Sibelius 2 recommendations - here's what I'm looking for

[akiralx]

I seem to recall an old recording I had which contained a really thrilling final peroration, by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy, probably his last recording of the work, from around 1970?  Slightly bombastic but undeniably exciting....

[barry guerrero]

I'm not surprised. The Mahler "Resurrection" with Ormandy would be positively outstanding if it weren't for the high amounts of distortion in the recording. I guess they had the levels up way too high (?).

[waderice]

I'm not surprised. The Mahler "Resurrection" with Ormandy would be positive outstanding if it weren't for the high amounts of distortion in the recording. I guess they had the levels up way too high (?).

IIRC, that was the very first Mahler recording I ever bought.  And it has been out of my collection for many years.  I don't remember distortion in the recording, but that was in my very early untrained years of listening to classical music, and to Mahler in particular.  It was issued as one of the first inferior RCA Dynaflex LP albums.  As I recall, when I subsequently heard Bernstein's NYPO Masterworks recording, Ormandy went to the "sell" heap, because of each man's differing approach to the work.  Very few copies of his Philadelpia recording have ever appeared for sale, subsequently.  I recall an Archiv Music reissue of it a couple of years ago, but didn't get it then.  I have his 1935 Minneapolis recording on CD, which as I recall, was much better in conceptual approach than his Philadelphia one.

Wade

[barry guerrero]

"I have his 1935 Minneapolis recording on CD, which as I recall, was much better in conceptual approach than his Philadelphia one".

Maybe, but the Philly winds and percussion were superb. Here's a Youtube of the complete thing. The end is terribly distorted but what fantastic balance between the brass, deep bells, gongs and organ. It's all there - distorted, unfortunately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0WGwzDsFf0

[AZContrabassoon]

I wonder if that Youtube transfer was made from an LP? That would explain the disfiguring distortion. Inner groove distortion was always a problem, especially as the music got louder. RCA was capable of very good recorded sound back then. Actually, extremely good sound and I would be surprised if the distortion on the master tapes is that bad. Could be, though. I picked up the set of Tchaikovsky symphonies he did at the same time and they sound terrific. Ormandy was a vastly underrated conductor, and perhaps given his era competing with the likes of Reiner, Szell, Bernstein, Munch, and others we wasn't in their league, but there isn't an orchestra manager today who wouldn't sell his soul to have someone of Ormandy's ability. As RCA/Sony whoever they are now keep issuing these wonderful conductor boxes, I keep hoping that the Ormandy we all want will hurry: Mahler 1 & 2 & Das Lied, Gliere Ilya Murometz, Rachmaninoff 2, Prokofieff 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and other gems.

[waderice]

Barry, thank you for the YouTube link to Ormandy's Philadelphia M2.

Yes, the ending definitely is distorted, even on computer speakers.  It has been many years since I've heard this recording, and listening only to the ending again, I seem to recall that even my LP copy also was distorted.  This particular recording may or may not have been issued on open reel tape, for that format was still alive at that time, so there's no way for me to tell if the incarnation of that recording was distorted at the end.

Aside from Ormandy performing Mahler, to my mind and ears, his studio recordings in general never particularly revealed depth or imagination in performance.  Of course, the Philadelphia Orchestra has always been an excellent instrument, well-balanced in all sections, and the players are as good as you can find anywhere.  But the very few recordings I've heard of Ormandy in concert, seem to reveal him as an entirely different conductor - much better in that environment.  The multi-CD centennial issue of historic recordings in concert made by the Philadelphia Orchestra seem to indicate that, as I recall, without going to my library to get out that set to cite specific examples.

