Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra: the Early Years, Vol. 5 – J.S. BACH Brandenburg Concertos 2 & 3; Beethoven Symphony No. 5; Schubert Symphony No. 8; Brahms Symphony No. 2; Mozart Symphony No. 40 – Pristine Audio PASC 726 (2 CDs = 2:21:24) ****:
Restoration Engineer and Producer Mark Obert-Thorn concludes his survey of early – here, 1938-1940 – recordings by Hungarian conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra with the fifth and last of the series, derived from “The World’s Greatest Music Series,” a compilation virtually ignored by prior reissue labels. RCA, in an effort to popularize “standard classical repertory,” commissioned a series of performances, led by Fritz Reiner, Artur Rodzinski, and Eugene Ormandy – their names and their ensembles to remain unidentified – of which only the 1939 Brahms Second Symphony made an anonymous appearance on LP by way of the budget Camden label as the “Claridge Symphony Orchestra.” Ormandy never returned to the Bach selections in any other format. The success of the RCA project as issued in their 78 rpm format finds testimony in the over one million records purchased by the public.
Charles O’Connell (1900-1962) served as head of artist and repertory department of the RCA Red Seal label, 1930-1944, until his move to Columbia Masterworks, 1944-1947. He had worked with Leopold Stokowski in the orchestral presentation of Bach transcriptions, and his own arrangement from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, recorded 27 March 1940, modestly conveys the music’s quiet piety. With the opening of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, with Saul Caston solo trumpet (rec. 12 November 1938), we hear a distinct clarity of line that avoids the tubby inflation of those Romantic excesses in Baroque music we find in Wilhelm Furtwaengler’s versions in the shellac era. Other prominent players in the spirited Ormandy rendition include Alexander Hilsberg, violin; William Kincaid, flute; and Marcel Tabuteau, oboe. The Philadelphia ensemble proper remains relatively small, 49 players, due to financial considerations. The performance enjoys a direct clarity of line, with few moments of rhythmic license, and the individual members’ articulation proves spot on. There is no desire to effect an “historical,” stylistic accuracy, but the effect remains convincing. So, too, we experience a direct, linear drive in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G (also recorded 12 November 1938), which had in previous recorded documents a thickly bloated texture, at least until the advent of Adolf Busch. For this rendition, the music proceeds with movements one and three, with no attempt at a middle movement reconstruction. The concluding Allegro does play like a virtuoso string ensemble, akin to what Koussevitzky achieved in his Boston Symphony, transcribed version of the Prelude of Violin Partita No. 3.
Mozart’s G Minor Symphony No. 40, recorded at the same session as the Bach, utilizes the reduced orchestral forces, exploiting some select moments of metric fluctuation but enjoying Mozart’s antiphonal sound juxtapositions in the opening Allegro molto, as if his symphony were an extension of the older concerto grosso origins. Arturo Toscanini remained Ormandy’s ideal in terms of musical shape and proportion, and the resonant, lean, balanced lines in Mozart show prominently. The Philadelphia strings and woodwinds shine in buoyant restraint for the Andante, which sings sweetly. A pert Menuetto and Trio leads to a volatile realization of the Finale: Allegro assai, in which the aforementioned principals Kincaid and Tabuteau make their contributions felt. The unanimity of orchestral sound, which Stokowski had spent years refining, still effectively defines the movement, and so concludes an energetic reading of this concert staple.
The performance of the Beethoven Fifth Symphony (17 October 1938), with its complement of 74 players, bears all the hallmarks of the Toscanini influence, fiercely driven – at the occasional cost of pitch and rhythmic accuracy – and even a bit clipped in the linear phrasing, with a tendency to urge the soft beauty of the Philadelphia string line. For some auditors, the second movement Andante and its course of variations may prove the most appealing movement, still cast in the glow of post-Stokowski resonance, especially in the strings, winds, and brass. The Scherzo projects an appropriate sense of impending menace, though a bit metronomic for my taste. The Philadelphia bass fiddle line, however, sounds spectacular. The transition to the potent Finale carefully unfolds, but its resolve into the Presto has neither the emphatic fury of Toscanini nor the dramatic depth in Erich Kleiber. Still, this “fateful” music compels our imagination by dint of its own integral inevitability.
Ormandy leads Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony on 17 October 1938, a reading that proves lyrically sympathetic, if not always dramatically effective, as close to the Toscanini model as it sounds. The pregnant pauses and sudden fortes in the opening movement Allegro moderato seem periodic and four-square, reducing the tragic effect, for which Ormandy immediately compensates in the ensuing sections. Rarely, however, have I so felt the kinship of Schubert with Bruckner’s late Romantic style. The suave string line in this movement, defined by its ubiquitous melody, sings gloriously in post-Stokowski splendor. The “dream-landscape” of string sound no less infiltrates the second movement Andante con moto, with its occasional “organ” sonorities. Marcel Tabuteau and William Kincaid score their respective points, and the tutti explosions exert their requisite force.
In his accompanying liner notes, Mark Obert-Thorn expresses admiration for Ormandy’s reading of the Brahms D Major Symphony (rec. 26 March 1939), the first of two recordings for RCA shellacs, the second’s occurring in December. This earlier version received inclusion in the “World’s Greatest Music Series” and found life on the budget Camden label LP. Ormandy allows a broadly fluent line for the expansive opening movement, Allegro non troppo, the warm string line often reminiscent of a reading from Bruno Walter, despite some perfunctory phrasing. For those who cherish the pastoral, bucolic Brahms, the interpretation casts a luxuriant glow on the music, the woodwinds and horns no less influential to the radiant effect.
The B major Adagio non troppo exploits the composer’s ingenuity in the manner of developing variation, and Ormandy molds its brooding, even anguished, opening cello melody with tender care. At moments, the scoring thins its texture and becomes a bucolic, wind serenade. The strings add a decided infusion of passion in studied step-wise figures, occasionally freeing themselves from restraint. The Brahms propensity for fugal counterpoint does not become muddy, and the pastoral melancholy proceeds once more. A great sigh introduces another polyphonic, layered period based on the opening motif, and Ormandy manages to infuse a sense of dirge-like grief and acceptance at the coda.
The G major intermezzo, Allegretto grazioso, enters like a delicate minuet colored by Tabuteau’s oboe; it then becomes a woodwind serenade that turns into a 2/4 Presto ma non assai, tentative and rather demure in this rendition. The dreamy haze returns, is again interrupted, now in a 3/8 version of the presto episode. Ormandy permits a degree of old-world portamento to color the coda. Despite a sotto voce entry, the last movement will erupt, Allegro con spirito, with a contest between D major and A major that defies the Hugo Wolf accusation that Brahms remained incapable of exultation. Ormandy treats the development section as mysterious and agitated in its elusive metrics. The music slows to an almost static moment, only to rebuild gradually and then erupt once more in solid D major, the trumpets and woodwinds now ascendant, almost a “fate” motif. The sonic blaze becomes quite manic but not out of control, and Ormandy sustains a heroic last page.
Note that the fact these recordings date from over 80 ears ago has been rendered virtually invisible by Obert-Thorn and Pristine’s XR sound technology.
—Gary Lemco
Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra: the Early Years, Vol. 5 =
J.S. BACH (arr. O’Connell): “Herzliebster Jesu” from St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244; Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047; Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048;
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550;
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67;
SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 “Unfinished”;
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73
