My favourite conductors/Episode 2 Fritz Reiner. The autocrat and audiophile.

[@michelangelomulieri5134]

One of the greatest ever! His Strauss is almost unequalled..

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner did a marvelous Brahms Second Piano Comcerto with Emil Gilels in Orchestra Hall in early 1958 it's still my favorite. Janos Starker played the lovely cello solos. Emil Gilels was such a wonderful poet of the keyboard and Reiner and the Chicago Symphony magisterial as always.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner's Brahms with Heifetz is one if the greatest concerto recordings ever made by anybody. It exudes greatness and its beauties never fail to impress me. Artistry of the highest order.

[@dmntuba]

Great video & subject 👍 Extra points for mentioning Arnold Jacobs, and knowing who he was...the Tuba player 🤣

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner's Isle of the Dead is such a great performance it sounds like a totally different work the way the Chicago Symphony played it in 1957. So much better than anybody elses. That inexorable force that pulls you forward is unforgettable. Really special.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner's Ein Heldenleben and Dance of the Seven Veils were the very first stereo recordings RCA made with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall Chicago on March 6, 1954. A very auspicious beginning.

[@Orchestra101]

Great albums. Thank you for sharing!

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner's Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture was recorded in Orchestra Hall Chicago on January 7, 1956 and has judicious cuts but even so it's a great performance.

[@iraeich]

Talking about Beethoven's 7th symphony. There's a Living Stereo record with Karajan conducting the Vienna Phiihamonic Orchestra that is absolutely fabulous. My favoite LVB 7th. It's LSC - 2536. It's rare in my 35 years of collecting I've only seen it once. And that's the copy I have. It was probably a Decca team recording.

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

Karajan was so well served by Decca, EMI and others. Have not seen 2536. It’s too bad Legge and others couldn’t show the great man it’s best to keep his hands off the control board when he went to DG. Will look out for the 7th. Thx

[@twraven1]

Reiner was a great musician, at home on the orchestral stage and in the opera pit. He was an authoritarian on the podium and the stories about him “torturing” his players abound. His stern character did not sit well with Curtis Institute students when conducting the Curtis orchestra. In fact, Jascha Brodsky as a young student at Curtis put a thumb tack on Reiner’s chair during a rehearsal. Reiner sat on it and was outraged. No one said who had pulled the prank. I know this because Brodsky himself told me the story.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner's Johann Strauss collection is a lovely set. I particularly love the Josef Strauss "My Life is Love and Laughter". The spirit of the playing is just perfect and for some godawful reason is not included on the SACD CD version. It's a wonderful performance and I sense a little affection from old Fritzy on this one. Vienna Blood is a wonderful performance and demonstrates the beautiful two second reverberation time Orchestra Hall had before the 1966 renovation or more accurately stated desecration.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

I have an interesting back story about Reiner's Tchaikovsky with Heifetz that was recorded in Orchestra Hall in April 1957. In the spring of 1957 they were constructing the Borg Warner building right next door to Orchestra Hall and right before the last movement begins you can hear the pneumatic pile drivers tapping outside. Those Telefunken Neumann microphones pick up everything.

[@retohofmann5878]

I have kind of same story with Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. J.V.A. Guillou), recorded at the Tonhalle in Zurich. Sometimes you can hear the traffic passing by outside, because the Tonhalle is in the center of the city. Great, great organ version of the pictures by the way. The big pipes go down to 16 Hz...that wil stress your sub;-)

[@ftumschk]

It's amazing how many Reiner recordings I still listen to, because they're so darned good. Earlier today, I put on a 1954 Chicago recording of Don Juan, and despite being nearly -eighty- seventy years old (gulp!) it's still as exciting as hell.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

No it's nearly 70 years ago. I was born in 1954 so let's not gild the lily and make it any worse than it is.

[@ftumschk]

@@ScottHughes-n4u Doh! You're quite correct, of course. Happy 70th birthday in advance :)

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

After hearing Reiner's recording of his Song of the Nightingale Stravinsky said "The Chicago Symphony was the most precise and flexible orchestra in the world".

[@1Verwoert]

Very nice (ahum 😉) review .. again Good to see all these “best of” performances by one conductor !

[@richardtomasek]

Das Lied von Der Erde is with Richard Lewis. Bud Herseth used to refer to an orchestra member having his "time in a barrel" under Reiner. Reiner would pick out a solo in a piece and have the player do it over and over. Herseth himself was tested in the famous and deadly octave C to high C leap in Zarathustra under the pretext of fixing something in the woodwinds. Herseth did it 5 or 6 times, never missing. Reiner then asked Bud if he could do it once more. Herseth looked at his watch and said I'm here until 12:30. All Reiner wanted was the players to give 100%, which they did.

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

Yes, I corrected it with a graphic in the video with Mr . Lewis. You must have missed it.

[@richardtomasek]

@@AudiophiliaChannel Yes, I did not see it. It is an excellent and overlooked performance. Reiner came to realize how great Mahler was late in his career. The Reiner Mahler 4th is also a wonderful recording.

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

@@richardtomasek yes, a wonderful 4th 👍

[@dianeandjeffreyknorr2804]

When asked what he thought of Reiner, an anonymous CSO musician answered something like: not much of a conductor but a heck of a nice guy.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

Reiner's Dance of the Seven Veils is just as gorgeous as his Ein Heldeleben. Adolph Herseth pricipal trumpet said that "Reiner had a very clean sound and got the schmaltz just right". Reiner's Dance of the Seven Veils is a perfect example of that.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

I believe Robert Lambert was the principal trombone in the Chicago Symphony in the late 1950's. Robert Lambert was the teacher of Jay Friedman who is still the principal trombone of the Chicago Symphony. I believe Jay Friedman has the record for years service in the CSO 58 years.

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

I wish Reiner would have done a Brahms Symphony Cycle with the Chicago Symphony. It would have been great.

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

His 3 is exceptional

[@ScottHughes-n4u]

A little back story about Reiner's magnificent Isle of the Dead I learned from Norm Pellegrini program director of WFMT Chicago. