Leinsdorf Special - Mozart, Schubert, Rachmaninoff and the Strausses

Erich Leinsdorf's early career is less remembered than his Boston Symphony tenure and his later spell as guest conductor at major orchestras. On this blog, I've looked at several of his neglected first recordings, all dating from 1946, near the end of his abbreviated Cleveland Orchestra residency. I also presented a Philadelphia disc where he accompanies pianist Ania Dorfmann.

In this post, I'll add a bit to the list of his Cleveland recordings available on this blog, while moving on to explore his 1952-54 discs with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

The appropriate links are at the end of each section. Note (July 2024): these have now been remastered in ambient stereo.

Music of the Strauss Family

Leinsdorf 's Cleveland recordings all were made from February 22-25, 1946, when his successor (George Szell) had already been appointed. Even so, those discs are full of interest, ranging from his own suite from Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande to Schumann's First Symphony and Rimsky-Korsakov's Antar.

Today we take up some of the shorter works explored in that series of sessions. These include a selection of music from the Strauss family: Johann Strauss, Sr.'s "Radetzky March," Strauss, Jr.'s "Thunder and Lightning Polka" and "Perpetuum Mobile," Joseph Strauss' "Music of the Spheres" waltz and Eduard's "Bahn Frei!" The latter is here titled the "Race Track Polka," and is presented in an arrangement by Peter Bodge that I believe was written for the Boston Pops.

This music is well suited to Leinsdorf's skills and personality. While his readings will not remind you of the approach of the Austrian Willy Boskovsky, their spirit and precision are delightful.

The "Music of the Spheres" waltz has appeared on the blog before, but I also included it here to keep the set together. These transfers all come from a Cleveland Orchestra promotional LP issued in the 1970s.

LINK to music of the Strauss family

Rachmaninoff - Symphonic Dances

Leinsdorf was the principal conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic from 1947 to 1955. His first recording with that ensemble was an excerpt from Wagner's Siegfried with Eileen Farrell and Set Svanholm. That came in 1949, but per A Classical Discography it wasn't until 1952 that there was a follow-up.

The second disc was one of unusual interest - the first recording of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. This late composition was written for the Philadelphia Orchestra, and premiered by that ensemble under Eugene Ormandy in 1941. Ormandy, however, reputedly did not care for the piece and didn't record it until 1960.

Responding to Leinsdorf's LP, critics were sharply divided about the work but not the performance. The New York Times found the composition to be "tired sounding, without any highlights to capture the mind" while The New Records said it "immediately gains the attention of the listener and holds it until the last measure." Today, many consider it one of Rachmaninoff's best works.

The reviews agreed that the Rochester performance was a fine one: well-played and tautly conducted, as was Leinsdorf's norm at this point in his career. It is an impressive achievement - Rochester had a very accomplished orchestra - and it still sounds well.

The LP came out on Columbia's full-price label, but all of Leinsdorf's subsequent Rochester recordings for the company were issued in budget lines.

LINK to Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances

Schubert - Symphony No. 8; Mozart - Symphony No. 40

Leinsdorf's next session in Rochester was in April 1953, where he taped three of the great works of the symphonic canon: Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, Mozart Symphony No. 40 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (the latter not included here).

The first two works were coupled on Columbia's relatively new Entré budget series. As with the Rachmaninoff recording above, Leinsdorf's reading was "alert, rhythmically alive, musically faithful [and] tonally satisfactory," per the American Record Guide, which added that "the Rochester Orchestra is just below the first rank and really far better than the most of the European orchestras we regularly encounter on LP recordings these days." It's hard to disagree. C.G. Burke in High Fidelity, while noting that Leinsdorf had been demoted to the low-price Entré label, added, "Nothing so exalted can be bought for so little as Columbia RL 3070."

This transfer comes from a circa 1957 budget reissue on Columbia's Harmony label. The label identifies the ensemble as the "Rochester Orchestra," but as far as I know it has always been called the Rochester Philharmonic.

LINK to Schubert Symphony No. 8 and Mozart Symphony No. 40

Mozart - Symphonies No. 41 and 35

Perhaps heartened by the response to the Schubert-Mozart pairing above, Leinsdorf programmed two additional Mozart symphonies for his March 1954 recording session in Rochester. Although the performances, to my ears, have the identical approach to the record above - forthright, emphatic and detailed - the critics were not as impressed.

Burke, while noting the conductor's "clear-eyed directness," insisted that, "Most of us prefer more perfume, and more deviations in this breeze" (whatever that may mean). To me, it is hard to not be impressed by Leinsdorf and the orchestra's passion and precision.

This is another recording issued initially on Entré, but transferred from a subsequent release on the Harmony label.

The Rochester recordings all were remastered from lossless needle-drops found on Internet Archive. The sound both from Rochester and Cleveland is quite good. The downloads include scans, photos and reviews.

