Catalogue | Solo Concerto

These live recordings bear witness to the close rapport between Robert Casadesus and Eugene Ormandy, two great transatlantic figures in the history of twentieth-century music and performance. Born respectively in Paris and Budapest, these two musicians laid the cornerstone for their stellar careers in the post-war United States. Here they are heard with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in riveting interpretations of two masterpieces from the late romantic repertoire. Though written only two years apart (1875 and 1877), Saint Saëns’ concerto and Tchaikovsky’s symphony reflect very different musical and mental universes. Casadesus and Ormandy bring them to life with fascinating sureness of style and unbridled expression.

There is a “Producer’s Comment” from producer Ludger Böckenhoff about this production available.

The production is part of our series „Legendary Recordings“ and bears the quality feature „1st Master Release“. This term stands for the excellent quality of archival productions at audite. For all historical publications at audite are based, without exception, on the original tapes from broadcasting archives. In general these are the original analogue tapes, which attain an astonishingly high quality, even measured by today‘s standards, with their tape speed of up to 76 cm/sec. The remastering – professionally competent and sensitively applied – also uncovers previously hidden details of the interpretations. Thus, a sound of superior quality results. CD publications based on private recordings from broadcasts cannot be compared with these.

• Audiophile Audition | Gary Lemco | October 30, 2008

  Two historical performances from the RIAS archives, both of which feature conductor Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985) in rare form, eliciting more pathos...

• classiqueinfo-disque.com | Thierry Dupriez | January 20, 2009

  A contre image ?
  À travers ses témoignages discographiques (comme dans le récent coffret RCA) enregistrés en studio, Eugène Ormandy donne l’image d’un chef...

• Fanfare | James Miller | January 3, 2009

  Here are two superior performances, each, in its own way, redundant. Robert Casadesus made two fine studio recordings of the Saint-Saëns Concerto,...

• Gramophone | Rob Cowan | January 1, 2009

  Ormandy and Ansermet - Perennials in contrast
  Two ‘house’ conductors of the ‘50s and ‘60s receive the retrospective treatment
  During the 1950s and '60s two of the most ubiquitous conductors on disc were Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia and Ernest Ansermet in Geneva. Both were...

• Journal de la Confédération musicale de France | January 12, 2008

  Ormandy qui fut durant 44 ans le chef admiré de l'Orchestre de Philadelphie, excellait dans le répertoire romantique, qu'il a paré de coloris d'une...

• www.classicstodayfrance.com | Christophe Huss | January 11, 2008

  On n'avait sans doute pas déjà assez de disques d'Ormandy qui a, grosso modo, enregistré trois fois le grand répertoire: une fois pour Columbia en...

• www.musicweb-international.com | Rob Barnett | May 5, 2009

  These are live recordings emerging here in clean 'Honest John' mono from Audite who are quite justly held in high esteem by the German radio...