Both the premiere and this subsequent recording were with with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. Columbia issued the Bartók as a 78 set (M-674) that year, and then transferred it to the new LP format in 1949. There, it was coupled with the Ormandy recording of the Symphony No. 21 of the then-living Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky (today usually transliterated as Myaskovsky), set down in 1947.
 |
| Sándor and Bartók |
Sándor was a Bartók pupil and was closely associated with that master. He would record the Third Concerto two more times, first with the young Michael Gielen and a Vienna orchestra in 1959, and then with Adám Fischer and the Hungarian State Orchestra in 1990. As a bonus to the Philadelphia recording, I've transferred the Vienna rendition and included it in the download. Originally on the Vox label, it is an early stereo effort, with Sándor crowded over to the right of the sound stage. My transfer is from a later Turnabout pressing.
Both Bartók performances are quite good. As might be expected, the Philadelphians have more tonal allure than the Vienna band, but the playing on both is alert and Sándor is impressive, as always. |
| Miaskovsky |
Don't skip the Miaskovsky symphony, which is well worth getting to know and wonderfully handled by Ormandy and his troops. The Chicago Symphony and Frederick Stock commissioned the work, which dates from 1940, but did not record it, to my knowledge. The first recording was by Nathan Rachlin (aka Natan Rahklin) with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra in 1941.
 |
| Bartók 78 set cover |
Both the Bartók 78 set and the subsequent LP have covers by Alex Steinweiss. The LP art has fun with stereotypes, as that artist often did. I'm not sure what he is depicting on the 78 cover. A piano hammer? An avocado? Perhaps someone more perceptive than I am can decipher it.
40 comments:
Link (Apple lossless format):
https://www.mediafire.com/?n2wyzfuc23i10os
Thank you, Buster, for this wonderful transfer of my favorite pianist in this concerto. I have this in a transfer made locally. THANK YOU!!!!
My pleasure, Maria!
what a wonderfully intriguing offering. thank you very much. -a.v.
You're welcome, Alfred!
Thanks so much for that historical recording. And also for adding that with Gielen....I discovered this PC3 in that Viennese version actually....
The Miaskovsky is also captivating.
Ormandy was a great conductor, not only for concertos....
centuri - Of course! I've had that Gielen record myself since the Turnabout issue came out in 1972.
I see an ear. And maybe a phonograph record melting through the needle into the ear. With some piano keys sprinkled on for flavor? Perhaps I just need to get out of the house more...
Ernie - I am glad I am not the only one who is bewildered.
Another gem, Buster. Thanks for both the transfers and the wonderful covers! My first exposure to the piece also came from Sandor/Gielen (loved the "Sleeping Gypsy" on the original Vox jacket), and I subsequently acquired Sandor/Ormandy c/w the Miaskovsky symphony in the later Columbia Special Products LP issue.
AC - Ah, yes, forgot about the CSP version. It seems to me I had that pressing way back when. Wonder what I did with it.
Thanks for the sublime music!
Richard - You're welcome!
Buster muito obrigado pelo post e pela oportunidade de ouvir os que foram inspiração para o Dave Brubeck que foi o meu pianista preferido jamais pensei que seria possivel muito obrigado!!!!
Buster, a SPLENDID performance of a great masterpiece, done with perfection! Good sound for the time, too.
Here is another classic old mono record of Bartok by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphians: the Concerto for Orchestra, recorded on 14 February 1954 in the Academy of Music, on Columbia.
Discogs website has more information:
https://www.discogs.com/Bartók-The-Philadelphia-Orchestra-Eugene-Ormandy-Concerto-For-Orchestra/release/4171931
The transfer was not, unfortunately, one I did from a really mint 6-eye pressing, I am sorry to say; it was found by me on a now 'abandoned' blog which has had many links removed. The very well informed musician who put it all together had terrific taste in music, and comprehensive knowledge; but he had NO IDEA how to transfer an old record, producing quite often total abominations (per my point of view) that luckily *could* be cleaned up (as long as his pressing wasn't badly offcenter: a frequent problem that I'm glad wasn't present on his copy of Columbia ML 4973.) I did what I could to reduce the surface noise and get the frequency response back into a general resemblance to the original Ormandy issues of that same time period; it's not perfect--but not unlistenable.
The cover image is especially beautiful for Columbias of this time period; I've appended a small thumbnail to the mp3 file but it may be seen in larger scale on the Discogs page cited above.
This is not the most exciting performance ever recorded, but I think it's surely one of the more musically sound and satisfying ones.
https://www20.zippyshare.com/v/PUP4qHj4/file.html
(32 MB, zipped mp3; file expires in 30 days or around 9/29/18.)
8H Haggis
I might revise my estimate of the performance a bit, after listening to the final movement: the distant miking slightly vitiates the experience, but here Ormandy is VERY intense and fast, generating lots of drama. Yesterday I had the misfortune of hearing a brand new 24 bit hi res recording of the same work by a conductor named Hrusa: dull as dishwater compared to Eugene--more's the pity.
8HHH
Thanks, 8H - a favorite work in a performance I've not heard before.
Here is another Eugene Ormandy gem, which I cannot seem to find in an American or European CD issue: Zoltan Kodaly's "Concerto for Orchestra" (an interesting contrast to Bartok's much better known work of the same title), recorded 8 February 1967 for Columbia Masterworks. It was issued with the same composer's Marosszek Dances & Dances of Galanta (items which have been reissued on Sony CD releases) but *not* the Kodaly, I believe. I have also performances of this work by Ferencsik, Dorati, and Kodaly himself, but EO and the PO beat them all hands-down. I had the LP but not in the past 30 years; a friend of mine on the east coast just made a 'hi end' transfer and it follows, in lossless FLAC format. The disk was in pristine shape but he explained that it had a tiny bit of inner-groove distortion though it had not been played beforehand. I am not providing the overside works as they are on in-print commercial CDs.
I believe that this is one of the finest performances of twentieth-century music ever done by Maestro Ormandy; it LEAPS from the speakers with utter commitment, energy, and musical dedication.
https://www41.zippyshare.com/v/wJv1nSJD/file.html
89 MB FLAC file, zipped, with embedded original LP cover scan of MS-7034. File will be removed from net around 10/3/18.
8H Haggis
The Bartok is beautifully played and well recorded. The Kodaly is easily the best I've heard; I have the composer's own performance around here somewhere.
{ORMANDY EXTRAVAGANZA}
I have decided to slip this particular subject in HERE though it's not necessarily going to be noticed unless one looks up the tag for Eugene Ormandy.
This will be a series of NINE posts of Forgotten Ormandys: mostly mono recordings but a few stereos that have slipped into near-oblivion. Installment No. 1 is as follows:
1. A 1975 Columbia Masterworks stereo release of two of the most obscure and little known Ormandy performances, but done to a "T": Bartok's Divertimento, and Ginastera's Concerto for String Orchestra. I had to go all the way to Moscow for this one (figuratively.)
2. Released three or four years into Ormandy's return to RCA: the Bartok Second Piano Concerto, with Alexis Weissenberg; and the still rarely heard Bartok Four Pieces for Orchestra--apparently, the album claims, the premiere recording. Again, this came from a Russian blog.
3. In 1981, RCA released one of the most powerful Eroicas I've ever heard, vastly surpassing the one EO and the PO did in the 1960s, with an intensity and drama that are well beyond routine: the work of a true master. This is an LP rip by a Russian collector, uploaded as a FLAC that had no corrections whatsoever. I had to detick and do a bit of LF NR to get rid of a slight amount of turntable rumble; the sound is VERY, very good!
4. Ormandy recorded Hungarian-American composer George Barati's rather acerbic and serious 3-movement work "Concerto for String Orchestra" in late 1962, subsidized by an award from the Naumberg Competition. I owned this LP many years ago (a mono copy), and very rarely ever heard the overside, the 2nd Symphony by George Rochberg, a serial work given an intense performance by the NY Phil under Werner Torkanowsky. This is not my old copy, but rather a stereo LP rip I found -- again -- on a Russian blog. I knew Mr. Barati and did some radio programs with him in the early seventies; he was very proud of this work and pleased with Ormandy's performance. I only have the Barati side from this LP; the sound is good stereo, from a very competent amateur rip.
5. Here is something COMPLETELY different: this c.1959 stereo album must have been a best-seller at the time, but for some reason I've never heard it before until very recently. I include it here as it has a very florid performance, with lots of string fluorishes and figurations, of Corelli's Christmas Concerto, sounding about as "souped up" as humanly possible. Also, EKN, the Mendelssohn Octet scherzo, and Bach's Air: typical "pops" stuff Ormandy would not have played in concert--but recorded to make Columbia Records (and the orchestra's financiers) happy campers.
{474 MB, FLACs and mp3s; cover images & track info; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, and may not be online after about 11/20/18. More to come!}
https://www64.zippyshare.com/d/0pyksaKn/818/__Forgotten%20Ormandy%201.zip
-or-
https://www64.zippyshare.com/v/0pyksaKn/file.html
8H Haggis
Correction of one point in the post above: I mistyped the date; these were uploaded on 11/20/18 and PROBABLY will be deleted by ZS by *12*/20/18.
8HH
{Ormandy Extravaganza - Installment No. 2}
Here is the next group of Forgotten Ormandys, and all in mono in this second installment.
1. Tchaikovsky: Two LPs - ML 4997, from c.1955, with Romeo & Juliet, 1812 Festival Overture, and Marche Slave. No cannon or "realistic" carillon effect, as in the competition from Dorati on Mercury; but the orchestra is a little more polished and has more weight than the Minneapolis Symphony. The earlier release, ML 4121, was a 1949 early Columbia LP release with a 1946 recording (originally issued, of course, on 78s) of the Serenade in C. The diskmate was a movement from PIT's Suite 4 with Rodzinski, and if all of you kiddies clean your plates, perhaps I'll upload that one day!
2. Zino Francescatti, violin, at the absolute peak of his career, in two mono recordings of the Beethoven Violin Concerto (ML-4371 of 1950, in very good sound!) and Brahms Concerto in D, on ML-5114 from 1955.
3. Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn, a 1946 recording reissued on early Columbia 10-inch LP (ML-2066.)
4. A Richard Wagner program, from ML-4865, released in 1954: these mono performances are VASTLY superior in drama, intensity, phrasing, and execution to the relatively prosaic and mundane ones that were re-recorded in stereo in the 1960s. Lohengrin- Prelude To Act III; Die Walkure- Ride Of The Valkyries, and Magic Fire Music; Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg
Act 3 Prelude, Dance of the Appretices, and Entry of the Masters. (The Tannhauser excerpts from this album are missing and I haven't turned up a transfer yet.)
5. From "Virtuosi Philadelphia", a rather odd collection of short pieces that showcase various sections of the orchestra -- a c.1956 release on ML-5129 -- the only two tracks that so far I've been able to locate are EO's own arrangement of Paganini's Moto Perpetuo, and the Fritz Stein orchestration of Gabrieli's Sonata Pian e Forte.
