Reiner and Ormandy in Tunes from the Homeland

 


The spirit of Hungary from the Keystone State! Here are two fine Columbia issues from the late 40's featuring Hungarians Ferenc Reiner and Jeno Blau. We of course know them as Fritz Reiner and Eugene Ormandy.

The Reiner disc is another document from his Pittsburgh years. I love these recordings from Pittsburgh because they capture Reiner in manner which is almost the polar opposite of what we came to expect from Chicago. In the Windy City, Reiner was known as a severe, humorless perfectionist who drove his orchestra hard and without remorse. Pittsburgh recordings tend to be more flexible and relaxed, sounding at times spontaneous and inspired by the minute.

The selection of Hungarian Dances by Brahms are tossed off winningly and quite naturally. I swear that Reiner has tweaked Brahms' orchestrations ever so slightly though the liner notes say nothing on the subject. As for the Stauss waltzes, another example of Reiner's treatment of these gems as more then mere entertainment and fluff. Reiner really was one of the finest conductors of this genre; interestingly, another perfectionist, Carlos Kleiber, is supreme here as well. Great, idiomatic, interpretations here despite the oddly very dated and stuffy sound.

The Ormandy disc fares much better with sound probably because the Philadelphia Orchestra was the Cadillac in the Columbia garage. Ormandy is well within his element with the two Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and the Philadelphians play these with all the expected virtuosity of a very great orchestra. I never take these Liszt pieces for granted because poor conducting sabotages the hell out of them while great conducting rivets the listener to his or her seat. Ormandy's traversal is close to great and there is sparkle and wit here. The best Hungarian Rhapsodies, for my money, are Scherchen's mono set from London. It's absolutely terrific - Scherchen at his most inspired finest! The Ormandy record is paired, rather strangely I think, with Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. This is vintage Ormandy fare and he played Grieg as well, or better then, his contemporaries.

A nice full program here with two fine conductors recorded in their prime with two terrific, but very different orchestras.

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Richard Strauss with Reiner and Szell

Though I've got the 10 inch jacket pictured above, my transfer is from ML4800, which includes the Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite conducted by Reiner while in Pittsburgh. I picked up this really rough lp for the suite since I've had in my collecton a really crappy sounding Membran cd for sometime. Membran is the German company that puts out 10 cd boxes for under 15 bucks of historic performances.Their transfers leave something to be desired though because they over filter and the sound quality becomes incredibly muffled. This is especially pronounced when original recordings were less then their company's best efforts, as was the case with Columbia in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.

People might scoff at me but I have long enjoyed Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. This is delightful, unpretentious fare, wonderful melodies with skillful writing. Call it bottom drawer Strauss if you wish, but I love it and well that's that! Reiner, of course, recorded it twice - in Pittsburgh during the mid 40's and in Chicago in the late 50's. Outside of Bud Herseth's magnificent trumpet playing in the Chicago recording, I find the Pittsburgh issue more relaxed and inviting, less driven then Reiner's later recording. In addition, there is a more intimate feel which is wholly appropriate for this suite of incidental music.

As I stated earlier, this particular lp was in a real rough shape. Do people use lp's as frisbee's? I wonder. Running it through ClickRepair several times cleaned up a lot but a couple of hiccups remain and I think they are quick and not cumbersome to the listening experience. Oh! the sound is much better then the Membran cd and I can hear details that on the cd were muffled away. 

Reiner leads an engaging and impressive Don Juan and Szell, in one of his earliest Cleveland records, captures the vitality of Till Eulenspiegel ...with charm!

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A grab bag of sorts - Mozart, Mahler, Vivaldi and Bach led by Reiner and Schneider

Reiner and Schneider..it rhymes! Busy last couple nights. Oktoberfest season is in full swing and between the beer, brats and brewhaha....the band had a great time last night (my lips are shot!), thousands at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston and oh, how I love taking those pictures with the younger crowd! Anyway...

Here are two short lps that I'm offering as a grab bag of sorts. We have Alexander Schneider leading Mozart and Vivaldi with the the Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra  and then Carol Brice singing Mahler's Wayfarer Songs with Reiner and the Pittsburgh SO and selected Bach arias with Daniel Saidenberg leading the Columbia Broadcasting Orchestra.

Though Dumbarton Oaks is outside of Washington DC, the music was recorded in 1949 in NYC if memory serves me right. This leads me wondering if Dumbarton Oaks is just a name for a NYC based pickup orchestra. Whatever the case, Schneider proves the experienced and vital leader and the Vivaldi and Mozart pieces come off marvelously. You know, my fear is that we are fast forgetting the immense contribution of Alexander Schneider to the American musical scene. Soloist, conductor, teacher, editor, impresario, the man did everything and did it so well. In my book, perhaps his single greatest achievement was to force the great Casals from retirement. No one else had the stature, or "balls" to do this and we all benefited beyond belief from Schneider's chutzpah.

I know not much of Carol Brice though her voice has at times a Ferrier quality to it. Primarily a musical theatre performer, Brice did record several times with Reiner, noting down a rather well regarded El Amor Brujo. A performer of African American background, Brice was one of those brave and focused individuals who laid the groundwork of integration and made possible the later successes of Leontyne Price, Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, to name a few. Her Mahler and Bach are thoughtfully performed and I especially hold her diction in regard. I do love it when I can hear the pronounciation of words! This must have been one of Reiner's first Mahler recordings and he shapes everything quite nicely. The same goes for Saidenberg and his studio orchestra - Brice performs the selected Bach arias flawlessly. Recorded dates are from the late 40's, give or take.

So, here's my "mono FLAC" grab bag for the day....Prost!

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Two for Three...in Brahms....golly gee!

Ok...A bit corny this title!

I was really lucky to pull out of the local Salavation Army store a Columbia Entre LP of Frederick Stock conducting the CSO in Brahms' wonderful Third Symphony. Overall the record was in a good shape...I lucked out! I thought it would be kind of cool to juxtapose the Stock with Reiner's take of some 15 or so years later. My copy of the Reiner is not in living stereo but rather the mono version, albeit a rather clean copy to say the least.

The Stock version is simply the warmest, most lush performance that I have ever heard. I would say that this is very much a 19th century take, edges are smooth and the whole performance just sort of "plays itself." I don't think that Stock offers any profound insights but rather, he lets the music relate the message with beautiful, lush playing. I like this approach but I suppose that folks raised in Toscanini or Reiner will probably find something that isn't to their liking.

Yes, with Reiner we get precision, immaculate phrasing and in general, a more 20th century, literal approach. In comparing the orchestral sound, I will say that Reiner has superior strings and woodwinds, but I really do love the brass sounds of the Stock ensemble, especially the trumpetes (I'm a trumpet player you know). I believe that the trumpets in Stock's orchestra would have been Renold Schilke and Eldon Benge, two of the great orchestral trumpeters of the 20th century AND outstanding trumpet makers to boot! Imagine that, great players AND great horn builders, one in the same! Anyway...listen how the orchestra changed between 1940 and the later 50's...really quite fascinating and a testament to the will, and talent, of a great conductor, at least that's what I think.


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