandy recorded John Vincent's Symphony
in mono, then recorded it again in stereo. I read that the second recording
lacked the fire of the first; but I never had both recordings to compare.
Is my memory correct?

Ed Presson

[John Fowler]

John Vincent Symphony
The mono and stereo were both recorded the same day: March 14, 1957.
One performance, two engineering teams, which was the rule until the mid-60s.
Mono phonographs outnumbered stereo phonographs until about 1965).
Record stores had a dual inventory of mono and stereo LPs until 1967.
LP issued in mono in 1958, coupled with Dello Joio's Variations, Chaconne & Finale (CD 111).
LP issued in stereo in 1959, coupled with a new 1959 stereo recording of Vincent's Symphonic Poem after Descartes:
https://www.discogs.com/John-Vincent-8Philadelphia-Orchestra-Eugene-Ormandy-Symphonic-Poem-After-Descartes-Symphony-In-D/release/13668742

[John Fowler]

Interesting article about the conversion from mono to stereo:
https://blog.discogs.com/en/mono-versus-stereo/
In the early years of stereo, classical records actually outsold popular.
Rock and roll was especially late to make the conversion.
The Beatles preferred mono.

[Alan Cooper]

Oy yes, that 1940 Mathis is terrific, and I look forward to hearing M O-T's transfer. I assumed that it was never reissued because it was "superseded" by the 1952 re-recording of the work, issued on LP c/w a 1953 recording of the Konzertmusik. The conductor must have felt a strong affinity for Mathis through the years: in 2019 NHK issued an excellent live performance from the orchestra's 1967 tour of Japan.

FWIW, my favorite Ormandy recordings cluster around Bartok, Hindemith, Kodaly, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, and other miscellaneous late Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire. I also agree with a previous comment about what an excellent accompanist he was: the Serkin/Ormandy Brahms PC#2, for example, is a longtime favorite of mine, and I strongly prefer it to Serkin/Szell.

AC

[Ed Presson]

"John Fowler" wrote in message
news:3a878332-7365-425e...@googlegroups.com...

> I hope I remember this correctly: Ormandy recorded John Vincent's Symphony
> in mono, then recorded it again in stereo. I read that the second
> recording
> lacked the fire of the first; but I never had both recordings to compare.
> Is my memory correct?
>
> Ed Presson

>John Vincent Symphony
>The mono and stereo were both recorded the same day: March 14, 1957.
>One performance, two engineering teams, which was the rule until the
>mid-60s.
>Mono phonographs outnumbered stereo phonographs until about 1965).
>Record stores had a dual inventory of mono and stereo LPs until 1967.
>LP issued in mono in 1958, coupled with Dello Joio's Variations, Chaconne &
>Finale (CD 111).
>LP issued in stereo in 1959, coupled with a new 1959 stereo recording of
>Vincent's Symphonic Poem after Descartes:
>https://www.discogs.com/John-Vincent-8Philadelphia-Orchestra-Eugene-Ormandy-Symphonic-Poem-After-Descartes-Symphony-In-D/release/13668742

John, Thanks for giving me to straight scoop in this.

Ed Presson

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https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.classical.recordings/c/ypUM-tGgCYQ

[Joseph Serraglio]

Like Bernstein, Ormandy also advocated for American composers: John Vincent, William Schuman, Virgil Thomson, and many others. Those recordings for me are one of the strengths of the Sony mega box.

[John Fowler]

Ormandy commissioned Aaron Copland to orchestrate his complete Appalachian Spring ballet
(composed for 13 instruments in 1944, suite only orchestrated in 1945, complete ballet orchestrated in 1954).
Ormandy gave the first performance and recorded it in 1954 (CD 94).
But apparently he lost interest in the complete ballet, because when he recorded Appalachian Spring in stereo (1969 RCA), it was just the suite.
Michael Tilson-Thomas and Leonard Slatkin recorded the complete ballet in stereo.

[gggg gggg]

Could Columbia have thought of O.'s recordings as supplementing rather than competing with the recordings of their heavyweights Bernstein and Szell?

[Joseph Serraglio]

Ormandy and Bernstein were Columbia’s major leaguers. Szell started off in Triple A on their budget Epic label but was called up later.

[Jerry]

[Jerry]

Well, Szell's earliest Cleveland recordings were on Columbia before the transition to the Epic label.

I have always wondered about the rationale (whether artistic or business) behind maintaining
these separate label identities. This is mentioned in Marmorstein's book "The Label" but, as I recall,
without explicitly detailing any artistic or commercial reasons behind the strategy.

Might Szell's earliest Columbias have been linked to an existing contract with Cleveland (left over
from the Leinsdorf/Cleveland series on Columbia)? Might it have been linked to the dissolution
of the licensing agreement with UK Columbia and the new distribution agreement with Philips?


Jerry

[Joseph Serraglio]

You’re right, I forgot those, and before Leinsdorf, Rodzinski had recorded many items with Cleveland on Columbia.

[John Fowler]

Epic basically had two artists under contract: George Szell and Leon Fleischer.

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(Recent Y. upload):

"The Significance of Eugene Ormandy: (Preview to his 10 Best Recordings video on Classicstoday.com"