Festive Ormandy

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Of Ottorino Respighi's three orchestral suites celebrating his adopted home city of Rome (Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals), I confess my favorite has always been the last one, mainly because it is the most fun. Respighi, like Liszt, seems to be most authentically himself when he can cut loose and play, and nowhere did he do so more than in this piece (unless it was in the kid-in-a-candy-store orchestrations of Antiche Arie e Danze). This is its first American recording to be released (since Toscanini's, with the same orchestra, from five years earlier, did not see the light of day until 1976):

Respighi: Feste Romane (1928)
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded April 18, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set MM-707, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 60.69 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 39.78 MB)

About five years ago, I uploaded Ormandy's first Philadelphia recording of Sibelius' First Symphony, along with his Minneapolis recording of Kodály's Háry János Suite. I noted the existence of an earlier recording of the same symphony from Minneapolis, and have now located a copy of that, and here it is:

Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 16, 1935
Victor Musical Masterpiece set DM-290, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 110.30 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 66.42 MB)

Originally issued with a generic cover, by the time of my pressing, c. 1940, the set was sporting this simple but evocative cover design:

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 (Barbirolli, 1940)

Jean Sibelius

Sorry for the long absence, but it's become more and more difficult for me to find time to work on this blog. I've spoiled everyone in the past with weekly posts, and now I find that one or two posts a month is the best I can do. Be that as it may, I didn't want to miss the Sibelius sesquicentennial next month (Dec. 8), and here is my little contribution to the celebrations, John Barbirolli's first recording of a Sibelius symphony:

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43

New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli

Recorded May 6, 1940

Columbia Masterworks set MM-423, five 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 99.37 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 66.72 MB)

This was Barbirolli's second Philharmonic session for Columbia; the first had produced this recording of another Second Symphony - that by Brahms.  In between these two sessions, Igor Stravinsky made his first recordings with the Philharmonic, conducting his own "Rite of Spring" and suite from "Petrouchka."

Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 (Ormandy)

Cover design by Stanley Harris

More music from Scandinavia, but of much more mainstream repertoire than in my last post! This fine recording of two Sibelius symphonies was issued in commemoration of the composer's 90th birthday, and it remained in the catalog for over 20 years - it's still listed in the Schwann 2 Fall and Winter 1975-76 edition, albeit as a Columbia Special Products release.  It's Ormandy's first recording of both works; he would re-record them for RCA in the 1970s.  (Ormandy had a special relationship with Sibelius; a touching reminiscence by the conductor can be read here.)

Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 63 and
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 82
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded November 28 and December 19, 1954
Columbia Masterworks ML-5045, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 153.28 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 97.97 MB)

The cover pictured above is the original one for ML-5045, and was also used for the Philips release in Europe.  Two or three years later, the LP was reissued with this rather innocuous cover, for reasons that are unclear to me (image borrowed from www.discogs.com):

The First Lady of the Harp

Mildred Dilling

During her lifetime, Indiana-born Mildred Dilling (1894-1982) was usually billed as the "First Lady of the Harp" - which seems corny nowadays, but I suppose it made sense back then, when the harp soloists most publicly visible were men (Grandjany, Salzedo).  And, if the picture is any indication, she certainly had glamour.  Her greatest claim to fame is that she was Harpo Marx's harp teacher. (Actually, Harpo was self-taught on the instrument, claims his son Bill, also a musician, on this website, but he did receive help from Dilling in breaking bad habits.)  She also owned the world's largest collection of harps - 65 of them, all kept in her Manhattan apartment!  She made, however, pitifully few recordings. Four issued sides for HMV in the late 20s, fourteen more for American Columbia in the 30s, and an LP or two for Urania is all I am aware of.  Here is the only one I have, one of the Columbia issues:

Prokofiev: Prelude in C Major, Op. 12, No. 7 and
Sibelius: Pastorale (from "Pelléas et Mélisande")
Mildred Dilling, harp
Recorded June 8 and 9, 1937
Columbia 17107-D, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 14.98 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 6.26 MB)

For those who would like to hear more of Mildred Dilling's playing, there is a 1940 short film on Youtube, in which she plays three pieces as well as talks about the harp.

More from Ormandy

Two more vintage Ormandy recordings, one of them a request.  The request happens to be for the first-issued album set to bear Ormandy's name, his Minneapolis Symphony recording of Kodály's Háry János Suite.  Due to a loophole in the Minneapolis Symphony players' contracts, which allowed the orchestra's management to use them to make records for no additional payments, RCA Victor, within a relatively short time (a few weeks in the Januaries of 1934 and 1935), waxed an astounding 170-odd sides with the orchestra.  Among these were many first recordings, including first American recordings of Mahler and Bruckner symphonies, and this one of the Kodály suite:

Kodály: Háry János - Orchestral Suite
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded January 17, 1934
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set DM-197, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 72.69 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 39.62 MB)

Ormandy also recorded the Sibelius First Symphony in Minneapolis, but that isn't the version I have.  What I have is the remake he did in Philadelphia six years later, a set sent to me by Ken Halperin of Collecting Record Covers:

Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded October 25, 1941
Victor Musical Masterpiece Set DM-881, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 104.2 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 58.64 MB)

Both these works share the following facts in Ormandy's discography: he recorded each four times, first in Minneapolis, then one mono and two stereo Philadelphia versions.  And of the two stereo versions, one was for Columbia and one for RCA.

Gladys Ripley sings "Sea Pictures"

This post features the British contralto Gladys Ripley (1908-1955), a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, whose life, sadly, was cut short by throat cancer at the age of 47 (the age I am now!).  Here she sings Elgar's fine orchestral song cycle, "Sea Pictures" (composed in 1897-99) with, as a filler, a surprisingly gloomy song by Haydn, "The Spirit's Song" ("Hark! Hark what I tell to thee").  This 1946 recording features the collaboration of that greatly underrated conductor, George Weldon (1908-1963), who conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Elgar: Sea Pictures, Op. 37 (+ Haydn: The Spirit's Song)
Gladys Ripley, contralto
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by George Weldon
Recorded May 28, 1946
HMV C 3498 through C 3500, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 63.46 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 32.17 MB)

I have up several other George Weldon recordings with the orchestra of which he was Music Director from 1944 to 1951, the City of Birmingham Orchestra.  (That's Birmingham, England, of course - not Birmingham, Alabama! Those of us here in the Southern US have to be reminded of that periodically.)  The first of these is a new offering, and the others are re-uploads of transfers I made over three years ago; however, the Dvořák symphony upload now contains scans of the booklet for the set that I was unable to provide earlier.  Here are the details:

Sibelius: King Christian II Suite - Elegie and Musette
City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon
Recorded March 22, 1945
Columbia DX 1220, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 18.53 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 7.76 MB)

Edward German: Welsh Rhapsody
City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon
Recorded April 16, 1945
Columbia DX 1274 and 1275, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 43.43 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 19.7 MB)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 5 in F, Op. 76, and
Glinka: Ruslan and Ludmilla - Overture
City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon
Recorded June 25-27, 1945 (Dvořák) and June 7, 1946 (Glinka)
Columbia DX 1315 through 1319, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 105.57 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 48.23 MB)

For those interested in reading further about George Weldon, there's a free downloadable biography (in PDF format) available here.