Ormandy’s Orchestra
Is Ormandy too devoted to romantic music, to the exclusion of the classic works? A reverse opinion is sometimes cited in reference to the Boston, "that other" orchestra; but both are available, on records and in person, and a concert shopper can take his choice. Are they ignoring the works of the "twelve-tone" composers, the mathematical composers, the electronics composers? Smaller groups around town — notably at the University of Pennsylvania, where an orchestra of 50 students is currently preparing a season of new works, and at Swarthmore, where Peter Gram Swing recently presented a dance recital by Merce Cunningham to works by John Cage and Erik Satie — make these available to the smaller audiences which are inevitable for such avant garde works.
CRITICS CHOICE. Does Philadelphia fail to support a genuine criticism, an adult approach to a first class ensemble? The Association has always played it safe by putting local newspaper music critics on the Orchestra payroll as writers of program notes. But the New York critics more than make up for this loss; during one week, following a recent appearance by the Philadelphia which saw the presentation of an organ work by Leo Sowerby, the Herald Tribune, the Times, and the New Yorker individually filled columns variously praising the Orchestra, chiding it for a fancied slight off-beat among the woodwinds, and complaining about the bad manners of the New York concert goers who walked out on way-out Sowerby; each of them making plain, meanwhile, of his deep affection and respect for the organization.
No; it is very hard indeed to fault the Philadelphia, Paul Henry Lang, writing in the Herald Tribune some time ago, called it "the solid gold Cadillac among orchestras" — and perhaps most telling of all, music students by the hundreds wait patiently in line on a Saturday night, for the dollar ticket into the amphitheatre where they conquer vertigo for love of Strauss and add their own statistic to the impressive number of those who rate the Philadelphia unmistakably First.
