Eugene Ormandy conducts Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings

Eugene Ormandy conducts the strings of the Philadelphia Orchestra

[@notaire2]

Das ist eine der schönsten Aufführungen dieses Werkes.

[@matthewc.ganong5497]

This is the 23rd comment... Strauss was one of the most skilled and expressive composers of all time. It's great to encounter this piece played so beautifully by this group!

[@matthewc.ganong5497]

And this is the 23rd of January...

[@singingquails4520]

So beautiful. Ormandy is so underrated, probably because he came on the heels of Stokowski, but he belongs with the best. I only wish there was a recording of Ormandy doing Tod und Verklarung.

[@stevelayden4596]

Well the good news is he recorded Tod und Verklarung twice! You can find a few remastered versions of his earlier Columbia recording on KZbin, but he also recorded it (in digital) with RCA right at the end of his career. I can’t seem to find it in print anywhere though

[@rohme]

Now this is a piece of music.

[@stefanufer608]

Wonderful post - glorious string sound - doesn’t quite convey the sadness as deeply as Karajan but still on if the finest recordings I’ve heard. Thank you

[@123must]

Beautiful rendition ! Thanks

[@Hector123000]

Why is it that depressing music helps me focus on my readings better? I'm reading plato right now and this is really helping me capture every word I'm reading.

[@jkenny313]

Moving and beautiful. Wonderful variations throughout.

[@dansedelachevre]

what an amazing reading! brings tears to my eyes...

[@ArmandBlenker]

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; "old things have passed away; behold, all things are become new."

[@AfroPoli]

This is Strauss best instrumental piece, no doubt about that.

[@myjohnnybrady]

Thanks for uploading this wonderful performance.

[@Troskyi]

for me it's cathartic effect is in exhaustion and depletion, it's an exhausting piece in every way, from it's length to it's overburdened amount of thematic material, to it's constant relentless intensity, the layering, the reiteration of that weird three note fugal gesture which is something like struggle or resistance in character.

[@1UShawn]

the first time i hear this piece i cry and i didn't know the reason. It was like if i cry for an higher state of comprehension, and that's what music all about ( the abstract sense of expression) but now i understand what i was crying for... but even the words it's too little to explain that, I was crying the despair of humanity.

[@pav689]

yes, it's hopeless, but still one of the best music's pages of 20th century, a real milestone.

[@l1011tstar]

thanks!! i`ve just heard this few hours ago in a concert by nhk philharmonic in japan and felt really impressed.

[@jsquie]

Thank you so much for the upload.

[@Troskyi]

It starts off numb and throbbing from the very beginning. For it's narrative arc it spends its entire time post-climax like something dead inside trying to revive itself, every sick lurch towards the resolution of each phrase and those laboured modulations exhaust it's reserves until it falls into a dark brooding not unlike the one in which it began.

[@OrlandoAponte]

@nidhavellir That's the principal meaning behind the piece

[@Hector123000]

you gotta tell me how you read this

[@OrlandoAponte]

This is probably the most depressing piece ever written. Rather than focusing on the sentiments of one human being, or even on the mourning of several, it instead attacks the very integrity of our existence. It symbolizes despair for humanity, and is the musical incarnation of defeat

[@OrlandoAponte]

Upon the attainment of self-knowledge we are not redeemed or elevated to a plain of higher existence. Instead, we are doomed to discover only the most vile and degenerate aspects of our nature. Painfully, we become aware that human condition is characterized by depravity