I was able to harvest these items over the years from (a) two different Russian sites; (b) YouTube; and (c) a now-defunct classical music blog. In several cases, the files uploaded were NON-declicked, noisy, and rumbly (and in superfluous 2 channel mode) so I edited them, cleaning up the sound, and re-encoded them as FLACs. The mp3s were as-received, in tolerable condition.
{407 MB, FLACs and mp3s; cover images & track info; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, and may not be online after about 12/21/18. More to come!}
https://www102.zippyshare.com/d/m3e2SyPc/919/Forgotten%20Ormandy%202.zip
-or-
https://www102.zippyshare.com/v/m3e2SyPc/file.html
8H Haggis
I believe I have that Wagner disk somewhere if you want the Tannhauser excerpts. (Assuming I can locate it.)
Well, SURE I do, Buster! If it's consistent with the other items, it is likely to be much better than the stereo version.
8HH
{Ormandy Extravaganza - III; Part 1 of 2 Parts}
The next installment of the Forgotten Ormandy records includes the following:
1. Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky. EO and the PO recorded this work first -- with the great Jennie Tourel -- in 1945 in a Columbia 78 rpm album that is currently available on the Internet Archive in either Ogg Vordis format, or mp3:
https://archive.org/details/ProkofievAlexanderNevsky
Here is the 'stereo remake' from 1979 in an amateur rip -- encoded as ape lossless files -- from the RCA stereo LP, in an amateur transfer I obtained from a Russian blog. The performance is not quite as ferocious as Reiner's or Abbado's classic stereo albums, but it richly sonorous in the Ormandy manner; and I can vividly recall playing it on my weekly "audiophile" radio program on KDFC when it was first released, and getting appreciative audience response. If you're not familiar with Ape lossless encoding, there are numerous free apps (at least for Windows) that will transfer into another format of your choice; I can recommend Pazera's Free Audio Extractor, for one.
2. In February of 1954, Ormandy made the first of his two recordings of Rachmaninoff's choral cantata, "The Bells", with the Temple University Choir (a Columbia mono LP that coupled Rach's Isle of the Dead, recorded in November of that year.) I always found this record to be quite sub-standard compared to the state of the art for the time, from RCA Victor, Decca, and Mercury. The LP rip that I found on a Russian blog had some further reduction of clarity, and imperfect surfaces at times. I did what I could, and re-encoded as lossless FLACs.
3. In February of 1953, Ormandy recorded his second album of Brahms Symphony No. 2, replacing his old 1940 Victor Red Seal 78 set. I find this to be an entirely successful performance, somewhat tighter, lighter, and more dramatic than his 1966 stereo remake--though, as usual for the time, Columbia engineers added a rather hollow "stairwell echo" mixed in to enrich the dry sound of the Academy of Music; sadly the Columbia tapes of this period seem always to have preserved the LAST released, 'enhanced' copies so I don't expect that a better one exists. This rip, from a Russian blog, was -- otherwise -- a good job.
4. The April 1960 Columbia Masterworks stereo LP recording by Ormandy of the exciting symphonic suite "Paganiniana" by Alfredo Casella is the type of work in which he and the orchestra absolutely excelled. It was reissued on the Odyssey budget label, but I have not seen a domestic US CD (though *probably* one has existed, briefly, SOMEWHERE in the world--probably in Japan.)
{End of Part 1 of 2, by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2, plus DL links}
5. In December, 1965, Columbia released a Masterworks stereo album featuring John Williams, guitarist, playing the Rodrigo Concierto di Aranjuez, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco's charming Guitar Concerto No. 1. The power and suavity of the Philadelphians, in the second movement of the Rodrigo, was absolutely bewitching; and in the modern Italian concerto, the artists created a performance that, to me (not a guitarist since childhood!) seemed definitive. But Williams re-recorded these pieces with a smaller orchestra in England about a decade later, and those versions have seemed to utterly supplant the ones with Ormandy. I include here my own 'casual' LP rip to analogue cassette tape of the Castelnuovo-Tedesco concerto, a work that deserves more attention than it has received. In the late nineties, I made a CDR of that old tape, and thus is has a bit less definition than one might expect from a true pure digitizing of a mint LP; that's the best I could do with the material at hand.
6. Finally: Ormany recorded a *nearly* uncut version of Gliere's sprawling, dramatic, and very dark "Ilya Mourometz" symphony twice: a mono version in November 1956 for Columbia Masterworks, and a stereo remake for RCA Victor in October, 1971. The monophonic album was never reissued, and the stereo had at least one *brief* imported CD that doesn't seem to be widely available now. Both performances are wonderful; I tend to find the earlier one to be a bit more brilliantly executed and powerful. This Lp rip came from a now-defunct American blogspot collection of old, out of print, records; the sound is just a bit "distanced" from the LP but is otherwise unoffensive and tolerable.
{437 MB, Ape, FLACs and mp3s; original covers and track info included; LIMITED TIME OFFERING, which will *probably* be discontinued by ZS after 12/22/18.}
https://www75.zippyshare.com/d/g084K0Rf/16/Forgotten%20Ormandy%203.zip
-or-
https://www75.zippyshare.com/v/g084K0Rf/file.html
8H Haggis
{ORMANDY EXTRAVAGANZA - IV, by 8H Haggis; Part 1 of 2 Parts}
Next installment, Austro-Germanic music:
1. Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C, "The Great"; Philadelphia Orchestra, Ormandy; Columbia Masterworks MS 7272, 28 Dec. 1966. For years, Columbia issued standard-rep performances by these artists that were generally almost *ignored* by critics, in favor of much more sexy and flamboyantly famous artists. Whereas, the conductor was wildly popular in his "home base", and was always given full support by his orchestra's management. I think that as he aged, many persons began to regard Ormandy as 'an old fuddy-duddy' who wasn't very interesting; he was *incredibly* vigorous and demonstrative on the podium, conveying enormous energy even in his old age; but the performances sometimes seemed a bit impersonal (as he eschewed demonstrative 'interpretive' agogics, in favor of an absolutely 'straight' scansion of the text.) From today's perspective, after the 'period' movement has gained ascension, Ormandy often seems to be exactly RIGHT in his perspective, being the ultimately eclectic artist who was rarely out of his depth with any style. This Great C Major record is one such example. The digitization of a somewhat noisy LP was done by an east-coast acquaintance of mine, many years ago; I applied some modern software to declick and denoise mildly.
