Mitropoulos: Fall River Legend/ Ormandy: Cakewalk Suite

This record has been reissued in its entirety by Naxos, for MP3 download only, and even that is not available to anyone connecting to the site from the U.S. So, although there is one nasty skip toward the end of Cakewalk, I thought I would post it anyway, as it is not a record I have seen a lot. I even pulled out the DJ scratch arm that came with the turntable and a heavy tracking stylus/cartridge combination thinking it might track with that. No luck.

I am offering it anyway because I suspect it might be rather hard to find and the music and performances are well worth the effort of digitizing. Gottschalk’s music, as arranged for orchestra by Hershey Kay, is unadulterated fun. There’s no other way to put it. When I play the piece it is hard not to get up and dance about, admittedly looking a bit foolish, but with a kind of “who cares” “devil may care” delight.

Fall River Legend is an altogether different matter. The sad, bloody story of Lizzy Borden is hardly a subject to elicit a happy-go-lucky score, though there are lighter moments of remembered happier times in the music. Morton Gould’s music is filled with deep feeling and a humane if not altogether forgiving sense of Lizzy’s predicament, which, in this historically inaccurate version of the story, sees her facing the gallows at the end – alone, accepting her fate with "bitter resignation", as the notes say.

Mitropoulos and Ormandy conduct their respective works admirably, with special kudos going to Mitropoulos. Kudos to all involved, even Columbia's engineers, who gave Mitropoulos a technically decent recording this time round.

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The Second Vienna School by Ormandy

Here is the recording of Ormandy conducting work of the second Vienna School that I promised would be the follow-up to the tribute on the 25th anniversary of his death. The two Webern works on this record were discovered only in the 1960s and received their first performances by Ormandy and his orchestra. Rather than unnecessarily re-write a lot of text, I have photographed the back of the album, which has the pertinent information. I would only add that the Sommerwind is more Post-romantic than what we normally expect from Webern and the the 3 pieces are performed with a delicacy that does justice to a composer whose music is more apt to be thought of in terms of harmonic violence rather than the astonishing refinement of its polyphony.

The Lulu Suite presented here sounds to me less repulsed by Lulu's amorality than saddened by the destruction of her humanity. A kind of Lulu as tragic heroine, if you like. And if you don't --well -- I won't insist on it!

The Schoenberg Theme and Variations, first conceived as a piece for band, gives us a triumphantly tonal work late in Schoenberg's career. Whatever dodecophonic ideologues may have said during the musical culture wars of the middle and late twentieth century, the head honcho of the whole movement stated unequivocally that there was still plenty of good music to be written in C major. Though without Schoenberg's authority, I would still add that there is undoubtedly still plenty of good music to be written using serial techniques and charts of tone rows.

Enjoy!

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Eugene Ormandy : A Tribute 25 Years On

November 18, 1899 - March 12, 1985

March 12, 2010 was the 25th anniversary of the death of Eugene Ormandy. It was also the 94th birthday of my beloved mother, still active and alert in a suburb of Boston, so I may be forgiven for forgetting Dr. Ormandy until now.

Still, having just remembered the missed milestone -- we measure such things in chunks of 10 and 25 years, it seems -- I did not want to let further time pass without some words about a musician much maligned, whose recordings are nonetheless, everywhere, because they sold so well, on CD no less than on records, and who was really a very fine musician, despite the familiarity that bred so much contempt for him.

There is no lack of authority upon whom to base a sour view of the great Philadelphian: Stravinsky and Klemperer both ranked him first among second rate conductors, but both, too, were infamously uncharitable toward other musicians; Stravinsky also dismissed Koussevitzsky, Ansermet, and Furtwangler, while Klemperer bad-mouthed Istvan Kertesz and Josef Krips, among others.

I am certainly not going to argue with other people's taste; there are musical people who do not like Ormandy for reasons that have nothing to do with popular, elite pressure or the opinions of others in any way. His method of attack could seem weak to those who naturally admired Toscanini. Since I never took to Toscanini's ways, finding him often musically brutal, whatever his technical prowess may have been, that was never an issue with me. Still, Ormandy's less taut approach to music making at times, and his sometimes seemingly casual phrasing, can disturb many. I was among them once, but my opinions of the conductor have changed to allow that he did estimable work in more than the composers I will mention next, for whom I believe he had a special affinity.

If I still enjoy and want to hear tighter, tauter, more sinewy renditions of Sibelius, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovitch, I nonetheless find Ormandy's way with these composers unsurpassed. If his work in the 1st Vienna School has been cause for some of the least kind remarks about him, he still did a very great recording of the Schubert 4th and 6th symphonies that ranks with the very best performances on record -- that of Beecham, a true hero of mine, among them. And his recording of the Second Vienna School, the musical offering that will posted subsequent to this tribute, demonstrates both that he was a musician of secure technical means, and that twelve tone music can be breathtakingly beautiful. That he maintained the Philadelphia Orchestra in peak form for almost 50 years cannot be attributed to the never ending legacy of Stokowski. As his work in Minnesota demonstrates, Ormandy held his own credentials as an orchestra builder; that he chose to keep the "Philadelphia Sound" created by his predecessor largely intact, is no shame to him, despite Ricardo Muti's sneering comments about it. It was a sound well worth preserving. Would that Seijii Ozawa had been as careful with the French heritage of the BSO.

