FROM THE OPENING MOMENTS of the first CD in this collection, Bach’s “Easter Oratorio,” you’re whisked back to a time before historically informed performances roamed the land. It was recorded in April 1963, a year after Nicholas Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus Wien made its debut, but well before those arrow-like violin bows and valve-less brass spread into mainstream concert halls and recordings. With the HIP sound firmly tamped into my ears, I was shocked by the size of the orchestra and the operatic aspect of the soloists. Yet, if we were to hear this work at all back when it first was issued, this is how it would sound.
This is the second of Sony’s Columbia Stereo Collections devoted to Ormandy, and the third large set when you count the 120-CD set devoted to mono recordings. This present set, a long box of 94 discs, runs from 1964 to 1983, although that’s a bit disingenuous. The recordings in this set actually run from 1961 to 1968, with some languishing until 1975 for release.
After his retirement, Ormandy continued to conduct Philadelphia Orchestra concerts, and made a recording in 1982 with Yo-Yo Ma of the Shostakovich First Cello Concerto alongside the concerto by Kabalevsky. Columbia picked up this one and issued it in 1983, thus giving this set its ending year.
Ormandy praise seems to be seeping into the current classical-music world, but it’s still tempered by the haters, confirming the opinion of conductor Kenneth Woods, who wrote,
Critics hate Ormandy. It must be the first “fact” they teach at critic school- always work in an Ormandy slam into every article your write. Record collectors hate him, too. I just don’t get it. The film of him looks pretty impressive- classical and classy conducting technique, not at all showy. His Philadelphia Orchestra was the only real rival to Karajan’s Berlin for sonic beauty in the 50s-70s, but was also a tighter and more versatile band.
After listening to the Beethoven’s Ninth in the new set, brilliantly played and beautifully sung, I searched online for reviews. Given that the recording was released in 1966, I wasn’t surprised to see none, but I did find Richard Osborne’s exhaustive (and exhausting) article for The Gramophone, published last May, choosing his favorites (characterized, of course, as “the greatest”) of the many recordings of that piece that are out there. He worships at the feet of Karajan while tossing bouquets at Furtwangler, proving that ex-Nazi conductors still demand fealty. Followed by a parade of the conductors we know and love, noting the deficiencies of each. No mention of Ormandy, of course.
I’m here to tell you that Ormandy’s Beethoven is second to none. All the symphonies are here, in performances that range from delightful to downright exciting – which means they’re true to the symphonies themselves, always an Ormandy aim.
We also get three of Beethoven’s piano concertos – 1, 2, and 4 – with favorite collaborator Rudolf Serkin at the keyboard, and the fourth was recorded again four years later, in 1966, with Serkin student Eugene Istomin. Istomin also figures here in recordings of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto (with Isaac Stern and Leonard Rose) and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Serkin is also represented with Schumann’s concerto and Mozart’s Concerto No. 27, as well as more incidental works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Richard Strauss. But you’ll find Serkin in Stereo Box 1 playing both Brahms concerts as well as concertos by Mendelssohn, Ravel, and Reger.
Among the other piano soloists in this set are Philippe Entremont, playing Gershwin, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns; Gary Graffman in the two Tchaikovsky concertos you don’t know; and the duo pianists Gold and Fizdale with some even less-known Mendelssohn. Isaac Stern leads the violin camp, with the two Prokofiev concertos (his No. 1 is especially superb), Sibelius, Dvořák, Lalo, and Bruch, while the orchestra’s own violist, Joseph de Pasquale, offers Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy.”
Continuing down the staff, cellist Leonard Rose, always deserving more of a chance to claim his proper legacy, gives a passionate reading of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, with none of the self-consciously over-expressive nonsense too many other players tend to affect. He also features in concertos by Lalo and Saint-Saëns as well as Tchaikovsky’s perennial Rococo Variations. Guitarist John Williams made an early-career recording of concertos by Rodrigo and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and the orchestra’s principal horn player, Mason Jones, offered all four Mozart Concertos.
There’s also a thoughtful showcase for more of the orchestra’s principal artists, on a pair of records titled “First-Chair Encores,” featuring as much a variety of instruments as compositions. Those who would damn Ormandy with faint praise observe that he was always a reliable accompanist, so I almost feel loath to note that, in fact, he was, but such an encomium takes nothing away from his purely orchestral work.
