The Significance of Eugene Ormandy: (Preview to his 10 Best Recordings video on Classicstoday.com
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- Опубліковано 18 лис 2024
- Eugene Ormandy's reputation today isn't as high as it was during his lifetime, and that's a pity because in some ways his achievement is more relevant and important now than it was then. Join me for a discussion of what made his career so special, and learn what his legacy has to teach us today. Then join me over at ClassicsToday.com for a survey of his 10 best recordings. If you want to subscribe to access Classicstoday Insider special content, just click on this link: www.classicsto...
Ormandy is outstanding.
I LOVE Eugene Ormandy's conducting - he is one of my favorite conductors along with Carlos Kleiber, Sir Georg Solti and Arturo Toscanini.
I aways knew that mr Ormandy was a master conductor i did not have to
Rely on music critics
I just listened to his recordings and that was proof enough for me
a great man indeed and also
The great philadelph orchestra
Love your comments on Eugene Ormandy. I worked at the Robin Hood Dell 2 seasons:1964 and 1965. A new contract in 1965 Changed the name of the Orchestra from the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra to the Philadelphia Orchestra. Though the players were basically the same, the 1965 contract included an appearance by Eugene Ormandy.
I was shocked when I came in to work(maintenance), to find all the players who usually arrived at the last minute before the rehearsal, were already there practicing thier parts. Maestro Ormandy 's presence made a very big difference. When he arrived , the Maestro shook every hand, including mine, and gave everyone a big smile.
I think he was the ultimate "Music Director" who shaped the tastes of Philadelphia and beyond for decades.
I've heard maybe a dozen recordings of Shostakovich's 4th Symphony over the last year and Ormandy's premiere recording might be my favourite. What an incredibly powerful work!
Thanks to your previous review of that huge 120-disk Ormandy box, I bought it and enjoyed it immensely. And it thoroughly changed my opinion of Ormandy - he was a great conductor by any standard. Now we need someone to write a thorough biography.
It always puzzles me that Ormandy was one of the most recorded artists on LP back in his day, yet today is so little spoken of. Everyone loves to discuss the great old recordings of Toscanini, Furtwangler, Koussevitsky, Szell, Reiner, etc. etc. etc. but there is so little attention paid to Ormandy's legacy.
Great video. I always loved Ormandy's work. His recordings were my introductions to many, many different kinds of music. My father always said, "when in doubt, buy Ormandy's version. You can't go wrong."
Thank you for advocating for Ormandy all this time, Mr Hurwitz. His detractors, some of whom are respected figures, who call him a mere orchestral “caretaker” or just a competent “accompanist” are all wet. Reading old NYT reviews of his annual Carnegie series by Downes, Taubman, and Schonberg reveals the regard in which he was held even in Bernstein’s town. News articles of his 1958 tour of Russia reveal the international regard he enjoyed. To say nothing of the composers and soloists who sought him out. It is baffling what happened to his reputation.
Regarding him being a “competent accompanist,” I believe, in that rôle, he wasn’t merely competent; he was the best. It’s not all he’s so exceptional for, but to be an amazing accompanist, where even Oistrakh or Serkin can be heard in a new light, where the accompanying orchestra doesn’t sound indifferent or overpowering, this one man had the knack for perfectly enhancing that which the star soloist was accomplishing. I think it’s rather a feather in his cap, not a detriment to his legacy.
But the naysayers are indeed wrong, as you point out; he wasn’t “merely” anything; he was a master of masters.
@@ProudBerliozian I thoroughly agree, this was a particular gift he had, like a good dance partner, always anticipating and complementing.
Pete is absolutely right. If one reads the reviews of live performances in Ormandy's Prime, we can then ignore the downright fatuous criticisms of so-called music critics who insincerely disparage him.
Among my favorite performances of Eugene ormandy: Shostakovich 6th LIVE, Rachmaninoff First Symphony, Sibelius Pohola's Daughter, Tchaikovsky 5th.
Also Mr. Hurwitz's cogent comparison between Herbert von karajan and Eugene ormandy is so magnificently relevant to understanding Ormandy's legacy and overall importance as a great great musician (and a unique one).
I always remember that the String section of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra was known as the best of all of the Orchestras in America at the time of Ormandy s reign. Thanks, David for bringing back memories
Ormandy generally followed the composer's instructions i(nstead of imprinting his own ideas) and his orchestra soundx fantastically lush yet precise.
