Szell vs Ormandy

[DavidW]

When I was younger I used to buy up alot of essential classics because they were bargain priced.  They offered (at the time) poor remastering but great performances.  Sometimes they had Bernstein, sometimes they had other conductors but most of the time it was split between Szell and Ormandy.

Since I've heard those two conductors probably more than any other conductor when I was in high school and college, I thought let's do the smackdown... which do you prefer?

At the time I preferred the Romantic excess (while still maintaining good tempos) to the neoclassical sensibilities of Szell.  Now a days I probably would reverse my opinion, but I'm voting for Ormandy.

[Lethevich]

I don't know whether it's because more have been reissued, or tastes change, but it feels as though Szell's recordings are better known and discussed nowadays, yet Ormandy keeps surprising me with shockingly good stuff - like his Bruckner 4. I can't pick between either.

[Sergeant Rock]

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

Szell for me.

[Cato]

Szell for me.

Amen!   0:)

Ormandy had a habit of editing, i.e. cutting, works, even Rachmaninov!   

Szell's complete Schumann symphonies with Cleveland: that is enough to allow him a win in this showdown!

[Karl Henning]

Ormandy had a habit of editing, i.e. cutting, works, even Rachmaninov!   

Honestly, I cannot forgive him that, ever : )

[Bogey]

It is my Columbia vinyls downstairs that has me leaning a bit toward Ormandy....for cds, Szell.  I will have to play some Szell vinyl to make my final decision....I love such assignments.

[Mirror Image]

Szell for me. Ormandy always seemed more like a showman than a conductor.

[trung224]

 Szell for me too. He is my favorite conductor in Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart 

[Sergeant Rock]

Szell for me too. He is my favorite conductor in Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart 

Sarge

[jwinter]

This is a silly question.  I enjoy many Ormandy recordings, and you gotta love the Philadelphia string sound in something like Tchaikovsky, but Szell just rungs rings around him IMO. 

I like a lot of Szell's symphonic recordings, and for the Wagner orchestral pieces it's a coin flip between him and Furtwangler as the best of all time (for me, of course), but a lot of Szell's best work comes in the concerto repertoire -- think of the marvelous Mozart with Casadesus and Serkin, or all of those wonderful recordings with Leon Fleisher.  And Szell OWNS the first Brahms piano concerto -- after hearing him with Curzon, Serkin, and Fleisher, I honestly don't know why anyone else even bothers to record it 

[drogulus]

    From Beethoven to Ravel and Walton, I choose Szell.

[Bogey]

but a lot of Szell's best work comes in the concerto repertoire -- think of the marvelous Mozart with Casadesus and Serkin,

Word.

[George]

I don't know whether it's because more have been reissued, or tastes change, but it feels as though Szell's recordings are better known and discussed nowadays, yet Ormandy keeps surprising me with shockingly good stuff - like his Bruckner 4. I can't pick between either.

I can't either. But I picked Szell anyway.

No fairsees, David! 

[val]

I prefer Szell. His interpretations seem more personal to me. I remember his versions of Haydn's Symphonies (above all the 92, 93, and 97), Schubert (Rosamonde), Brahms (the first piano Concerto with Curzon, the double Concerto with Oistrakh and Rostropovitch, the violin Concerto with Oistrakh, the Tragic Ouverture), Mahler (4th Symphony), Prokofiev (5th Symphony, Lieutenant Kige), Kodaly (Hary Janos suite, Richard Strauss (Till Eulenspiegel).
I would put Szell among my 20 favorite conductors.

[Superhorn]

   Neither is among my favorite ocnductors .  They were excellent ones, to be sure, very able , but  Ormandy has always struck me a tending to skate glibly over the surface of the music and reducing it to generalized plush sounds.  The plush Philadelphia sound was applied on a one-size-fits-all basis to pretty much whatever he conducted .  He made most music sound the same, whether is was Debussy, Richard Strauss, Brahms, Mahler,  Bartok, or what have you. 
He could be very good in Russian and French music , but  the philadelphia orchestra just disn't have that ECHT German sound for the Austro-Germanic repertoire .
   Szell , on the other hand, was a phenomenal technician who got his Clevelanders to play with incredible precision and clarity of sound .  But his performances with the orchestra have always seemed to me possibly the most wooden and pedantic I've ever heard.  He got a dry, grayish and brittle sound of the Clevelanders ,  woefully lacking in warmth,color and tonal sheen , with  very brittle and  exaggeratedly  spiky brass playing .  Everything sounds so tightly controlled  and lacking in spontaneity.  I prefer some of his recordings with other great orchestras such as the  Concertgebouw, LSO etc. 

[Bogey]

Pushed the Ormandy button....who was the other lost soul with me here?

[Sergeant Rock]

Szell....his performances with the orchestra have always seemed to me possibly the most wooden and pedantic I've ever heard.  He got a dry, grayish and brittle sound of the Clevelanders ,  woefully lacking in warmth,color and tonal sheen , with  very brittle and  exaggeratedly  spiky brass playing .  Everything sounds so tightly controlled  and lacking in spontaneity.

                 Superhorn

[DieNacht]

Both made some great recordings. Szell is less apparent here on the European scene, you don´t see his records that much at the massive antiquarian LP sales and he probably also made fewer records. I´ve got probably 10 LPs of his, whereas I´ve got maybe 20 Ormandy recordings - perhaps ... It is rare though that an Ormandy recording is my favourite of that work, if ever.

Overall, the earlier Ormandy issues seem better than his later ones, say from 1975 or so, and he was good when accompanying soloists, like the early mono Beethoven concerti with Serkin, for instance.

As regards Szell, I funnily haven´t seen any mono recordings at all, so I´m not able to consider his first period. He was especially good in articulating clarity and elan in the string section playing, I think, but there is sometimes a bit too much classicism in his reading of the romantics to my taste.

Have recently been hearing his Walton 2nd, very good; will compare it to Previn and Ashkenazy. Also remember his Bartok Cto as phenomenal, unfortunately I haven´t seen it for decades here.

[trung224]

 I vote for Szell because IMO Ormandy's recording fail the test of time. Ormandy is very good in Russian music because of, I think, the lack of great recording from the Russian conductor at that time. In the 1960s, there was only DG's Tchaikovsky 4,5,6 by Mravinsky and Leningrad Orchestral , but in US, the distribution was very low, and Mravinsky didn't go tour here. That why recordings from Ormandy and Szell's Tchaikovsky 5 had many rapture. Now, we have so many great conductors from Russia, who easily surpass Ormandy in Russian music, such as Gergiev, Jansons, Pletnev, Petrenko, Bychkov, ... In the Autro-German repertoire, his approach is very conventional, and not intereting.
   Szell for me passed that test. His Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Schubert and Dvorak are one of very best in old-school way. His approach in Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner, Richard Strauss is classical way, with precision and incredible clean textures and articulation, and though I don't like  much, I still cherish it, because it is highly personal approach. His concerto recordings with Serkin, Curzon, Gilels, Oistrakh, Stern, Hubermann, Fournier are very best (though I think his recordings with Fleisher are overrated).