{"id":1178,"date":"2018-09-22T01:26:24","date_gmt":"2018-09-22T05:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2018-09-22T01:26:24","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T05:26:24","slug":"rachmaninoff-uncorked-take-two-rca-ormandy-and-the-cork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2018\/09\/rachmaninoff-uncorked-take-two-rca-ormandy-and-the-cork.html","title":{"rendered":"Rachmaninoff Uncorked — Take Two: RCA, Ormandy, and the Cork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Charles O\u2019Connell, who commanded \u201cartists and repertoire\u201d for RCA Victor from 1930 to 1944, left a book of reminiscences \u2013 The Other Side of<\/em> the<\/em> Record<\/em> (1947) \u2013 documenting an astute, querulous intellect and a meddlesome ego. It was often O\u2019Connell who decided what music famous conductors, pianists, and violinists might commercially record.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell admired Sergei Rachmaninoff \u2013 yet only recorded Rachmaninoff in two extended solo piano works: Schumann\u2019s Carnaval<\/em> and Chopin\u2019s B-flat minor Sonata, both classics of the discography for piano. That is: O\u2019Connell failed to record Rachmaninoff\u2019s esteemed readings of Liszt\u2019s Sonata or Beethoven\u2019s Op. 111. Or of the piece Rachmaninoff considered his supreme compositional achievement: the existential Symphonic Dances<\/em>. Rachmaninoff was known to play the Symphonic Dances<\/em>, privately, with his friend Vladimir Horowitz in the two-piano version. We know that he wished to record the Symphonic Dances<\/em> as a conductor. O\u2019Connell had thrice recorded Rachmaninoff memorably conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in his own music. But O\u2019Connell lacked enthusiasm for the Symphonic<\/em> Dances<\/em> and nothing was done.<\/p>\n

All this matters greatly because Rachmaninoff refused to allow his live performances to be broadcast or otherwise recorded. Even though he was a master of musical structure, we have no documentation whatsoever of how he shaped the monumental Beethoven and Liszt pieces he famously purveyed. As important: we don\u2019t know what he sounded like in a real hall with a real audience.<\/p>\n

The new Marston 3-CD<\/strong><\/a> set \u201cRachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances<\/strong>\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the topic of my previous blog<\/strong> <\/a>\u2013 permits a glimpse of this \u201creal\u201d Rachmaninoff: a supreme instrumentalist more emotionally aroused than the one O\u2019Connell managed to capture in sound. Rachmaninoff\u2019s private rendering of his Symphonic Dances<\/em>, as recorded by Ormandy (probably without the pianist\u2019s knowledge), is an unprecedented opportunity to eavesdrop on Rachmaninoff performing absent the intrusive self-awareness imposed by RCA\u2019s microphones.<\/p>\n

This historic release also suggests another impediment to hearing the real Rachmaninoff: Eugene Ormandy himself.<\/p>\n

Of the repertoire Rachmaninoff happened to record, only one extended composition embeds the searing nostalgia that was the expressive keynote of this great artist. That is the Piano Concerto No. 3. His 1939-40 recording, with Ormandy, is a dry run. The concerto\u2019s lachrymose intensity is missing.<\/p>\n

That it did not have to be is proven by Rachmaninoff\u2019s 1929 recording of a less emotionally fraught composition: the Piano Concerto No. 2. The difference is the conductor, Ormandy\u2019s irreplaceable predecessor in Philadelphia: Leopold Stokowski.<\/p>\n

Ormandy\u2019s recorded accompaniments to Rachmaninoff\u2019s First, Second, and Fourth Piano Concertos are merely supportive: they give the soloist nothing to work with. (My pianist friend George Vatchnadze, describing the Rachmaninoff-Ormandy relationship, calls Ormandy a “puppy” and a “servant” — apt adjectives.) Stokowski\u2019s accompaniment to the Second Concerto is unique. The signature lava flow of his magnificent Philadelphia strings is not only memorably ravishing; it is acutely calibrated in dialogue with the composer\/pianist. It is not for nothing that Rachmaninoff called Stokowski\u2019s Philadelphia Orchestra the greatest orchestra that had ever existed.<\/p>\n

If you want to hear what I\u2019m talking about, listen first to the passage from the First Concerto that Vladimir Horowitz once identified as the only instance of RCA adequately conveying Rachmaninoff\u2019s art. This is the piano solo beginning at 12:52\u00a0here.<\/a><\/strong> And observe how the intrusion of Ormandy\u2019s generic accompaniment cancels the abandon of Rachmaninoff\u2019s playing, with its untethered rubatos and magically layered dynamics.<\/p>\n

Now Stokowski \u2013 try the coda to the first movement of the Second Concerto, beginning at 8:45\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/strong> You\u2019ll hear pianist and conductor immersed in an inspired dialogue: two exemplary instruments of musical expression \u2013 Stokowski\u2019s orchestra and Rachmaninoff\u2019s Steinway \u2013 feed one another.<\/p>\n