He's the guy you go to when you want to learn about a new composer. I'm glad my first exposure to classical recordings was through his old records.
This man knows what he is talking about. Thank you!!
I first encountered Ormandy in the last 3 Shostakovich symphonies. The series Essential Classics gave me the opportunity to become more familiar with Ormandy's legacy - his Sibelius and a great deal of the Russian repertoire, as well as Debussy and some of his choral work. Although not necessarily my favorites, I derive a great deal of pleasure from the Ormandy recordings of the Missa Solemnis and the Berlioz Requiem. His Beethoven and Brahms symphony cycles are also very invigorating, and he was perhaps the finest and most compelling accompanist. Truly an underrated conductor!
Thank you for this, Ormandy was a great conductor. I think some of the eastern critics may have turned on him because Nixon admired him!
I can think of worse reasons.
David-I find it really interesting that when I go out to the Midwest to visit my in-laws and check out the LPs at thrift stores, I find Ormandy in almost every one, sometimes a bunch of them. Along with the Mitch Millers, Percy Faiths, and Herb Alperts.
Interesting that you would make that connection. As someone who grew up in the 50s and 60s with little to no exposure to classical music, my only knowledge of Ormandy was the annual Christmas album compilations that also contained the music of the others you mentioned. Now that I am - in my dotage - trying to develop an appreciation for classical music, I might have avoided Ormandy for that reason, if it weren't for Dave and many of the commenters making such a respectful case for him.
Thank you for this glowing tribute to a great conductor and orchestra. For many years I listened to the critics and regarded Ormandy as a superficial purveyor of "sonic spectaculars." Then I began listening to his recordings and realized that nothing could be further from the truth. He became, and remains, one of my top "go to" conductors of standard repertoire and, especially, 20th Century repertoire. I wish he had recorded more British music--he would have been a natural for Elgar, and, judging on this basis of his Tallis Fantasia, an outstanding interpreter of RVW as well. But you are right about the vast range of his musical sympathies.
Some of the first classical LP's I saved up my nickels, dimes and quarters to buy way back in the early 1960's were Ormandy-TPO. Thanks for recognizing a great conductor who introduced me and many others of my generation to the wonders of the classics.
You touch on this incidentally, but I must add my two cents to magnify one of my favorite aspects of Ormandy’s artistry: he was, simply, the greatest accompanist on the podium in recoded history. I have heard no other conductor accompany an artist-any artist-as well as Ormandy did. Whether it’s Rachmaninov, Francescatti, Oistrakh, Serkin, Stern-anyone and everyone-was accompanied in perfect balance; he manages, in a unique, apparently inimitable way, to assist and follow the soloist, but never subservient in his handling and coloration of the orchestra’s presence. The synergy just spontaneously runs with an uncommon equilibrium. Oftentimes I marvel at the way the orchestra sounds, even momentarily ignoring the soloist, just to bask in Ormandy’s glow.
One more comment, regarding Ormandy’s extraordinary range, and one conductor today that can be compared in that way aside for Slatkin (and you’ve done an excellent tribute to him recently:) Neeme Jarvi.
Agreed about his fine accompanying skills, which makes it all the sadder that he made so few opera recordings. I have his "Bluebeard's Castle" and Met Opera "Fledermaus", both of which I hugely enjoy, and make me wish there were more.
I think it was Rudolf Serkin who said that Ormandy was the only conductor that he would even consider performing with without a rehearsal.
For me this was one of your most impressive presentations, Dave. Thank you so much for sharing your deep knowledge!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Very, very good sir. Ormandy left us an amazing body of work, easily on par with Bernstein/New York or Solti/Chicago. His 44 year (!) tenure with the Philadelphians speaks volumes.
While no one today has the wide range of repertory that Ormandy had, there are more specialists doing more recordings of different works on more labels than there were back in Ormandy's heyday. In addition to commercial recordings, there is streaming of concerts that means that more lesser known works get heard today. It's still a great time to be a music lover.
oh the Entombment of Christ - I remember way back when as a bass singer in the Penn State University choir the day that our director made the great announcement: our choir had been selected to perform that work with the Philadelphia Orchestra - i was walking on air for a few weeks after that just imagining the glory of it all - then our director made the soul crushing announcement that some thing or another had put a halt to the project and the whole thing fell thru - oh well, my one chance to be on stage with the great Philadelphia Orchestra would never come to fruition
Great (much needed) video/discussion...thank you.
