Eugene Ormandy

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Eugene Ormandy in the 1950's
Eugene Ormandy in the 1950's

Eugene Ormandy (November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was an eminent conductor and violinist.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Budapest (his original name was Jenö Blau), he studied at the National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music (now the Franz Liszt Academy of Music) there at the age of five and began to give concerts as a violinist at age seven. He graduated at the age of fourteen with a master's degree. In 1921 he moved to the United States of America (taking his name from the ship on which he traveled, the SS Normandie). He worked first as a violinist in the Major Bowes Capitol Theater Orchestra in New York City. He became the concertmaster within five days of joining and became the conductor this group which accompanied silent movies. Ormandy also made sixteen recordings as a violinist between 1923 and 1929, half of which utilized the acoustic process.

Ormandy's career was aided enormously by Arthur Judson, the most powerful manager on the American classical music scene in the 1930s. It was Judson who asked Ormandy to fill in for Arturo Toscanini's cancellation due to illness of a concert date with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1931. This led to his first major appointment as a conductor, in Minneapolis.

[edit] Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra

Ormandy was appointed conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now known as the Minnesota Orchestra) from 1931, where he served until 1936. During the darkest days of the Great Depression, RCA Victor contracted Ormandy and the Minneapolis Symphony for many recordings. A unique clause in the musician's contract required them to earn their salaries by performing a certain number of hours each week (whether it be rehearsals, concerts, broadcasts, or recording). Since they didn't need to pay the musicians, Victor could afford to send its finest technicians and equipment to record in Minneapolis. The recordings were made between January 16, 1934, and January 16, 1935. There were several premiere recordings made in Minneapolis: John Alden Carpenter's Adventures in a Perambulator; Zoltán Kodály's Hary Janos Suite; Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and, specially commissioned for recording ,Roy Harris' American Overture (based on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"). Ormandy's recordings also included famous readings of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 and Mahler's Symphony No. 2. The excellence of these records contributed to Ormandy's reputation as an exceptional musician.

[edit] The Philadelphia Orchestra

Ormandy's 44-year tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra is the source of much of his current reputation and fame. Appointed as the Philadelphia Orchestra associate conductor (alongside Leopold Stokowski) from 1936, he became two years later the sole music director and conductor until his retirement in 1980, when he was made the orchestra's Conductor Laureate. Ormandy conducted 100 to 180 concerts each year in Philadelphia, and also watched the guest conductors from his box.

To Ormandy's direction the Philadelphia Orchestra owed much of its famous lush, legato style, particularly in terms of string bowing and tone. Ormandy was a quick learner of scores (which he often conducted from memory and without a baton). His style attracted praise for its opulent sound but also was criticized for a purported lack of any real individual touch. In recent years, revisionist music critics have tended to downplay Ormandy's life achievements and impact, even though Ormandy enormously raised the bar for musical performance standards. He demonstrated exceptional musical and personal integrity, and will be forever remembered for his exceptional leadership skills, and his podium manner which was formal and reserved in the style of his idol, Arturo Toscanini. One orchestra musician complimented him by saying: "He doesn't try to conduct every note as some conductors do."

Ormandy's seating plan for an orchestra was a standard one in that the violins were not divided (and therefore antiphonal effects were not enhanced). The first and second violins and harps were on the left. Woodwinds were in the center, with the horns behind them. The basses, cellos, and violas were on the right, along with the rest of the brass instruments. Percussion was in the center of the back.

Many web sites feature stories about Ormandy's often unintentional humor and occasional awkward lapses in English-language usage while preparing musicians in rehearsal at Philadelphia's Academy of Music auditorium.

Ormandy was particularly noted for late Romantic and early 20th century works. He particularly favored Bruckner, Debussy, Dvořák, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and transcriptions of Bach. Less successful were his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, and Mozart. He was particularly noted as a champion of Sergei Rachmaninoff's music, conducting the premiere of his Symphonic Dances and leading the orchestra in the composer's own recordings of his concerti and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He also directed the US premiere of several symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich. He made the first recording of Deryck Cooke's first performing edition of the complete Mahler Tenth Symphony, which many critics praised. He also performed a great deal of American music and gave many premières of works by Samuel Barber, Paul Creston, David Diamond, Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, Ned Rorem, William Schuman, Roger Sessions, Virgil Thompson, and Richard Yardumian.

Ormandy led his orchestra through many performances in New York and other cities around the United States. He also led his orchestra through many foreign tours. Among the most famous foreign tours was a 1955 tour of Finland where many of the orchestra's members visited the elderly composer Jean Sibelius at his country estate, and a 1973 tour of the People's Republic of China where the orchestra performed to enthusiastic audiences isolated from Western classical music for many decades.

