Search - Beethoven, Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra :: Symphonies 5-8

Beethoven: Powerful yet beautiful

bob flagg | forestville, ca United States | 04/23/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ormandy captures Beethoven's Sturm & Drang Roman- ticism to perfection with a magnificent balance between musicality and virtuosity. Beethoven's rhetorical phrases and perpetual motion are high- lighted by this great conductor with his Philadel- phia Orchestra(it really was the world's greatest under Ormandy)at its peak, with peerless playing by all sections. This is large scale Beethoven as it should be, but nothing is bloated or overdone. Ormandy's tempi are hypnotic and the music is ex- citing while flowing naturally. The Nov/Dec 1999 American Record Guide laudes these performances and says that those of the 5th & 8th are the best ever. I would say the same for the 6th & 7th too. The sound is close and warm from the 1960's. If you love these performances, please contact Sony and ask them to release Symphonies 1-4 in the same format. Those performances are just as great!"

Ormandy's Beethoven is under-rated

Alan Majeska | Bad Axe, MI, USA | 08/15/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These recordings of Beethoven's 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Symphonies by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra are a good example of how the best recordings by an American orchestra and conductor are overlooked in favor of those by bigger media names: Karajan (3 DG and 1 EMI cycle), Bernstein (Sony and DG cycles), Norrington, Gardiner, Sawallisch and Solti (2 Decca cycles) all come immediately to mind.



Ormandy's recordings of Beethoven 5 and 8 are among the best ever, if not THE best since Furtwangler. Ormandy is moderate and not into theatrics: he reminds me of Bruno Walter/Columbia Symphony in these works. Like Walter, Ormandy does NOT take the repeat in I or IV of Symphony 5. The Philadelphia strings serve Beethoven's music beautifully, creating their golden sound under Ormandy's leadership. We should all be thankful Columbia recorded Ormandy/Philadelphia in the 1950s and 60s for posterity.



Ormandy's Beethoven 6 and 7 are not quite on the plane of 5 and 8, but they are very good. 6, "Pastoral" is especially beautiful, and I prefer it to either of Karajan's 1962 or 1982 recordings. 7 has slower tempos than some, and is maybe less effective than Ormandy's other Beethoven recordings.



Why Sony doesn't package all 9 of Ormandy's Beethoven Symphonies in one budget priced box is beyond me. Perhaps with the new Sony/BMG merger, and the release of some of their back catalog, a box of Ormandy's Beethoven will become reality: we can all petition Sony to consider this."

Reliable, well-played Beethoven that's nowhere near the summ

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/21/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It seems plausible to me that someone who loves Ormandy's middle-of-the-road style and the gorgeous playing of te Philadelphia Orch. could induce a trance to make his beethoven sound great. Objectively, however, it isn't. Everything here is competent and well played. There's no spark of inspiration, no thunder, no revolutionary fervor. Beethoven has moved to the suburbs and acquired a mortgage.



This isn't breaking news. Sony has relegated Ormandy's flood of recordings to their budget lines, rarely offering him even the dignity of a remastering. There's good reason for that; he was an enormously popular conductor with the general public who wasn't esteemed by his peers--except on rare occasions--any more than Arthur Fiedler was, to name another enormously popular figure. I hate to splash cold water on anyone's head trip, but this is far from first-rate or inspired Beethoven."