Sony Classical publishes a new box set dedicated to Hungarian conductor Eugene Ormandy, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s famous predecessor in Philadelphia, this time retracing the beginning of the era of stereo recordings. Beyond the portrait of a conductor, this box of more than 80 CDs highlights the extent to which the musical world and the distribution of music have changed.
In September 2021, under the title “Eugene Ormandy and the weight of prejudice”, we devoted a double page here to a box set that discophiles, lovers of rare documents, dreamed of, but which they did not dare to imagine: Eugene Ormandy – The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Columbia Legacy.
In practice, this title meant nothing and did not define the published object, which, in fact, was “The Columbia Mono Legacy”, a part of the discography of the Hungarian conductor, born under the name Jenö Blau in Budapest in 1899. “Eugene” is the English equivalent of “Jenö”. As for the surname “Ormandy”, it seems to have appeared during the conductor’s first performances in Vienna, in 1919-1920 (blau means “blue”, but also “drunk” in German) and would derive from the Hungarian locality of Ormánd, from which several members of the Blau family came.
A violinist who arrived in the United States in 1921, Ormandy began as concertmaster in orchestras specializing in the accompaniment of silent films before quickly replacing the conductor of the orchestra at the Capitol Theater in New York, then becoming conductor of phalanges symphonic.
Undervalued
Sony, which encompasses the Columbia-CBS and Victor-RCA catalogs, is engaged in the reissue of all of this prolific conductor’s recordings. Before conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra for 42 years, from 1938 to 1980, Ormandy had been the music director of the Minneapolis Orchestra (1931-1936), where he recorded his first 78s for Victor. A box set of 11 CDs from this legacy was published in 2022. It notably includes a 2e Symphony by Mahler and a 7e Symphony by Bruckner, pharaonic projects for the time!
One of the big surprises of the monophonic box set released in 2021, which included all the recordings from 1944 to 1958, was its scale: 120 CDs with 152 recordings never officially released on CD before. By reissuing what Ormandy and “Philly” had recorded after the Second World War, Sony revealed the vast majority of testimonies inaccessible since the 1960s.
The teaching of this reissue was a revaluation of the musical status of Ormandy, placed by posterity in the shadow of other Hungarian conductors considered more sanguine and more interesting, such as George Szell, Antal Dorati or Fritz Reiner.
In fact, Ormandy had the same temperament as them, but as he developed the “Philadelphia Sound,” he allowed that sound to unfold more fully as the technology became more luxuriant. It was this image, late, that remained of him.
The logic of the phonographic industry dictated that with each change in technology (the advent of stereo for example) the repertoire had to be re-recorded. This is how the engravings reissued in 2021 disappeared and the present documents enter the scene.
Half heritage
The big surprise here is once again the scale of the legacy. Only one box Eugene Ormandy – The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Columbia Stereo Years would have been too substantial. Sony will therefore do it twice. By covering only the period from 1958 to 1963, we arrive at 88 CDs. Yes, 88 CDs in six years, or 15 records per year!
The dates should not be taken too strictly. On the one hand, Sony used engravings after 1963 to complete the timing of thematic discs, for example CD 71, a sort of patriotic program, or CD 81, where Carnival of the Animals boosts the timing of the 3e Symphony by Saint-Saëns. Conversely, the complete Beethoven symphonies, started in April 1961 with theHeroiccontinues with a disc of Symphonies nbone 2 And 8 (December 1961 and October 1962). But these are not shown here. We understand that the cycle will be grouped in the future volume 1964-1968. There 1D Symphony by Brahms on CD 12 is not a counter-example, but an isolated and rare document. Ormandy will indeed record a complete Brahms between 1966 and 1968, where he will repeat the 1D. This one dates from February 1959.
Since we are on the details, an error was discovered by a music lover of great sagacity: CD 2 does not contain the Grand Canyon Suite by Grofé from December 1957 as announced, but the 1967 remake, with slightly wider tempos. The truth ” Following from 1957 was published in Japan in 2013 and by Urania, where it can be heard on demand. This is far from condemning the box set!
Gone past
It should be noted that Ormandy, at the beginning of the 1960s, preserved its punch from the monophonic years. He hasn’t yet had time to get drunk with technology. He is a very upright, fairly objective leader, who leaves little room for feelings (see his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy). On group re-listening, we see that the average level of quality is above what is commonly attributed to the conductor.
The box set, presented in length, unlike the rectangular format of the mono box set, allows Sony to make savings on the format of the booklet. This contains the publications in chronological order in their carefully reproduced original sleeves. The notice, even if it is smaller, contains useful information, notably a trilingual introduction, all the details for each disc (with the blunder, on disc 16, of announcing in theOpening 1812 a choir where Ormandy, in 1959, did not yet use one) and the necessary index by composers referring to the CDs.
The content makes you think about the very configuration of the market at the time. Ormandy and his Philadelphia Orchestra “produced” records the way Ford produced cars, in a period when the market seemed to absorb everything. Ormandy and “Philly” were inevitably, when we see how much they were in demand, a standard meter, a barometer of quality.
Furthermore, we must consider that at the time, the same publisher Columbia was busy recording the young and vibrant Leonard Bernstein in New York, George Szell in Cleveland and the latest records of Bruno Walter! This shows to what extent the arrival of stereo resulted in an editorial explosion and that this explosion was embodied in orchestral records, all produced and paid for by Columbia (and not self-produced by institutions as is the case today). today). In Europe, with the English label Decca, it is opera, and in particular the famous Ring of Wagner by Georg Solti, who was the vector of triumphant technology, while in Germany, the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan recorded Germanic music. But the Americans had a strong lead on a broader and more open repertoire in the 20th century.e century.
Today, on the contrary, it is the practical aspect of listening, formats and reproduction tools that takes precedence. The share of ambient listening becomes preponderant and orchestral recording like vocal recording becomes the poor relations of an industry where the piano and the various avatars of theeasy listening which feed the playlists. A saga like that of Eugene Ormandy has therefore become completely unthinkable.
Obviously, such a block, a historical document, is uneven. What has aged the most is the choral music, for which the Philadelphia Orchestra collaborated with the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We will not rush into Mass in B, THE Messiah where the German Requiem sung in English! What remains admirable are the collaborations with Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Istomin and a number of other soloists with this conductor who was considered the best accompanist in the world. What is to be rediscovered are his unfussy visions of works from the great repertoire (which Bacchus and Ariadne by Roussel!) and the “old-fashioned” playing (with portamentos) in Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. What we had no idea were the few very “American” records (Vincent, Yardumian) never reissued on CD. Passionate collectors can therefore continue this journey of a magnitude that never ceases to surprise.