2. Ormandy's records of the works of the Strauss family were always best-sellers; they started HERE with sessions in Minneapolis in January of 1934 and 1935. The sound quality is surprisingly good, lacking the noise of typical shellac 78s, coming from a rip of a c.1949 RCA 45 rpm reissue set, probably using the metal matrices.
3. Ormandy made, in Minneapolis, what I believe is likely the SECOND recording, ever, of the complete Bruckner 7th symphony (preceded by a 1927 version by Horenstein, and even an acoustical of one movement, conducted by Klemperer in, I believe, 1924.) The 1934 performance of the symphony by EO was fast and tight, 'accurate' but totally lacking in the rhetoric and dramatically effective agogics of the typical approach of any of the great Brucknerians of the last few decades. After 1967 he ended decades of association with Columbia Records and moved back to RCA Victor, with a stereo remake of the Bruckner being one of the first issues, taken down in October 1968. In fact, aside from much broader tempi, the general sound quality was similar to his 78 set, as both were recorded in the dry acoustics of the Academy of Music. I can recall being slightly put off by this 'clinical' sound when I bought that issue, with great anticipation. But even as soon as a year later, when RCA Victor released it on open reel 7.5 ips quarter-inch (non-Dolbyized) tape, the producers decided to add GOBS of artificial reverberation, probably to duplicate the famous Columbia "Philadelphia Sound". I find this a bit much, personally wishing for something about 'half-way' between the two extremes. But, interpretively, Ormandy's performance has matured and deepened, with much broader tempi that are now more 'mainstream'. This was unavailable for decades, and after much frustration (having given away my LP copy when I retired from broadcasting) I finally discovered that a friend of mine owned a "new old stock" open reel tape; he felt it was rather too hissy to be tolerated, so a light pass of denoising was laid on. Thus, the result is sonically inferior to a modern pure digitizing of the original Dolby-A stereo master tapes, which one may obtain in a very costly, limited-edition, import CD set. I suggest that this transfer be used merely to help decide if the performance warrants your purchase of the TRUE document.
{End of Part 1 of 2, by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2 parts, plus DL links}
4. Finally, here is a brief "students' work" by Arnold Schoenberg, a 1943 composition for wind band that was first premiered in the United States by Richard Franko Goldman's wind ensemble, and later in the full orchestration, by Serge Koussevitzky. This is the latter arrangement (NOT to be confused with Schoenberg's landmark serial work, Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31.) This 11-minute theme and variations piece, in the conventional tonal harmonic system, is -- in the context of Schoenberg's oeuvre -- almost a "light pops piece": practically a collision of Schoenberg with Korngold! It is one of the tracks from MS-7041, recorded on 10/63: the major work of which is Berg's Lulu Suite, plus Webern's early "Im Sommerwind". (If I *have* to endure the Berg, I'd prefer to play Dorati's rather more sinister and chamber-like Mercury record; I'm not providing Ormandy's performance in this group of compilations as purely an expression of personal indifference!)
{419 MB, FLACs and mp3s; original covers and track info included; LIMITED TIME OFFERING, which will *probably* be discontinued by ZS after 12/22/18.}
https://www75.zippyshare.com/d/5wc3l0YQ/775/Forgotten%20Ormandy%204.zip
-or-
https://www75.zippyshare.com/v/5wc3l0YQ/file.html
8H Haggis
{Ormandy Extravaganza - V, by 8H Haggis - Part 1 of 2}
Here is about as eclectic a grouping of Forgotten Ormandy records as any I could put together from the vast discography of this famous conductor.
1. This first item is a late-forties Columbia "tombstone" Lp, consisting of recordings made a few years earlier by a mechanical (albeit high-fidelity) process, predating magnetic tape. In this period of his career, Ormandy "aped" Toscanini, with a polar-opposite approach with respect to his great predecessor, Stokowski: now, using generally fastest-practical tempi, and high tension, Ormandy's performances have nothing of the ponderous, overblown manner he sometimes lapsed into, in the sixties.
Here is a crackling-good reading of the suite from Strauss's Der Rosekavalier (Nov. 11, 1947), plus an earlier Death and Transfiguration (literally 'pieced together' from sessions on Nov. 19, 1945; Jan 24, 1946; and April 4, 1946.) This does not mean that the latter recording is similar to the overly-edited tapes that have "a thousand inserts"; these were long takes on 16" acetate 33.3 rpm transcription disks that would duplicate the time-divisions of a 12" 78 (i. e., about 4'20", optimized for changers.) Unfortunately the LP reveals that the tape dubbed source had some high frequency wobble/phase shift, so if the actual master disks EXIST (doubtful!) they SHOULD be recopied direct to digital and properly edited AGAIN...as the album is absolutely musically first rate and memorable!