LINK to Mozart Symphonies No. 41 and 35

Ormandy Conducts Romantic Favorites

For one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, it's amazing how many of Eugene Ormandy's mono recordings have not been re-released, at least as far as I have been able to determine. Today's post includes several of those elusive items, all dating from near mid-20th century.

The program encompasses two 10-inch LPs and an EP, all on Columbia Records.

 

Sibelius and Rachmaninoff

 

The first LP couples Sibelius' "Finlandia" and "The Swan of Tuonela" with Lucien Cailliet's effective orchestrations of three Rachmaninoff piano preludes, including the composer's greatest hit, the Prelude in C-sharp minor (Bum - bum - BUMM. Da - da - da. Bum - bum - BUMM).

 

John Minsker

The Rachmaninoff works are in turns grandiloquent (the C-sharp minor), tranquil (the G major) and dramatic (the G minor). Cailliet had been a Philadelphia clarinetist who wrote arrangements both for Leopold Stokowski and Ormandy. 

 

Sibelius' "Finlandia" was a favorite of Ormandy, who recorded it six times, twice with chorus. The "Swan of Tuonela" is beautifully done here, with an eloquent and elegant English horn solo by the eminent John Minsker.

 

Suppé and Weber

The second 10-inch LP couples Franz von Suppé's famous and much abused overture to the operetta Poet and Peasant with the overture to Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz.

 

The Poet and Peasant is just fine, but I will take issue with the performance of the Freischütz overture, a favorite of mine, which barely hints at the dramatic or supernatural elements of the opera.

 

The Weber overture is the earliest recording among all these items, dating from January 1946 and first issued on 78. The Suppé work comes from a April 1950 session. It too was issued first on 78, then about a year later with the Weber as one of the first issues in Columbia's 10-inch AL series. These early AL discs contained barely more music than the 7-inch EPs that soon would gain favor. The first AL releases all were contained in generic covers with the fussy design shown above. The download includes an article on the series.

 

Strauss and Tchaikovsky

 

On the EP, we have the Waltz Suite from Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier, coupled with another famous waltz, drawn from Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. These works are all in Ormandy's wheelhouse. He and the superb Philadelphians do well by them. The EP has a bonus of a wonderful Jim Flora cover depicting the "Presentation of the Rose" from Rosenkavalier. The knight does appear to be sniffing the flower, rather than presenting it to the bored Sophie. (You will need to click on the image to see what I am talking about.)

Ormandy recorded music from Der Rosenkavalier seven times; he chose this waltz suite three times, once with the Minneapolis Symphony in 1935, then with the Philadelphia ensemble in 1941 and 1952. This is the latter version.

 

The Rosenkavalier waltzes also came out on an all-Strauss 12-inch LP a few years later, coupled with Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel and the Love Scene from Feuersnot. Missing no formats or coupling alternatives, Columbia at one time packaged the Rosenkavalier and Eulenspiegel recordings on a 10-inch disc. It featured Jim Flora artwork that was apparently designed as a companion to the EP cover shown above. I don't have the Strauss LP, but I did scrounge up the cover, which you can see at right. It shows Till Eulenspiegel engaged in his "merry pranks," which seem to be taking place at Watts Towers.

 

The Tchaikovsky waltz is extracted from one of Ormandy's complete recordings of the Serenade, which come from 1946, 1952 and 1960. Discographer Michael Gray claims that the 1952 version remains unissued, so this is apparently the 1946 edition.

The complete Serenade for Strings was coupled on an early Columbia LP with John Barbirolli's New York recording of the Theme and Variations from Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3. 

 

Bonus Item on Buster's Swinging Singles

 

Full disclosure - the Strauss-Tchaikovsky EP is a new transfer of a disc I featured on my other blog many years ago. But there also is something new on that blog to go along with this post - the 1946 Ormandy/Philadelphia recording of Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmila Overture. I've contrasted it with a competing version from the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler, dating from 1939 - which I prefer, but make your own decision!

Mitropoulos in Minnesota: Milhaud, Ravel and Rachmaninoff

More of Dimitri Mitropoulos' recordings with the Minneapolis Symphony today, all originally on 78, with these transfers coming from early LP incarnations.

First is their excellent rendition of Milhaud's Le Boeuf Sur La Toit, coupled with Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin on a 10-inch LP.

Mitropoulos in 1946

The Milhaud is particularly successful, with the ensemble capturing the absurdist goings-on with contagious enthusiasm, if rough tone. The Milhaud is from March 1945, with the Tombeau from December 1941.

We move to 12-inch LP for a January 1947 Rachmaninoff Second Symphony. Mitropoulos' biographer, William Trotter, says the conductor loved this work with a passion. If so, the emotion shows through in this convincing effort. By this time, Mitropoulos and the Minnesotans had moved to Victor, and this symphony is better recorded than most of Columbia's work in Minneapolis. As with all commercial issues of this symphony until the 1960s, this rendition is cut.