Not surprisingly, with nearly a hundred discs to consider, the repertory ranges widely from a solid base of warhorse classics to several surprises. Ormandy’s fellow Hungarians, Bartók and Kodály, are showcased with passionate performances of a Concerto for Orchestra by each of them along with suites from Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Kodály’s Háry János.
Big news in 1965 was the first recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, in the first of Deryck Cooke’s three completions. It’s to Ormandy’s credit that he waded into this controversial area with full commitment to the music – many conductors won’t touch anything beyond the first movement, the only one the composer fully finished. It’s to Cooke’s credit that he stayed true to the composer’s wishes, as laid out in the sketches for the four unfinished movements. All of which makes for a particularly potent shaping to the symphony’s final movement. The other Mahler entry in this set is a straight-ahead “Das Lied von der Erde,” where contralto Lili Chookasian grabs some of the more affecting moments away from tenor Richard Lewis. (Although I may be fighting a bias born of first hearing Lewis as the house tenor in Malcolm Sargent’s mid-‘50s Gilbert and Sullivan recordings.)
We’re light on the Classical era here, with two symphonies apiece from Mozart and Haydn – again, big-bodied, full-orchestral versions that move at a nice pace. Schubert’s Symphonies 4 and 6 follow that tradition, but his 9th, a massive breakaway work, starts slow for an Andante – sometimes that intro can seem to go on forever – but kicks into an just the right tempo at the Allegro ma non troppo moment and builds from there to an impressive sense of excitement by the finish of the movement.
Ormandy, to his everlasting credit, never tries to over-interpret a work, by which I mean he typically keeps interpretive nuance within the bar lines – which is not the case with many conductors from more recent generations, who seem to feel that sudden slowings are a mark of intense sensitivity. Performed, of course, at the expense of the music.
The ever-popular Brahms symphonies are here alongside the no-longer-so-popular Respighi tone-poems. “Also sprach Zarathustra” and “Pictures at an Exhibition” take you down other, contrasting paths in the tone-poem parade, but for more symphonic splendor the candidates include Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, Bruckner’s Fourth and Fifth, Shostakovich’s Fifth and Tenth, Nielsen’s First and Sixth, Ives’s First, and Dvořák’s Ninth, although the last-named was recorded with Ormandy helming the London Symphony but drawing a shimmering Philadelphia sound from them.
It is amazing to consider the ground Ormandy covered – and the sheer number of recordings he produced – in only about five years. And he easily switched idiom, moving through some popular Stravinsky and Hindemith pieces into Berg’s “Lulu” Suite alongside some well-crafted Schoenberg and Webern.
Alongside the Bach oratorios, the big pieces here include Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis,” which thrives on the hugeness of the chorus and the excellent soloists – Martina Arroyo, Maureen Forrester, Richard Lewis, and Cesare Siepi – and Ormandy matched them with appropriate orchestral sound.
The same forces performed the piece in New York’s Philharmonic Hall a day or two before they returned to Philadelphia to commence recording, and Times reviewer Harold C. Schonberg was characteristically supercilious. “It was a conscientious performance ... and a rather dull one. Everything was in place, everybody went correctly through their paces – and that, perhaps, was one of the troubles. Mr. Ormandy presented the ‘Missa Solemnis’ as a devotional exercise, and a rather stuffy one at that.” Based on the recording, that’s Schonbergian nonsense. The only criticism of his I agree with is that concertmaster Norman Carol put too much vibrato into the celebrated solo in the Benedictus – but that’s all I’ll cavil about. Schonberg, however, clearly studied at the Critic School mentioned above.
Two of the all-time great Requiems are here: Verdi and Berlioz. Verdi’s, of course, demands to be big, and Ormandy gives it that unmatched orchestral sound and another quartet of soloists who were among the best at the time: Lucine Amara, Maureen Forrester, Richard Tucker, and George London. Berlioz is more elusive, demanding great contrast among the sections. Verdi’s “Dies irae” (Day of Wrath) starts with four deafening chords, soon to return with off-beat tympani accents. Berlioz’s judgment day is quiet, easing into the mighty brass fanfare that kicks off the subsequent “Tuba mirum,” about as much of a difference as you sinners can imagine. Berlioz marked the “Quid sum miser,” “With an expression indicating humility and fear,” quite a statement from a non-believer. And it’s like a piece of chamber music, a form the composer otherwise avoided, given a striking intimacy in this recording. “Quaerens me” is entirely for a cappella chorus, while the subsequent “Lachrymosa” is big and busy. The “Hostias” is characterized by excellently realized flute and trombone effects that turn into a game of tag to brings us into the “Sanctus” with its celebrate tenor solo. Cesare Valletti, a leggero tenor, is passionate and wonderfully effective, singing over the hushed sopranos and altos while a solo flute sounds over quiet strings.