2. Next, one of the very first issues produced for Ormandy's and the Philadelphia Orchestra'
s return to RCA Victor in 1968; but an item one was surprised to see: a collection of concerti by Georg Philippe Telemann. The Japanese Ormandy discography online (based on Mike Gray's research) stipulates these data: Four concertos for various instruments; 68/06/10,11; de Lancie,Morris, Hewitt (Oboes), Carol, Madison, de Pasquale(Violins), Mayes(Cello), Scott(Contrabass), Johnson, Rosenfeld, McComas (trumpets), Jones (Horn), Carlyss (timpany.) This is my own transfer from LSC-3057 though, unfortunately, it was not a very good pressing.
3. Next, a 10" Columbia mid-fifties LP release of two Vivaldi concerti for 2 violins; if memory serves, this was sourced from a post on the now-defunct public Satyr blog, using a Fontata pressing. The fiddlers are David Oistrach and Isaac Stern, with Ormandy's assistant conductor, William Smith, harpsichord.
{End of Part 1 of 2, by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2, plus DL links}
4. Ormandy recorded Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade in four analogue sessions spaced over a quarter of a century. Here is the second one, from 23 December 1953, on red-label Columbia CL 850, released in 1956. I have *no* idea why this was not a conventional Masterworks ML series release; the CL series was largely devoted to 10" pop issues, and this was a 12" longplay (two years earlier, Columbia had reissued Ormandy's 1949 performance on ML 4888 Masterworks; perhaps that was still in print.) Could be that it had a different distribution/promotion, to try to introduce a famous and popular classical piece to a new audience. Or, the CL series *was* occasionally used to reissue older, previously deleted, recordings at a budget price (Ormandy's New World and Gaite Parisienne had been released in the CL series in 1955.) At any rate, this performance was given much richer and more vivid sound, with better presence, than the general run-of-the-mill Ormandy Columbias from c.1949-1952.
5. One of the discographic glories of Ormandy's golden autumn digital recordings for EMI was his masterful 1978 album of Sibelius's Four Legends from the Kalevala, a recording of such a flawless combination of majesty, power, and insight as to be beyond criticism. But on 16 December 1951, he nearly equalled this achievement, the only drawback being the oddly uninvolving sound quality: apparently, a single mike NOT at the ideal placement, in a hollow acoustic. (Imagine if C. Robert Fine, Lewis Layton, or Kenneth Wilkinson had been able to record the orchestra in those days!)
6. The next item -- the Viotti Violin COncerto No. 22 -- is an important (but now neglected) work that had a deep influence on Johannes Brahms. This particular record, made on 26 March 1961 with Isaac Stern, has fallen through the cracks. The overside was a Bartok concerto that *has* been reissued on at least two different CDs that I'm familiar with; but not the Viotti. This is my own transfer of a 6-Eyes label "radio station promotional copy" that I obtained umpteen years ago; it wasn't badly worn and still provides great musical satisfaction!
7. Finally: Ormandy had a very high regard for Philadelphia composer Richard Yardumian, whose "Desolate City" tone poem he had premiered immediately after WW2, when the composer was still a private in the US Army. Of Armenian heritage, Yardumian became greatly involved with the religious and philosophical movement of Emanual Swedenborg, and wrote a significant body of works influenced by the spiritual movement of Swedenborgianism; and Ormandy recorded several of these sacred pieces. I have *all* of these records of Yardumian--but can report that only ONE piece has ever impressed me at all: the short, "pops" Armenian Suite, with its haunting use of folk music, begun in 1937 (I confess that the rest all seem to be dreary, colorless, lacking in memorable lyricism, and ultimately -- to me -- quite boring.) At Ormandy's behest, in 1954 Yardumian added its last, seventh, movement and gave its premiere and first recording (taped on 14 March 1954.) This transfer was done for me by an ardent gramophile and collector of old instruments and records, my friend A. D. in Chicago.
{414 MB, FLACs and mp3s; original covers and track info included; LIMITED TIME OFFERING, which will *probably* be discontinued by ZS after 12/23/18.}
https://www66.zippyshare.com/d/oNnJ3qaW/969/Forgotten%20Ormandy%205.zip
-or-
https://www66.zippyshare.com/v/oNnJ3qaW/file.html
8H Haggis
{ORMANDY EXTRAVAGANZA - VI, by 8H Haggis: Part 1 of 3}
From 78s to stereo: another compilation of largely Forgotten Ormandys.
1. First Chair; Columbia ML-4629. This was an influential release that spawned at least three successive issues: the Telemann concero record from RCA Victor that I included in the previous Extravaganza, volume 5; and two subsequent volumes of First Chair Encores for stereo Masterworks (which will be in my next bucket of releases.) The current items were mostly recorded monophonically on April 5 & 6, 1952, and include short concert pieces by American composers Griffes and Phillips; the famous Purcell Trumpet Voluntary (actually by Jeremiah Clark); a Handel Oboe concerto with the magnificent artistry of Marcel Tabuteau; and pieces by Weber, Beethoven, and Chabrier. I don't recall there being ANY reissue in any format; classical radio stations kept a copy and used it fairly frequently for "fillers" in my early days in the business. Some "unofficial" releases on CDR have been marketed, being merely rips from a clean copy of the vinyl release. This transfer was done by my good friend A. D., in Chicago. The sound is distinctly "old fashioned" and rather lacking in presence: typical for Columbia's sub-standard work in that period. My recommendation to my fellow restorers: don't PILE ON fake stereo echo to this one! It's already too distant and hollow.