It is hardly surprising that once Ormandy took over, Stokowski did not guest-conduct in Philadelphia for more than two decades. Or that Stokowski, when passing through Philadelphia by train, would invariably lower the window shade.<\/p>\n

How is it possible that Eugene Ormandy could have succeeded Leopold Stokowski? Both O\u2019Connell and Arthur Judson, classical music\u2019s supreme powerbroker, played decisive roles (O\u2019Connell, in his book, testifies that Ormandy looked upon Judson \u201cas on a father\u201d). This choice — coinciding with refugee conductors of world stature looking for work in the US (Kleiber, Klemperer, etc.) — is one of the most parochial blunders in the institutional history of classical music in America. It bears comparison with the Met’s decision to replace Artur Bodanzky<\/strong><\/a> with Erich Leinsdorf in 1939; Leinsdorf, too, was a refugee — but no Kleiber or Klemperer. Two decades later, RCA inflicted Leinsdorf on the Boston Symphony; the resulting recordings are today forgotten.<\/p>\n

And how is it possible that Rachmaninoff chose to record with Ormandy? According to O\u2019Connell, \u201che preferred Ormandy to anyone, though he collaborated successfully and in the most friendly fashion with Stokowski.\u201d<\/p>\n

But O\u2019Connell held Ormandy in exaggerated esteem. And I read in Richard Taruskin\u2019s copious note for the new Marston release that Rachmaninoff, his longtime loyalty to Philadelphia notwithstanding, didn\u2019t care for Ormandy\u2019s reading of the Symphonic Dances —<\/em> his preferred conductor for that work (other than himself) being Dmitri Mitopoulos. The Marston set includes a scorching New York Philharmonic Symphonic Dances<\/em> led by Mitropoulos in live performance in 1942.<\/p>\n

Another annotation for the new Marston release, by the producers, reports that Rachmaninoff\u2019s preferred interpreters included Stokowski, Mitropoulos, and Willem Mengelberg \u2013 an informative list. These were sui generis conductors who never played by the rules. And, however constrained he may have been in the presence of Charles O\u2019Connell and Eugene Ormandy \u2013 neither did Sergei Rachmaninoff.<\/p>\n

PS: In an email exchange with Gregor Benko, the longtime Rachmaninoff authority who co-produced “Rachmaninoff Plays Symphonic Dances<\/em>,” I learned the following:<\/p>\n

“O\u2019Connell tried to kill two birds with one stone, thinking he would please Rachmaninoff in keeping his promise for Victor to record Symphonic Dances<\/em>, and satisfying his annual contractual commitment to Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony, by having Stock make the recording.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t realized how much this would displease Rachmaninoff, or how much Rachmaninoff wanted to conduct the recording himself.\u00a0 As happens so regularly at record companies, this seemingly minor personality kertuffle resulted in total failure, and no one recorded the Dances.<\/em> O\u2019Connell claimed that Rachmaninoff forgave him later, but we believe that is not true.<\/p>\n

“As for plans for recording the Symphonic Dances<\/em> with Vladimir Horowitz [in the two-piano version]: \u00a0talk of this has been much exaggerated, based on wishful thinking.\u00a0 Horowitz and Rachmaninoff played it together privately in California, unknown date but sometime after their first two piano partying there in June, 1942.\u00a0 Rachmaninoff was already ill and his circle was very worried. He tried to keep up a good face, and went with Horowitz to see Bambi<\/em> at the Disney studios.\u00a0 On July 17 & 18 Rachmaninoff played in the Hollywood Bowl and he was bent over.\u00a0 Lumbago, it was explained, but it was probably acute pain. In July Steinway stopped making pianos as the war really began affecting music. A few weeks later his cancer was diagnosed.\u00a0 It was a struggle just to fulfill contracted engagements for late 1942\/early 1943, and plans for the future were on hold. No contracts for new things, no dates set aside for new recordings. Each contracted concert played was a trial, and finally in mid-February he stopped the tour. He died at the end of March. There was no way such a recording could have happened . . . ”<\/p>\n

For much more on Arthur Judson and Leopold Stokowski, see my \u201cClassical Music in America:<\/strong> <\/a>A History of Its Rise and Fall\u201d (2005).\u00a0For more on Charles O’Connell, David Sarnoff, the provincial NBC\/RCA impact on American musical life, see my once notorious “Understanding Toscanini<\/a>:<\/strong> How He Became an American-Culture God and Helped Create a New Audience for Old Music\u00a0“[1987].)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles O\u2019Connell, who commanded \u201cartists and repertoire\u201d for RCA Victor from 1930 to 1944, left a book of reminiscences \u2013 The Other Side of the Record (1947) \u2013 documenting an astute, querulous intellect and a meddlesome ego. It was often O\u2019Connell who decided what music famous conductors, pianists, and violinists might commercially record. O\u2019Connell admired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-j0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}