ORMANDY!!!!👍
The first Ormandy LP I bought was around 1968, a collection of marches called 'Magnificent Marches'. I was bowled over by the orchestra's playing and still have the record. Many more Ormandy LPs followed, including all of the ones you mention in your preview video. I heard Ormandy and his orchestra on tour twice, once in New Orleans in 1974 and once in Atlanta a few years later. There was a reason they used to call them 'The Fabulous Philadelphians' and they demonstrated it on both occasions. Hearing orchestral playing like that was something that only happens a few times in one's concert life. The highlight of the New Orleans concert was a Brahms 2nd symphony that glowed like a Rembrandt painting. In Atlanta they delivered the greatest Hindemith 'Mathis der Maler' I've ever heard and ever expect to hear. I can still hear every note of it in my mind's ear. One of my greatest regrets as a listener to recorded music is that the sound of the Philadelphia orchestra was never captured truthfully by Columbia, RCA, or EMI. I haven't heard every LP or CD they made but only a few of the ones I've heard remind me a bit of what they sounded like live. From an engineering standpoint most of the Philadelphia recordings I've heard are very mediocre and more than a few of them sound dreadful. A couple of corrections and I'll stop blathering. Ormandy's RCA Ives Holiday's symphony was not the first recording of the work. There was an excellent Donald Johanos Dallas SO version on Turnabout that came out in the late '60s, and Bernstein's NY Philharmonic Columbia recording also predated Ormandy's. The Shostakovich 13th, 14th, & 15th symphonies were released on single LPs before the 3 LP box set you mention was released. The covers of the CDs you show have the original LP covers. It's also true that Ormandy conducted a wider range of symphonic repertoire than Karajan, but it's a case of comparing apples and oranges. Karajan was primarily an opera conductor who limited his symphonic repertoire to a fairly narrow range of works. It's easy to forget this after all these years, especially as DG, and later EMI, heavily promoted Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic in their symphonic recordings for so many years.
"Magnificent Marches" was a magnificent LP.
Especially Rimsky's Procession of the Nobles from Mlada.
Thank you, Dave, for this much appreciated pair of videos. Having had the wonderful opportunity to listen to Eugene Ormandy and the PO in the Academy of Music many times from 1962 to 1970, permit me to add an important aspect of his craft. He most often conducted from memory. In addition to his consideration of and visual attention to soloists, his having commited the score (often complex) to memory likely contributed to his being the ultimate accompanist. Dave's top 10 are superb choices. A favorite of mine is his Ibert "Escales - Ports of Call"/Columbia (MS6478). The whole LP is great fun.
That is a great disc!
Terrific analysis of Ormandy, especially the context of where Ormandy fitted with the other conductors of the time. I see that the Ormandy Minneapolis Complete RCA Recordings are coming out. This gives me a bit of hope that Koussevitzky will be given the Sony treatment.
Hey David , hello from Salisbury in UK , you have done a great job waking me up to the joys that, because I listened to the critics for years ( I'm an idiot I know) I never listened to the great great music making of Ormandy and Szell and so many of the younger conductors and orchestras. GOOD JOB!
I wonder did you ever know of a British percussionist called Bruce Arthur. from Newcastle? I was on tour with him for a year and he was such a great guy, his house was all percussion intruments ,hundreds and hundreds. Keep doin what ya do .much appreciated
Thanks for watching. No, I never knew Bruce Arthur but from your description I wish I had!
Mr. Horwitz is right about the adaptability of the Ormandy sound.
It was not however "THE SAME SOUND" for musical epoch or individual piece
And this is where the concert goer has an enormous advantage over the casual record collector
No getting around it: we need a complete Ormandy stereo Columbia/RCA box.
I was weaned on Ormandy/Philadelphia when I got into Classical music in earnest. And, yes, trust was a major factor. And I must admit, I was drawn to his congenial countenance on the album covers as well. I know that’s superficial, but it drew me in.
When I was young and starting my now HUGE record collection, most of the first records were either Bernstein, Szell, Reiner or Ormandy. And I was first introduced to composers like Hindemith, Copland, Piston, Janacek, and so many others through those Ormandy recordings. Now that Sony has put out the mono box, I SOOO hope they will soon release a stereo box (probably boxes since he made so many stereo recordings) while I'm still around to enjoy it. I'm surprised it hasn't been done by now honestly. And hopefully it will also include the RCA recordings too.
One late Ormandy recording I really like is the remade Rachmaninoff Symphony #2 on RCA
It is not a bad thing at all to have an Ormandy recording imprinted on your mind. Our local public library bought lots of Ormandy in the 1950s and he became my standard.