2. Now we jump back about 5 or 6 years in time, to the late 78 period: when Columbia was doing BETTER recordings of Ormandy! The early LP combines two 78 sets, of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite (my, how EO was in his element here!) in a session from 22 November 1947, with really satisfying, full-bodied sound, and a performance of terrific power; plus Respighi's Feste Romane, transcribed on 18 April 1946. Bryan Bishop, on his superb "Shellackophile" blog, has provided a fine transfer of the shellac set; it's interesting to make comparisons against the LP issue, both releases sourced from the same 33.3 rpm acetate high fidelity transcription disks. There is just THAT much extra electricity and tension in this performance, compared to EO's stereo versions of 1960 and 1974, to make up for the monophonic sonic format. I cannot for the life of me recall where I got this transfer; I added the Discogs cover & track information. It was a credible job but I did do some extra cleanup, and re-encoded as FLACs. Frankly, these performances are SO involving that if you play the whole record through, you're utterly drained and exhausted by the experience!
3. Now, from what I might jestingly refer to as "Ormandy's Blowsy Period", the mid-fifties: a nonetheless interesting collection of both familiar, and not so overplayed, works of the Strauss family. Highight is Ormandy's arrangement of a Fledermaus suite (Jan. 1955) plus an earlier 1952 recording of the Overture (perhaps a gesture to Ormandy's very successful 1950 Met performances and recording of the opera, one of his very few appearances in this form); and among others, Josef Strauss's "mock-dramatic" waltz, Sword and Lyre, with its almost comically fustian introduction. This Columbia Masterworks 6-Eyes LP (ML 5166) released in 1956 was supplied to me by my good friend A. D., in Chicago: a collector of mavelous old "period" phonographs and innumerable valuable shellac and early LP issues.
{End of Part 1 of 3, by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 3}
4. When I first heard this next record, Ormandy's third, of four versions of Dvorak's New World Symphony, taped in London on Nov. 7, 1966, I was fairly blown away: like Arturo Toscanini, Ormandy apparently approached such over-familiar and over-played works as if for the first time. Perhaps the sweeping musical values in this performance, and its unusual electricity, were generated by Ormandy's appearance before not his Philadelphians, but rather the London Symphony -- then under its revitalization after some years of ferocious drilling by the Hungarians Dorati, Solti, and Kertesz; and now at what British critics referred to as "its peak" under Andre Previn (who was often exploring the great concert repertoire for the first time, but as a thoroughly brilliant, grounded professional with deepest competence as an executor, composer, and interpreter.) The result is a performance that I find SO gripping that it just sweeps me along from start to finish. When I was 'forced' by constraints to choose JUST ONE record of the piece, for a radio station classical music syndication series, I selected *this* performance, figuring that it could stand to be heard on a fairly regular basis, without boring and tiring jaded listeners.
5. From a Russian blog, I obtained an mp3-rip of the 1951 Columbia recording of Haydn's Symphony No. 45, "Farewell", that has quite above-average recording quality for the typical work of this rather erratic label. In that same year, Columbia did an Ormandy Rach 2 that has such PUTRID, horrid sound that I won't include it in these compilations; it almost sickens me to try to listen to it. Yet, here, the sound has richness and depth, with correct balances and ratio of incident to direct sound. Marvelous! And, Ormandy has a reasonably light touch that yet lacks nothing of the drama and intensity intrinsic in this Sturm-und-Drang work.
6. Next, my own transfer of one side of Columbia MS-6398, the 'stereo remake' of the Poulenc Organ Concerto, with E. Power Biggs, from 7 October 1962. Biggs originally taped this concerto for Columbia with the so-called "Columbia Symphony Orchestra" (probably members of the BSO) under that famous orchestra's assistant conductor, Richard Burgin, about ten years earlier. Here, Eugene Ormandy provides an even more electrically snappy and perfectly idiomatic interpretation: with just as much thrust-and-parry as one could expect from the enhthusiastic Charles Munch.
7. A 10-inch early Columbia mono LP supplies the next item, a recording of Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Overture from 13 October 1946 (a particularly important year in EO's discographical work, supplying many fine items); I found the transfer on a very old, now defunct blog, and supplied as cover image, from the Discogs website, a colorful old British issue--though I really have no idea WHAT particular platter issued worldwide by Columbia might have sourced it. As good as Ormandy's very familiar, and several times reissued, 1959 stereo recording might be, *this* one tops it by a fair margin. Here, EO out-Svetlanovs Svetlanov!
{End of Part 2 of 3}
{Part 3 of 3, plus DL links}
8. Next, From 14 March 1954 comes "Ein Heldenleben" with Jacob Krachmalnick (then the concertmaster) in the important solo part of this great Richard Strauss tone poem, in the second of Ormandy's four recordings. As great as the Columbia stereo remake is (and it's been retained in print on CD), this one is superior...and luckily has been recorded in much better sound than many others done by this frustrating label that went through its "hollow period" during the years from 1950 through 1956, aiming more for "the European sound" than their competitors Mercury and Victor, by placing their mike(s) far back and then adding 'stairwell echo' to boot. Thus, many Ormandy, Stravinsky, Bruno Walter, and Mitropoulos monophonic LP records were vitiated. It took a new generation of engineers and producers -- epitomized by John McClure and Tom Frost -- to put back some realism and presence into their recordings by the time that stereo appeared; and THIS one is right on the precipice of 'modernity'. It's another treasure courtesy of my friend A. D., of Chicago.
9. Let us end on a note of lushness and sonorous elegance, with Ormandy's Oct. 13, 1963 stereo version of Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia: not exactly idiomatic compared to British maestri, evoking a medieval-cathedral impersonal majesty; but rather a flat-out wallow in "The Philadelphia Sound". If that description seems pejorative, I don't mean it quite that way; it's too well done to be purely meretricious.
{378 MB, FLACs and mp3s; original covers and track info included; LIMITED TIME OFFERING, which will *probably* be discontinued by ZS after 12/23/18.}
https://www66.zippyshare.com/d/SgxqWCtl/406/Forgotten%20Ormandy%206.zip
-or-
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8H Haggis
Hi 8H Haggis(via Buster),
Do hope you find this missive - I only "just" found your contributions here, before the Zippyshare auto destruct deadlines.