He approached modern and new music fearlessly, in a spirit of service and collegiality, and probably did more for contemporary composers than any other leader of a major American orchestra in his time. Think of musicians associated with him, for many of whom he did first performances and/or first recordings: Persichetti, Lutoslawski, William Schumann, Shostakovitch, Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions, Rachmaninoff, Walter Piston, Prokofiev, Ned Rorem. And the list goes on. Concerto recordings he made with Serkin, Szigeti, and a host of others remain in the catalog not just for the soloists, but for the impeccably musical accompaniment Ormandy gave them. His recording of Three Places in New England is gorgeous, and I recommend without hesitation any of his Ives performances.

Ormandy did not have Toscanini's oversized ego, Reiner's ruthless and even cruel podium manner, the beautiful weight of Klemperer's phrasing late in his career, the sexy buoyancy and rythmic verve of Leonard Bernstein. It is significant, though, that Ormandy anecdotes do not abound; his records sold for their musical virtues not the cult status of the conductor. In fact he is sometimes faulted for not imprinting his personality on the music, for not asserting an Ormandy style. It's an absurd criticism. Ormandy never meant to express HIS personality through the score. He meant, to the best of his ability, to elicit the musical intent of the composer, or, failing that, to produce a compelling and musically intelligent rendering of the score. More often than not, he succeeded.

Enesco Rhapsodies with Ormandy and Hans Kindler

There are some for whom listening to these two pieces is a guilty pleasure. Sure that their credentials as musical sophisticates are being compromised, they duck furtively into their bedroom, slip a CD into a Walkman with earphones, and luxuriate in the sheer unfettered fun of forbidden pleasure.

OK, I'm just having some fun myself, perhaps because I've been listening to these pieces with so much uncomplicated enjoyment. And because I really have nothing to say about them except that they are wonderful music, easily enjoyed. The orchestra gets to show off, and the Philadelphia is a nice orchestra to hear swagger.

So sit back, crank up the speakers, take off the damned headphones, surround yourself with good tunes and skillfully crafted music, and enjoy!

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Ormandy, Minneapolis Symphony, Schumann Symphony No. 4

First, let me say that I think this is a brilliantly successful performance. I love Schumann's symphonies, but since I find most essays of them unsuccessful, I bought this 78rpm set recently more from curiosity than a real expectation of being swept off my feet. I was though. This is a very fine performance, from 1934 -- nicely nuanced and spritely, though in no way lacking necessary heft. Although overall Ormandy has a lighter touch in this work than do Dohnanyi, Paray, or Bernstein (NY) -- who lead other performances that I think succeed nicely in Schumann's symphonies -- I rank this performance among the finest I have heard.

It is always curious to hear Ormandy conduct orchestras other than the Philadelphia Orchestra. The sound here with the Minneapolis is leaner than his later orchestra and probably a better fit for the Schumann, although the maestro was quite capable of making the Philadelphians leaner and meaner when he wanted, their famed sound being much more versatile than the legendary "gorgeous strings" appellation suggests. Still, it would be nice to be able to compare this with a later performance of Ormany, which I cannot seem to find. The Sawallisch recording with Philadelphia seems less than compelling to me.

To fill out a CD the first and wonderful (mono) recording of the Schumann First Symphony by Munch and the Boston Symphony is a very nice fit. That performance is available here at Buster's Big 10-Inch Record. Since that is how I made my own CD, putting the first symphony first, the tracks contained in the links below are numbered 05 through 08.

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First Recording: Bartok 3rd Piano Concerto / Ormandy, Sandor

The above picture of the 78 set notwithstanding, the present offering comes from an LP I have of the recording (ML 4239), where it is coupled with the Miakowsky 21st symphony, which I have chosen not to post. I did own the 78 set at one point, and still have a tape from it, but the discs were in very bad shape. The pristine later LP transfer that I own is "electronically re-recorded to simulate stereo", and while not bad for that sort of thing, I preferred to use the earlier monaural record which simply sounded -- well -- less fake. Sandor was a lifetime champion of Bartok's music, as was Ormandy, who recorded convincing performances of the Miraculous Mandarin, Dance Suite, and other works. This is the first recording of the 3rd Piano Concerto, and while it has a sense of being "read" rather than interpreted, that may well be a good thing: There is much to recommend it. If the slow movement lacks some of the shimmering mysticism of many subsequent performances, it seems to me earthier, closer to the insect calls and other night sounds that inspired this classic Bartokian nocturne. Sandor, who studied with Bartok and was his friend, knows this music in his bones, and Ormandy (also Hungarian, we must remember) is, as always, superb in concerto work (and not just). The Philadelphia orchestra plays no less magically than it usually does, not just the always praised strings, but the winds too; there is not a section in the ensemble that is not superb. And the performance can be strongly recommended for much more than its historical significance as the first recording of the work. Like some other things posted here this record has not been entirely forgotten, and is available on CD from Pearl. I have not sought the cd it out or heard it, but the label usually does an acceptable job with little or no sonic manipulation. The files linked to below have been lightly restored, not to change the basic sound but to rid them of obvious LP noise. Link to folder with all files

Honegger: Concertino for Piano and Orchestra

I'm posting this little gem, a Masterworks 10" LP ML 2156, in large part for the Honegger with Reiner and (as a friend of mine says) the "highly flammable" Oscar Levant. It is a charming piece and certainly not over-recorded. This reading, combining Reiner's consistent discipline and Levant's fiery passion, should be available. But --oh! -- the guilty pleasure of Ormandy conducting Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun, topping it off with The Sorcerer's Apprentice of Dukas. Whether Ormandy and the Philadelphia's Debussy is "authentic" (a value of questionable musical import) is of no interest to me: It is gorgeous, tastefully and musically presented, and a pleasure one should feel free to indulge without guilt, like Beecham's late orchestration of Messiah (which is, in truth, very Handelian in spirit). Link to all files