Ormandy Conducts Strauss [CD]

Sony Classical announces another ten releases in it's popular series of Classical Masters. This new batch of budget-priced sets contains major recording projects by some of the 20th century's most celebrated musicians. Two boxes in this new batch of Original Masters feature Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The 4-album Richard Strauss set gathers together all of their early 1960s recordings of the famous tone poems along with Salome's Dance, the Rosenkavalier and Bürger als Edelmann suites, the Burleske with soloist Rudolf Serkin and the First Horn Concerto, featuring Philadelphia principal Mason Jones. An early review in High Fidelity best summed up their powerful appeal in Strauss's music: "There is no doubt that, for sheer gorgeousness, the Philadelphians have no peers." More recent assessments in the Penguin Guide reaffirm that verdict: "Virtuoso orchestral playing... and many felicities of characterization" [Also sprach Zarathustra]; "Marvelous orchestral playing and the two soloists play splendidly with plenty of character" [Don Quixote]; "An extraordinarily voluptuous Philadelphia performance... Ormandy directs with licentious abandon, and the orchestra responds with tremendous virtuosity and ardor" [Salome's Dance]; "Ormandy's Ein Heldenleben is an engulfing performance, and the composite richness of tone and the fervor of the playing... bring the highest possible level of orchestral tension."