Stokowski made the Philadelphia Orchestra, but Ormandy maintained that legacy for decades. It's damned hard to maintain excellence, but Ormandy did it. And he did it without being loathed or feared by musicians like Szell and Reiner. And he did it without being a charismatic public figure like Bernstein. He just did his job.
There are lots of jokes about Ormandy's "idiosyncratic" English. He apparently made George W. Bush look downright eloquent. But in conducting land, talk is overrated. The bane of every orchestra musician's life is the conductor who likes to talk. Ormandy knew what he wanted, and his musicians understood what he was after.
I had that Ives 3 Places in NE on LP - it was definitely the Sinclair version, which makes the noise even noisier (a good thing). It was coupled with the Roy Harris 3rd Symphony, which was a very beautiful, poetic performance. Less vigorous than Bernstein, but really songful. The Holiday Symphony was on a separate LP - also a great recording.
I remember that Shostakovich 14th recording - I wanted to buy it in a record store (ca. 1979), but my mom wouldn't let me; the record cover was too lurid. She had the money, I was a kid, and that was that.
The Tchaikovsky 7th Symphony was a dog. Philly and Ormandy played it well, but Gawd, the piece sucks. If there ever was a piece that was GUARANTEED to be a hit if it was even just OK, that was the one. But it isn't OK.
Mr. Newkirk is of course correct in reminding us how difficult it is to maintain excellence and in the case of the Philadelphia Orchestra I would add the word "eminence."
However as a professor of French and Italian, I I need to debunk the silly off repeated nonsense about the conductor's allegedly fractured English.
He not only spoke excellent English but was very witty and idiomatic within it, a language he learned only here.
I hasten to remind Americans how badly they speak foreign languages generally and Ormandy spoke excellent German in addition to his native Hungarian
The lack of respect for Ormandy’s time in Philly is so puzzling…
Especially taking into account Sergei Rachmaninoff's or Dimitri Shostakovitch's high praise for them every time they would collaborate in their recordings of his works. And I much prefer Ormandy at the helm than I did Stokowski, no question. David's assertion that Ormandy was our version of Von Karajan was spot on.
My late mother had dozens of Ormandy recordings, so when I started collecting; I was kinda skeptical. However, I quickly started to appreciate his greatness. I know there's plenty of Szell fans, but I tend to opt for Ormandy's Richard Strauss, Hindemith, and even Beethoven.
I found a site that showed his discography and recording dates, and he and the Philadelphia Orchestra worked at an astonishingly efficient rate, but it never seems glib. Sometimes, it seems a good chunk of their season was getting released...just not live. As for those live concerts, my friend who worked at a record store loved listening to stories from a customer who said that Ormandy's live concerts were among the most consistent...and even better than what got released.
Szell is the most overrated conductor I've ever heard as a serious listener. No color, no bass (treble ONLY), overly driven "music making), percussive, precision for precision sake. LIMITED REPERTOIRE EFFECTIVELY
Great video. In your comments about music collecting in the 80s you mentioned vinyl and CDs but not the other medium - audio cassettes. You had your vinyl discs at home, but for most of the 80s the cassette was the only musical format you could play in your car. Car CD players were not available for your car, except in the form of a large CD player in your trunk that you loaded up at before the trip and played via a cable leading into your car stereo. Even at home cassettes were more convenient than LPs since the cassette player would auto-reverse. Either way you could hear the complete Beethoven's 9th at one go. When the CDs came along you might have the same work in four media - 78s., LPs, cassettes, and CDs - to say nothing of reel to reel tapes.. What a mess. The label on an early Leonard Slatkin cassette gave up the game. It clearly stated that this cassette was NOT going to give you the full orchestral sound you would get on a CD.
Thank you for this video and your comments.
You are very welcome.
Dave: Ormandy did a killer Sibelius 2 on RCA. And I remember an exciting Ormandy/RCA "Pines" in CD4 quad with the six offstage brass in the rear channels. Those were indeed the days.
Especially because the Pines does not call for 6 offstage brass bands, just six additional brass sometimes placed out in the hall somewhere.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Right. I meant six players...not the Berlioz "Requiem"...;-)
Hello Dave!
A while ago I discovered a video of Cyprien Katsaris talking about his first meeting with Ormandy. This happened because they were going to make a disc containing the Liszt/Menter/Tchaikovsky Ungarische Zigeunerweisen (Concerto in Hungarian Style) and other Liszt goodies. What do you think about this peculiar piece? Do you think that it belongs on the “Interesting Ormandy” disc list?
