Grieg - Peer Gynt Suites [Ormandy-Philadelphia Orchestra]It's actually been a long time since i played these suites, and i truly forget how very good they are, even those numbers that are not so famous came across as masterpieces this time, plus this was recorded in the early to mid seventies, but the recording is incredibly good, my only gripe is that the last number 'Solvejg's Song' is the vocal version, instead of the orchestral, it seems an odd sore thumb that sticks out.
The Hungarian Conductor Eugene Ormandy was born in 1899, and died in 1985, a long life, he conducted this Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years, a considerable tenure compared to today.
The Booklet in this RCA Navigator series is wonderful, most of them are maps, some of them are poor, but this is nice and sharp, showing colours of borders, mountains and rivers etc, also there's nice latitude lines, and even sea/coastline gradings, all tremendously sharp, a joy to own, i saw it on Ebay and snapped it up.
So of course i was concerned, would the music and the quality of the recording match up to the visual quality?, the answer was amazingly yes, even the Piano Concerto which was recorded in 1959 was of outstanding quality, with only a degree of analogue hiss to betray it's age, but your ears soon adjust to this.
'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' was excellent, it starts off with pizzicato cellos [0:04-1:01], representing Peer Gynt creeping into the cave of the Mountain King, while the searching trolls represent the bassoons, it moves up a notch to include violins for Peer Gynt, while the trolls move up to oboes [1:01-1:52], the music becomes frantic as the trolls discover Peer Gynt and give chase, with Peer Gynt running away symbolized by the pacey bowing strings [1:52-2:29], eventually the Mountain King himself encounters Peer Gynt, who runs out of the cave, with the Mountain King in pursuit, represented by clashes on the cymbals and timpani [2:29-2:48], i like the start, and how it builds up, like i said, i haven't heard this for quite a while, it was good to refresh my ears, and especially to get to know some of the lesser known numbers in the suites.
Here's 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' conducted by Neeme Jarvi with the Berliner Philharmoniker on YouTube.