The Herbert Kupferberg history of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Those Fabulous Philadelphians - The Life and Times of a Great Orchestra, though dated, and which I read as a "borrow" from a friend, indicated that Ormandy had a unique knack in making a recording.  Whatever that was, it apparently was something that was satisfactory to Ormandy himself, as well as the recording teams he worked with.  But to my ears, the issued product(s) reveal an unwillingness on the part of Ormandy to "take a chance" on delivering an interpretation of a particular work that might be different from other conductors and orchestras that recorded the same work.  Yes, the recording will be well-played, but where or what is that unique thing that makes his recording of a particular work different from others?  For some reason or another, when those recordings were issued on LP, they sold like hotcakes.  But in today's CD age, you find few of Ormandy's Masterworks recordings in reissue, though a greater proportion of his later and fewer RCA recordings saw reissue.

Wade

[AZContrabassoon]

Why should a conductors interpretation have to be unique or so different from others to stand out? There was one (charlatan) who did that - Stokowski, and I cannot stand his recordings. Terrible service to the composer. Ormandy may not have been the most imaginative or thrilling conductor alive, but every performance I ever heard and every recording I bought showed a consummate musician who carefully controlled balance and color, had a mastery of the musical architecture, and gave a technically unimpeachable performance. I never approve of conductors making cuts or changing orchestration, both of which Ormandy did from time to time. When he was at his best, his music making ranks with the best: Holst's The Planets, any Prokofieff or Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky. His Brahms 1st on Sony is absolutely magnificent. He performed Beethoven in a style that is now not so popular, but his Beethoven cycle would be most welcome - if for nothing else just to wallow in the Philly at its peak. You just don't find wind players like that nowadays. Ormandy was a selfless musician, who did his best in service of the composer, unlike many of his colleagues in that era. That Fabulous Philadelphia Sound didn't hurt, either. I know and play with a number of musicians who studied at Curtis and played with Ormandy many times and they just loved him. No complaints. As to why his cds don't sell so much - that I blame on the marketing from CBS/Sony/BMG. They promoted the heck out of Bernstein, who was after all still alive when cds came out 30 years ago. They also did a great job for Bruno Walter. But Ormandy and Szell, not so much. But as they did deeper to find ways to wring the last few dollars out their astounding catalog I just know that a big box of Ormandy's complete Columbia recordings can't be far off!

[Roland Flessner]

In my early days as a listener, I liked Ormandy's recordings, but eventually decided he was too bland and generalized. I found this on another forum:

"When I was in college I happened one day to sit down at the same table with a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He cited how Ormandy could spot a single violinist who had played a wrong note. 'He had one of the great ears,' he said, 'but he conducted Beethoven the same way he conducted Tchaikovsky.'"

Fast forward several decades, and I started picking up Ormandy CDs. They are an impressive body of work, with orchestral execution that is second to none. If you try to find a sloppy moment in Ormandy recordings, you will spend many hours with little to show for it. Even when his approach is not to my taste, I find much to admire.

One of my favorite Ormandy recordings: Symphony #31 by Mozart. In contrast to the big, fat sound one might expect, textures are lean and sinewy, and I find this performance as idiomatic as any.

[akiralx]

I just listened to the Second from Storgards' BBCPO cycle on Chandos.  Very impressive with a thrilling peroration.  I found Vanska's Minnesota SACD recording beautifully prepared but rather undramatic.

[barry guerrero]

Thank you; I'll keep that in mind. It would be Vaenska's earlier one that I would want to purchase.

[AZContrabassoon]

You may not like it - it's very "classical". Vanska treats it more like the following 5 symphonies rather than linking it to the first. The performance is good, the orchestra small, the sound great. But don't expect a dramatic, edge of your seat reading. The end of the Finale is not one of the stick your chest out proudly readings. Not romantic at all. If you must have a modern series, check out Blomstedt with San Francisco, or even Jarvis on Bis.

[barry guerrero]

I did listen to Vaenska's earlier one on Youtube, and it was very much to my liking. Again, if the trumpets and trombones are marked fff at the end, there's simply no need for that. The trumpets - being the top voice in the brass section - will ALWAYS cut through regardless. Therefore, a strong forte will suffice (certainly nothing more than ff is needed). My desire is to hear the tuba and horns balanced up to the trumpets and trombones, who play the chorale melody in octaves (for the most part). I want an ending that makes musical sense more than I want one to be emotionally overwhelming. But not to sound ungrateful, I thank you and everyone else for their input.