Thank you for reading and take care.
It's lots of fun.
A follow-up to a previous reply to David's correct debunking of the stupid, facile misapprehension of the ormandy sound.
It was in fact, and as a concert-goer concert-goer I posit this, an exceedingly flexible colorful chameleon-like sonority and instrument that was able to adapt itself to any any Musical period Or composer.
my top 5 of ormandy recording....1...manfred symphonies (tchaikovsky)(cbs)...2...gershwin piano concerto in f with philippe entremont ( cbs)...3...saint saens symphonies no 3 ( organ)with micheal murray (telarc)....bartok ,concerto pour orchestre ( rca)....and finally my best best.....rachmaninoff symphonies no 2 ....all versions ( cbs,rca)....
As to repertoire, Ormandy certainly had way more guts than Karajan, as you so rightly point out. However, Karajan channelled a lot of his energies into opera, whereas I think Ormandy never conducted a single opera, not even in concert? Am I correct? This could be shortcoming to some, and maybe it's why Ormandy was not so highly regarded, but that means nothing to me and I'm certainly an Ormandy fan forever!
Die Fledermaus at the Met - in English
Hm some famous conductors never dabbled in opera for some reason. Celibidache is another
Ormandy recorded Bartók's "Bluebeard", and there's a 1951 "Fledermaus" at the Metropolitan Opera, both in English. I have those, and they're excellent, but I don't know of any other full opera recordings by him.
Eugene Ormandy, I am reasonably certain, conducted alive complete Tosca as well as a Madame Butterfly house in California at the Hollywood Bowl I believe
Do you think Sony will follow up with a box containing all of Ormandy's stereo recordings?
I have no idea.
Two or three weeks ago the stereo box was available for pre-order on Amazon. No price or number of CDs. The release date was late March or April. A couple days later the announcement was abruptly deleted. I will allow for hallucination; but I don't think so. I check Amazon listings carefully.
@@geraldmartin7703 we can only hope they will release it.
Perhaps they are delaying Ormandy in favour of the forthcoming Mitropoulis box.
@@geraldmartin7703 Did you see images of the set? I regularly look for info re the longed-for Ormandy/Philly/Stereo box and I've not seen a single image anywhere. Not saying you're mistaken. I hope - of course - that you're right and the box is imminent. Just curious...
Do you think Sony will finally release a big Ormandy stereo box this year?
I haven't a clue.
More than an Austrian Ormandy, I think Karajan was (or rather evolved into) an Austrian version of his predecessor Stokowski; a white-maned conductor-hypnotist chiefly concerned with beauty of sound.
Many years ago, when I was young and impressionable, I read Martin Bookspan's book 101 MASTERPIECES OF MUSIC AND THEIR COMPOSERS, and probably internalized Bookspan's biases. His contempt for Herbert von Karajan is very well-known, but Eugene Ormandy to Bookspan was, for lack of a better word, a hack, his performances invariably tired and uninspired. So I owe Ormandy a relisten.
My one dispute with Mister Hurwitz resides in his almost obligatory need to place Bernstein and Szell above ormandy.
FRANKLY, I DONT HEAR IT !!
In the case of the former, his self-indulgent tempi, sloppy often careless ensemble, plus the glacially slow tempo off his later performances contradict his inherent superiority.
As for George Szell, forgive the redundancy honestly his over driven and overly percussive performances especially in music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, well, I find them ugly
With Ormandy and Philadelphia, I think it's more about the orchestra than the conductor. In a sense, the orchestra carried Ormandy on their shoulders.
Everyone posting here is in agreement that the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy was one of the all time greatest. We know it and I don't doubt that every member of the orchestra knew it - and was proud of the fact. If Ormandy was, as you infer, a less than stellar talent, a passenger, WHY did they put up with him for forty plus years?
@@davidgoulden5956 You know, in the annals of classical recordings, Ormandy's name rarely comes up in regards to recommendations. I'll stick with Reiner, Munch, Szell, Bernstein.
@@gregwhitaker7829 You know, you are fully entitled to your listening preferences. But you didn't answer my original (and simple) question, did you?
@@davidgoulden5956 Beats the hell out of me why he was there for so long .
Does that answer your simple question?
@@gregwhitaker7829 Not really, no. So let's quit while we're ahead. Best, D.