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Monthly Archive: July 2023

Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra: The Early Years, Vol. 4 – Pristine Audio

Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra: The Early Years, Vol. 4 – Pristine Audio

by | Jul 28, 2023 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra: The Early Years Vol. 4 = TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphonies 5 & 6, Nutcracker Suite;  RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Russian Easter Overture [complete listing below] – Pristine Audio PASC 693 (2 CDs: 2 hr 1:35) [www.pristineclassical.com] *****: With the exception of the 10 January 1945 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, the performances resurrected here by master Engineer and Audio Producer Mark Obert-Thorn all derive from sessions 1936-1942, many of which, like the two Rimsky-Korsakov works, had never been issued in modern sound technology media, while some had been overlooked in favor of alternate readings.  Obert-Thorn makes an early point of Ormandy’s veneration of conductor Arturo Toscanini as his model of musical excellence, and the insistence of relatively fast tempos and clarity of execution by the Philadelphians testifies to that influence. The central section of the March from The Nutcracker sets a good illustration of this principle. The sheer hustle of the reading that never permits any slack in orchestral articulation makes the version – once issued via a 10” LP in the 1950s – a remarkably fined-honed document. The lushly lyrical sweep of the Philadelphia strings meets every musical expectation here, as it does in the Valse movement of the […]