The world première release on disc of Ginastera’s highly dramatic Concerto for Strings shares a disc with Bartók’s folksy Divertimento for Strings, both works played with a keen sense of national idiom.
Locating highlights from the set is not difficult. After last year’s Bruckner celebrations and the numerous releases resulting from them, I’d imagine many of you feel ‘Brucknered out’, so to speak. But I would still urge you to try Ormandy’s magnificently direct accounts of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies and, especially, the Te Deum (with Judith Raskin, Richard Lewis, Herbert Beattie and the Temple University Choir) then, turning to Beethoven, in addition to an unswerving set of the symphonies (no repeat in 5’s first movement but the repeat is played in the first movement of the Eroica – virtually unheard of in the America of 1961), a warm and deeply devotional Missa Solemnis, exciting where it needs be and with excellent soloists (Martina Arroyo, Maureen Forrester, Richard Lewis, Cesare Siepi, and the ‘Singing City Choirs’).
Ormandy’s Brahms is generously resonant (the close of the Third Symphony’s second movement, from letter F with crescendoing winds and brass - clarinets and bassoons, especially). Then there’s the devastatingly conclusive scherzo and finale of the Fourth Symphony, white hot but held on a tight rein. Verdi’s Requiem Mass with the much-admired soprano Lucine Amara (born to Armenian immigrant parents who had survived the Armenian Holocaust), as well as Forrester, Richard Tucker and George London packs a fair wallop with, in the ‘Dies Irae’, one of the best recorded bass drums I’ve ever heard.
Schubert is represented by a Toscanini-like ‘Great C major’, and imposing performances of the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, while Shostakovich’s high-rise evocations in sound include the Fifth and Tenth Symphonies, the latter one of the set’s most outstanding recordings technically. Try the ‘Stalin’ scherzo with its menacingly relentless side drum.
But symphonic scale aside, Ormandy’s great talent was to bring out the full range of colour in pieces that harbour spectacular scoring, with Thomas Frost and his team on hand to land the orchestra in our listening rooms. An all-English programme brings together refreshingly characterful performances of Elgar’s Enigma Variations and the Overture Cockaigne (‘In London Town’) and couples them with Vaughan Williams’s perennially verdant Tallis Fantasia, music where Ormandy captures the pastoral idiom as if he were a native rural-loving Brit. As for Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s orchestration, there’s none better – either as a performance or as sound.
Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka Suite and Kodály’s Háry János Suite share painterly qualities and in sonic terms come across as fairly spectacular, certainly as far as the percussion and brass are concerned. Respighi’s Pines and Fountains of Rome is an often-recorded coupling, but none can bow to Ormandy’s Philadelphia disc for atmosphere, well drilled playing or sonic presence. American masterpieces include Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait inspiringly declaimed by the American politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson, and Fanfare for the Common Man appropriately sits alongside it. Alban Berg’s Lulu Suite conveys the seedy side of life as effectively as does Bartók’s Suite The Miraculous Mandarin. Ormandy is a masterly exponent of both scores.
Stirring marches such as Mendelssohn’s 'War March of the Priests' from Athalie and Chabrier’s Marche Joyeuse serve as concise demonstrations of the ‘Philly’ sound at its most arresting (the set is jammed full of tuneful miniatures). And there are the numerous top-grade soloists: Philippe Entremont (Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Gershwin’s Concerto & Rhapsody in Blue, Ravel’s Concerto in G, Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4), bassoon-player Bernard Garfield (Weber's Andante e Rondo ongarese), Emil Gilels (Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1), pianists Gold & Fizdale (Mendelssohn's Concertos for two pianos), Gary Graffman (Tchaikovsky's Piano Concertos No. 2 & 3), Yo-Yo Ma (Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1), horn soloist Mason Jones (concertos by Mozart and Strauss), Leonard Rose (concertos by Dvořák, Lalo and Saint-Saëns, Fauré's Elegie and Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme), Rudolf Serkin (Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 and 4, Mendelssohn's Capriccio brillant, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27, Schumann's Introduction and allegro appassionato, Concert Allegro with Introduction and Piano Concerto, and Richard Strauss's Burleske), Isaac Stern (concertos by Prokofiev, Bruch and Dvorák plus Lalo's Symphonie espagnole in its full five-movement version, and guitarist John Williams (Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez & Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Guitar Concerto No. 1).
So, a real treat and no mistaking, and I hope you won’t think it too cheeky that I’ve written the booklet note (given that I’ve written this review). The discographical information is extremely thorough and the presentation sturdy and durable, which it needs to be given the musical quality of what’s on offer. A very special set, as was its predecessor, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra - The Columbia Stereo Collection.
