Eugene Ormandy (and his discography as a Sheet!)

[lordlance]

We have been seeing a plethora of Ormandy boxes recently. It's given me a chance to listen his ouevre in much greater detail than I had previously. I have to agree with a few others here - the recordings are consistently good or very good. Sure, they might not be reference but to maintain a consistently good standard is rather admirable too. Especially for their time when (ostensibly/correct me if I'm wrong) access in America to European records was rather limited and a lot of people had access to Ormandy's recordings the easiest. In that context, I think you could do a lot worse than Ormandy - a man you can trust (generally.)

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The folks at Discogs are doing the Lord's work with how extensively detailed the contents of each box are. Thanks to AI, I have been able to tabulate the 3 Columbia boxes (and Minneapolis/RCA*) as a Google Sheet.

It's quite the thing: http://tiny.cc/ormandydiscography

*Sadly I can't find the same kind of detailed information for the Philadelphia RCA 1935-45 box.

[LKB]

When l think about Ormandy ( who introduced me to Sibelius and a few of the " lighter " composers ), I'm always tempted to compare him with Haitink, as he was prior to 1980 or so. A craftsman heading a famed ensemble, not flashy or particularly " with it ", neither pilot nor playboy, nor even elder statesman.

A reliable professional, in every positive sense of the term.

I'm glad his efforts are still being recognized and re-released, as they should be.