The final fifteen measures of the “Agnus Dei,” which finishes the piece, is the most beautiful piece of music ever written, performed here with a sense that we’ve slipped into another world. Five arpeggiated up-and-downs from the strings play under the chorus’s soft amens. I thought only the Charles Munch recording with the Boston Symphony could truly transport me (sorry, Colin Davis), but Ormandy does the same.
In 1962, Columbia released “The Glorious Sound of Christmas” which became, according to producer Thomas Frost, “the fastest selling classical album in the history of the LP,” winning a gold record. (Oddly, it didn’t make it into the earlier stereo box.) The follow-up here is “A Christmas Festival,” once again bringing in the Temple University choir. If you like this stuff, which gets on my nerves, you’ll love it, and it’s filled out with five tracks drawn from “Beloved Choruses, Vol. II,”
You’ve got the mighty Mormon Tabernacle Choir holding forth, and they’re also on the CDs “Favorite Opera Choruses,” “Great Handel Choruses,” and “Great Bach Choruses,” which are far more pleasing. Then there’s “This Land Is Your Land,” opening with a sanitized version of Woody Guthrie’s cover anthem, going on to a sanitized version of “Down in the Valley” (the Birmingham Jail is nowhere in evidence) and another eleven once-popular songs. If it’s to your taste, have at it.
I’m happier with the orchestra’s short-pieces albums, including “Holiday for Orchestra!” (Ranging from “Camptown Races” to Mendelssohn’s “March of the Priests) and Hora Staccato! (Ranging from the title number to Dvořák’s “Humoresque,” Novácek’s “Perpetuum mobile” – you get the idea.)
What makes this a must-have set? Whatever your taste in classical music, you’ll find plenty in here to love. Basic rep, a few 20th-century pieces (his Stravinsky is tense and exciting), big choral works, light music.
Ormandy’s first big conducting post came in Minneapolis in 1934, and an 11-CD Sony set offers it in excellent remasterings. He went to Philadelphia in 1938, under contract to RCA until 1942, when the Petrillo ban kicked in. There’s a 21-CD set about to be issued documenting those years, and I’ll cover it here when I get it. He signed with Columbia in 1944, and his mono recordings were issued in that 120-CD collection, capturing his output between 1944 and 1958. I reviewed that set here, suggesting that some of the critical scorn he suffered was the result of his happy disposition – conductors should appear dour.
His stereo recordings for Columbia are (so far) in two boxes: the 88-CD Stereo Collection covering 1958 to 1963, and the set I’m considering here, covering 1964 to 1983. That’s when he went back to RCA, where he remained until his retirement in 1981. We should expect, I hope, a final stereo box giving us that output. He became a bit of a label gypsy thereafter, with releases on Angel, Delos, Telarc, and even Columbia. He worked right up until his death in 1985.
I’m now thinking he was just too popular for his own good. In the world of the classical-music effete, popularity can be anathema. There was a cover story in the February 1983 Stereo Review, complete with a color Hirschfeld painting. “No conductor in our history has reached more listeners through live performances, broadcasts, and recordings,” wrote Herbert Kupferberg, adding,
“It has always been easy to underestimate Eugene Ormandy, for he has never been one of the glamour boys of the baton. The grand gesture, the sweeping statement, the building and gilding of the image, are not part of his character. Yet the Philadelphia Orchestra of today, which he assembled and shaped, represents as imposing a monument as any conductor could desire. It is no accident that the Philadelphia is probably the most consistent, reliable, and versatile of the great American ensembles, for these qualities are reflective of the man who put the orchestra together. Ormandy is perhaps the most outstanding all-around musician among the conductors of today. In an era that abounds in specialists from Mozarteans to Mahlerites, he remains a universalist, at home in all styles, schools, and centuries.”
Eugene Ormandy
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Columbia Stereo Collection 1964-1983
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