Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association with the orchestra is one of the longest enjoyed by any conductor with any American orchestra. Ormandy made numerous recordings with the orchestra, and as guest conductor with European orchestras, and achieved three gold records and two Grammy Awards. His reputation was as a skilled technician and expert orchestral builder.

Longtime Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy (born Jenó Blau) developed what came to be known as the "Philadelphia Sound." (He groused that it should be called the "Ormandy Sound," even though its fundamentals had already been established during Leopold Stokowski's long tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra.) Largely as an effort to overcome the dry acoustics of the orchestra's home, the Academy of Music, Ormandy emphasized lush string sonorities and, often, legato phrasing and rounded tone. He was lauded even by his own musicians for his ability to conduct everything from memory, even complex contemporary scores. Still, aside from the voluptuous tone, Ormandy's interpretations rarely bore an individual stamp. They were, however, highly polished, intelligently balanced, and well paced, always serving the scores honorably, and often with a dash of controlled excitement.

In Perlman's words, Tchaikovsky "wears his heart on his sleeve" and his violin concerto is a work of "unabashed Romanticism". While bringing sensitivity and substance to his interpretation, Perlman never slips into sentimentality and he leads an exhilarating dance in the finale.

Together for the first time, three acclaimed concertos performed by the soloists who made them famous - dedicatees and performers David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich, and then Leonard Bernstein himself, pianiste, conductor and composer with the less beloved Concerto Op.102. Lenny has produced a successful rendering of this curious cocktail - a tribute to Rococo style Bach, an entranced romantic andante along with a caricature of Prokofiev style virtuoso piano in the opening and closing allegros.

Here is another fascinating issue in their SACD series. Again Dutton Vocalion (Epoch) have been able to obtain original four-track surround recordings never before issued in multi-channel SACD. Artur Rubinsteun is soloist in Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns' Piano Concertos and De Falla's Nights In The Gardens Of Spain, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.