There must be a better way of archiving your contributions whereby they are easier to find and share.
So so many treasures here that should be shared more easily and widely.
I shall look forward to listening to them all.
Comments are as insightful as usual, very much enhancing the listening pleasure.
With reference to the Ormandy 'Tallis Fantasia' - if I remember correctly, I heard from a radio programme (BBC 'Your Hundred Best Tunes' - broadcast 1960s?), it was said that at the first rehearsal of the strings by EO and PO that the hard-nosed musicians (non-string players) who were not needed, turned around and picked up their ears to listen to previously unheard music with incredulity - a sound that had been previously unknown.
Does 8H Haggis know if this story has any credence - would love to know?
Many thanks for all the pleasure that you bring to my mind and ears.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
{ORMANDY EXTRAVAGANZA - VII, by 8H Haggis: Part 1 of 2}
Forgotten Ormandy recordings that *I* -- for one -- still appreciate, include these following items:
1. Walton: Belshazzar's Feast, with The Rutgers University Choir, F. Austin Walter (director), recorded on April 16, 1961; Roussel: Bacchus et Ariane - Suite No. 2, recorded on May 1, 1960; Columbia MS-6267. In my opinion, 1960 and '61 were the years in which Columbia made the FINEST and most realistic stereo recordings of Ormandy. Within a couple of years they began using multi-tracking and too many mikes; the earliest stereos from the end of 1957 up through '61 used basically the same gear and techniques employed for the wonderful stereo records by Bruno Walter and Igor Stravinsky in Hollywood. That is, for all practical purposes, this was a simple array of 3 Telefunken condenser mikes into an Ampex 300 3-track deck at 30 ips: not very different from the Mercury Records process of C. Robert Fine (except that Columbia did not use the same sizzling-hot cutting heads of Mercury's George Piros, and disk modulation levels that were *reasonable*, not 'breaking the equipment'. When I first got this record I considered it one of the finest in my library; not only were the performances spectacular, but the SOUND QUALITY--ahhhh! Not until a fw years into the digital revolution were we to get a Belshazzar's Feast to match this in fidelity (though of course the best of the British versions, with their superb choirs and soloists like the incomparable John Shirley-Quirk are not matched by Ormandy's collaborators. The sheer lack of strain by the Philadelphian brass give the Roussel a euphony even in the climaxes that must have made other orchestras and conductors staggered by the ease, precision, and clarity: like a Rolls-Royce engine compared to a 2-cycle lawnmower.
2. The Philadelphia Sound in its limned perfection is all the more evident in this elegant, yet energetic, reading of the Elgar "Cockaigne" Overture. The tempi are JUST on the edge of being rather deliberate and held back, so one imagines a London not at rush-hour, but experiencing a majestic royal procession. This LP rip was found on a Russian blog and, after a bit of declicking and a TINY amount of denoising, it makes the same glorious sound I remember from my then-new copy of the Columbia stereo LP (M 31074) of 1972.
3. Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 100 - from two Columbia Masterworks mono albums, of 1950 and 1953, respectively. I wonder if this is close to being the *first* record, ever, of No. 7; WERM (first edition) shows no existing recording. These amateur LP rips came from a Russian blog and I added covers from entries in the Discogs website.
{End of Part 1 by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2, plus DL links}
4. The next early Masterworks LP (1050) has the two suites from Ravel's Daphis et Chloe (with choir), and Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht. The sound is dim in this amateur LP rip but the performances are very good. I dclicked and denoised them and *tried* to improve the clarity with a little treble boost, constrained by the imperfect surfaces.
5. Next, the four tracks from a mid-fifties mono Sibelius Lp with tone poems, including En Saga and Tapiola. Unfortunately, whoever did this transfer (from a Russian website) denoised these WAY beyond the appropriate amount, affecting the air and clarity though, apparently, the surface noise was not objectionable. Yet, as I've always wanted to hear this LP (and compare the performances with EO's stereo one) I was grateful to get it.
6. Next, two Strauss tone poems from mono Masterworks LPs of the fifties: Don Juan and Don Quixote (both 1955) with Lorne Munroe, cellist, and Harry Zaratzian, violist, in the latter work. I personally feel that EO's stereo Don Juan is preferable but the mono and stereo versions of Don Quixote are pretty much neck-and-neck, the earlier one being more intense (though the recording is strident) and the latter stereo performance having more interpretive depth (and FAR richer sound.) (The real disappointment in the Don Juan LP was the Love Scene from Feuersnot, a frankly terrible performance given very poor recording--I'm not bothering with this, as Beecham's recording is VASTLY superior, even with respect to fidelity: despite originally being a 78.)
7. Finally, a supremely energetic and dramatic Tchaikovsky Pathetique, a mono best-seller from 1953, that has all the intensity one could want, being the exact polar opposite of EO's very autumnal and somewhat introverted late digital recording.
{410 MB, FLACs and mp3s; original covers and track info included; LIMITED TIME OFFERING, which will *probably* be discontinued by ZS after 12/26/18.}
https://www5.zippyshare.com/d/0gknJrz9/528/Forgotten%20Ormandy%207.zip
-or-
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8H Haggis
Response to coppinsuk (Douglas)
>>There must be a better way of archiving your contributions whereby they are easier to find and share.
So so many treasures here that should be shared more easily and widely.
I shall look forward to listening to them all.