[akiralx]

I did listen to Vaenska's earlier one on Youtube, and it was very much to my liking. Again, if the trumpets and trombones are marked fff at the end, there's simply no need for that. The trumpets - being the top voice in the brass section - will ALWAYS cut through regardless. Therefore, a strong forte will suffice (certainly nothing more than ff is needed). My desire is to hear the tuba and horns balanced up to the trumpets and trombones, who play the chorale melody in octaves (for the most part). I want an ending that makes musical sense more than I want one to be emotionally overwhelming.

On this subject you may like this interview with Daniel Barenboim, among othrr things on dynamics in Mahler:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/31/arts.highereducation

'The thing that fascinated me when I began studying Mahler was the way that he writes. Mahler was really the first composer to write individual dynamics for different groups of instruments. Composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner mostly wrote their dynamics for the whole orchestra, and in only a very few cases would they write opposite dynamics for different groups of players.

Mahler was different. In Mahler there are unison passages between clarinets and violas in which the clarinets are marked mezzo forte crescendo to fortissimo and the violas are marked fortissimo diminuendo to mezzo forte - all on the same note. In other words the texture remains the same but the colour changes radically.'

Sounds like Sibelius didn't do this, from your example, which is a bit surprising as he is master of scoring generally.

[Ben]

'The thing that fascinated me when I began studying Mahler was the way that he writes. Mahler was really the first composer to write individual dynamics for different groups of instruments. Composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner mostly wrote their dynamics for the whole orchestra, and in only a very few cases would they write opposite dynamics for different groups of players.

Mahler was different. In Mahler there are unison passages between clarinets and violas in which the clarinets are marked mezzo forte crescendo to fortissimo and the violas are marked fortissimo diminuendo to mezzo forte - all on the same note. In other words the texture remains the same but the colour changes radically.'

Sounds like Sibelius didn't do this, from your example, which is a bit surprising as he is master of scoring generally.

Not to the extent of Mahler, but Sibelius was very meticulous and forward thinking with his use of dynamics and scoring. There are many places in the Second Symphony where there are individual dynamics for groups of instruments. Dynamics are one of the big discussion points in the critical editions of the Sibelius symphony scores.

As to what Barry would suggest with rescoring with dynamics, I certainly see his point (as a horn player, I'm on board with it. ) However, having played and conducted this symphony, I think it's crucial for the emphasis to be on the trumpet and evenly matched trombones. The entire symphony drives until this very point - it's a finale-driven symphony. We finally get the ultimate resolution of a 3-note motif that has permeated the whole symphony. I think too often, the closing pages are underwhelming on recordings and in concert. And you would be surprised at the number of trumpet players that can't cut through the thick texture Sibelius has set up here (or the conductor has made a conscious decision to reign them in). And if that happens, I think the whole symphony fails.

Now, I think the closing pages can still have an inexorable growth to them. So, there's still room gauge the dynamics at the start of the chorale to the very ending.

Just my $.02.
Ben

Ben

[barry guerrero]

I know I'm being redundant, but I want to thank everyone again for their input. I received a copy of Vaenska's earlier Lahti S.O. version, and it's very much to my liking (tuba could be a tad stronger at the end). It also comes with a very good performance of the third symphony, which makes it easy to back-track to the ending of the second.

Because Vaenska used a reduced string section (or so I've been told), the woodwinds are farther forward in the perspective than usual, which makes it easier to hear the bassoons throughout. It also makes it easier to hear the horns, as I've noticed that the horns are often times playing in their middle and low registers. I also noticed that the 'motif' of the horns playing after-beats in their middle register happens in the first movement also. It may seem pedantic to some, but it's important to hear what the composer actually wrote - there's almost always a reason for them for doing so. In addition, I don't find Vaenska's performance lacking in 'passion' at all. If you're looking for louder trumpets - sure, there are plenty where the trumpets are louder. Anyway, thanks again.