 |
Cover design by Alex Steinweiss
(restored by Peter Joelson) |
My vintage Ormandy series continues, with the first of his three studio versions of the Franck Symphony in D Minor, from 1945. (The others, also for Columbia, were from 1953 and 1961.) I'm quite fond of this recording, as it was my introduction to the glories of this great symphony. In particular, the buildup in the coda of the first movement is most excitingly done. The English horn solo in the second movement is, unfortunately, uncredited on the labels or album, but it must have been played by John Minsker, the English horn player in the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1936 to 1959.
Franck: Symphony in D Minor
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded March 15, 1945
Columbia Masterworks set MM-608, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 101.95 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 53.68 MB)
This recording was reissued in 1948 as part of Columbia's launch of LP, as ML-4024. Some copies of this have the same Steinweiss cover art as the 78 set, as shown in this scan lifted from Ken Halperin's wonderful site
Collecting Record Covers:
Many thanks for this, Bryan - I've been looking for it for years!
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan! Was looking for this symphony.
ReplyDelete