<<
I am just an interloper here. I will be ceasing these contributions before the end of the year--and they won't stay that long on ZS's server. Ergo, I don't think great effort is needed to organize them. They'll be gone before the effort is justified. I have tried to associate the posts with pertinent entries in Buster's blog, or in threads in which I've previously started adding items.
>>Does 8H Haggis know if this story [of musicians' reaction to Tallis' Fantasia] has any credence - would love to know?<<
I have no idea and had not heard this anecdote. It's not inconceivable or completely unlikely.
Thanks, Douglas, for your other kind remarks.
8H Haggis
{ORMANDY EXTRAVAGANZA - VIII, by 8H Haggis}
Forgotten Ormandy recordings that *I* -- for one -- still appreciate, include these following items:
1. First Chair Encores, Vol. I: This was the stereo sequel to a 1952 recording entitled "First Chair". The *theory* is that no other orchestra has such stellar first-chair players as the Philadelphia ensemble; and it's hard to argue with this, based on the two volumes released in the 1960s, that contain short but challenging works for soloist and orchestra (recorded mostly in 1961):
Introduction and tarantelle, op. 43 / Sarasate (Anshel Brusilow, violin);
Aria and dance / Cooley (Carlton Cooley, viola);
Elegie, op. 24 / Faure (Lorne Munroe, violoncello);
Concerto in E major: Allegro moderato / Vanhal (Roger Scott, double bass);
Concertino, op. 29 / Riisager (Gilbert Johnson, trumpet);
Morceau de concert, op. 94 / Saint-Saens (Mason Jones, horn);
Morceau symphonique, op. 88 / Guilmant (Henry Charles Smith, trombone).
2. On 15 January 1950, Zino Francescatti joined Ormandy to record the Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1, a performance that was SO successful it -- and its diskmate, the Saint-Saens VC No. 3 with Mitropoulos -- were not remade again for stereo; instead, Columbia released a putrid sounding, echoey "electronic stereo" version. We have here a rip of the *previous* authentic mono release from a very old LP, which I found on a Russian blog.
3. Francescatti plays the Walton Violin Concerto, with the typically sumputuous EO & PO accompaniment; a stereo recording of March, 1959.
4. Here are two mono Columbia Masterworks LP records of Haydn Symphony No. 101 (10 May 1949) and No. 99 (15 April 1954); the latter was remade in stereo but I prefer the earlier monophonic version which, as usual, has a LITTLE more bite; despite the early date, it has better sound than many Ormandy mono records up through most of the 50s: in fact, having much greater clarity and definition than the 1954 Symphony No. 99, and it's 'soupy' echo.
5. Mono records of Debussy's Iberia (11 March 1951); Ravel's La Valse (22 March 1953); Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 (19 Nov. 1950); Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 3, and Vocalise (7 November 1954); and two suites arranged from operas by Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (23 Dec. 1957) and Die Frau ohne Schatten (4 April 1957). Some of these transfers were provided to me by a good friend in Chicago, A. D., who collects old records and period photographs.
{401 MB, mp3s; original covers and track info included; LIMITED TIME OFFERING, which will *probably* be discontinued by ZS after 12/27/18.}
https://www40.zippyshare.com/d/oipXOX4x/824/Forgotten%20Ormandy%208.zip
-or-
https://www40.zippyshare.com/v/oipXOX4x/file.html
8H Haggis
Dear Buster and 8H Haggis,
Over the past four months the amount of music that I downloaded expanded by several magnitudes what I have done before. That is due to the generosity (and time-limited nature) of the accessory offerings from the blog. So far, I have been able to listen to about 150 of the offerings, most of which I listened to multiple times (and there are many more in the download box I have yet to get to). A few comments on what I heard. I listened to all the listings under the Random Fixes group, the majority of which I had previously downloaded from the original Random Classics blog. Although the sound quality never really bothered me before, it is clear that your efforts improved the sound quality — in some cases considerably. The original offerings did suffer from a muddy sound, and now some of the Random Fixes sound almost like state-of-the-art transfers. Two offerings that I want to point out because of both the improvement of the sound and the quality of the recordings. The Frederick the Great, Johann Joachim Quantz - Sonatas for Flute and harpsichord with John Wummer, flute; Fernando Valenti, harpsichord. A lovely disc. And the William Boyce overtures conducted by Anthony Lewis. A truly fantastic recording and now in great sound. Also in this group was a recording I had not previously heard, which I will greatly recommend: the Carl Nielsen Symphony No. 4, Op. 29 'The Inextinguishable'; with Max Rudolph, and the Cincinnati Symphony. Despite some deficiencies in the string sections of the Cincinnati SO, an excellent interpretation of a great piece (However, I do not think this was from the Random Classics blog).
I also, listened to the entire Ormandy extravaganza. Despite quibbles or criticisms one may have with individual performances, I don’t see how anyone can listen to the totality of the recordings and not recognize that Ormandy was one of the great conductors of the 20th century. That being said, some of my favorite recordings from that group were three violin concertos, due to the superior performances of the violinists. There was Isaac Stern’s performance of the Viotti violin concerto 22, and the two performances by Zino Francescatti of the Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos. Francescatti was just a superb musician, maybe the most underrated of the great violinists of the 20th century. I should also mention the recording of Sibelius’s Four Legends from the Kalevala — Ormandy was a terrific Sibelius interpreter. The sound on all of the mentioned recordings was superb. Thank you Haggis
I also should mention that the 3rd track on Wagner Ormandy recording is mislabeled.
Also, a callout for Buster. Please keep up your great blogspot. This morning I just listened to one of your listings, the Oscar Shumsky, Bernard Greenhouse recording of the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello. Great Stuff. Thanks.
Purcell - Thanks so much for your gracious comments. They are much appreciated.
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