[edit] Guest Appearances

He also appeared as a guest conductor with many other orchestras. In November 1966 he recorded a highly memorable and idiomatic rendition of Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra. This and a recording in July 1952 which he conducted anonymously with the Prades Festival Orchestra with Pablo Casals in the Robert Schumann Cello Concerto represented his only commercial recordings made outside the U.S. In December 1950 he directed New York's Metropolitan Opera in a fondly-remembered production of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, which also was recorded. Nonetheless, his overriding loyalty for 48 years was to Philadelphia.

[edit] Recordings

Eugene Ormandy may well be the most-recorded American conductor in history. His recordings spanned the acoustic to the electrical to the digital age. From 1936 until his death, Ormandy made literally hundreds of recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra, spanning almost every classical-music genre. Richard Freed, in an article published in The Philadelphia Orchestra, a Century of Music (1999) wrote: "Ormandy came about as close as any conductor anywhere to recording the `Complete Works of Everybody', with more than a few individual titles recorded three and four times to keep up with advances in technology and/or to accommodate a new soloist or commemorate a move to a new label".

Thomas Frost, his producer in many of the Columbia recordings, called Ormandy "...the easiest conductor I've ever worked with--he has less of an ego problem than any of them... Everything was controlled, professional, organized. We recorded more music per hour than any other orchestra ever has." In one day, March 11, 1962, Ormandy and the Philadelphia recorded Sibelius' Symphony No. 1; the Semyon Bogatirev arrangement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 7 (for which Ormandy had given the Western hemisphere premiere performance); and Delius' On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.

World recording premieres with Philadelphia included: Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony Nos. 6 & 7 and the Alexander Nevsky cantata; and Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. U.S. premiere recordings were made of Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler symphony; Carl Orff's Catulli Carmina (which won a Grammy Award in 1967); Shostakovich's Symphony Nos. 4, No. 13, No. 14, and No. 15; Carl Nielsen's Symphony Nos. 1 & No. 6; Anton Webern's: Im Sommerwind; Krzysztof Penderecki's Utrenja; and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 10.

Curiously, few of the stereo recordings were undertaken in the orchestra's performing venue at the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), because record producers believed the dry acoustic environment didn't produce optimum sound quality for records. Reportedly, Ormandy felt that remodeling of the Academy of Music in the mid-1950s ruined the acoustics. Many Philadelphia Orchestra recordings were taped at Philadelphia's Broadwood Hotel/Philadelphia Hotel/Philadelphia Athletic Club at Broad and Race streets where the orchestra recorded in the ballroom; and Town Hall/Scottish Rite Cathedral on North Broad Street near the Franklin Parkway with a 1,692 seat auditorium which furnished a more resonant and bright acoustic environment for impressive-sounding "high fidelity" recording techniques. A fourth recording facility was the Old Met (Metropolitan Opera House) used for the later RCA recording sessions.

Recordings were produced for the following record labels: RCA Victor Red Seal (1936 to 1942), Columbia Masterworks Records (1944 to 1968), RCA Victor Red Seal (1968 to 1980) and EMI/Angel Records (1977-on). Three very late albums were also recorded for Telarc (1980) and Delos (1981) His first digital recording was a April 16, 1979, performance of Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra for RCA. He recorded for RCA in Minneapolis (in 1934 and 1935), too, and continued with the label until 1942, when an American Federation of Musicians ban on recording resulted in the Philadelphia Orchestra switching to Columbia because the company reached an agreement with the union in 1944, before RCA. Among the first recordings of the new contract was a spirited performances of Borodin's Polvstian Dances. Then, in 1968, Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra returned to RCA; among their first projects was a highly-acclaimed performance of Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, which compared well with Ormandy's 1936 recording of the same music.

Among the Ormandy/Philadelphia recordings which are widely-regarded as "cream of the crop" include (year of recording included):

He was also famous for being an unfailingly sensitive concerto collaborator. His recorded legacy includes numerous first-rate collaborations with Artur Rubinstein, Claudio Arrau, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Horowitz, Rudolf Serkin, David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose, Itzhak Perlman, Emil Gilels, Van Cliburn, Emanuel Feuermann, Robert Casadesus, Yo-Yo Ma and others.

[edit] Awards and Honors

Ormandy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Richard M. Nixon in 1970. He was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II an honorary Knight of the British Empire in 1976. He was also honored in the Kennedy Center Honors in 1982.

[edit] Death and Legacy

Eugene Ormandy died on March 12, 1985 in Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania Library collection includes Ormandy's scores and other papers in 501 boxes in their archives. This includes his complete arrangements.

[edit] External links

Preceded by:
Henri Verbrugghen		 Music Director, Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra
1931–1936		 Succeeded by:
Dmitri Mitropoulos
Preceded by:
Leopold Stokowski		 Music Director, Philadelphia Orchestra
1936–1980		 Succeeded by:
Riccardo Muti
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