Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Schubert by Ormandy

Cover design by Nancy Donald
My Ormandy series continues with some rather rare repertoire for him - two early Schubert symphonies in nice, well-sounding, straightforward performances.  The odd thing about this release is that it didn't appear until 1972, a full ten years after both works were recorded, and four years after Ormandy and the Philadelphians had moved back to RCA!  Columbia, of course, had plenty of Ormandy still "in the can" after this move, but this was one of the last releases, and certainly one of the most delayed.  My guess is that the slight differences in pitch that are noticeable between tape edits in certain sections (particularly the Scherzo of No. 6) mitigated against releasing these performances in 1962:

Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417 ("Tragic") and
Schubert: Symphony No. 6 in C Major, D. 589 ("Little")
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 17 (No. 6) and April 8 (No. 4), 1962
Columbia Masterworks M-31635, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files, 304.5 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 83.69 MB)

Two other Ormandy recordings were released at the same time as this Schubert LP, and bear adjacent catalog numbers.  M-31634 is Beethoven's Fifth and Eighth Symphonies, itself a reissue from his complete Beethoven cycle from the 60s, and D3M-31636 is a three-record set of the Brahms symphonies, recorded in 1966-68, and not a reissue.  This lately turned up on eBay, sealed, and fetched the unbelievable price of $152.50!  Both the Beethoven and Brahms issues bear the phrase "The Fabulous Philadelphia Sound Series," which is missing from the Schubert issue.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for your wonderful blog and particularly for the many fine offerings with Eugene Ormandy! Would it be possible to some time post his recording of Bach's St John Passion. I am very interested in hearing that!

    Thank you again for all your effort in sharing such wonderful music with so many.

    Elias

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for your wonderfull job throughout this time! unfortunately when I try to download the wonderfull Ormandy Schubert a note crops up "impossible to link with shellack..." this have been the rule since you upload this material

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Many thanks for your fabulous blogspot. I've downloaded most of your Ormandy albums and several more besides. You've inspired me to try putting up an old record of my own from the 1960's: I've taken my example from your site in uploading this. For your readers' information, the EMI/Music for Pleasure label (UK) Marches from the Classics album is now available free on my blog which I may expand in the future: oldrecords1234.blogspot.co.uk . Thanks again for your inspiring and wonderful work.

    ReplyDelete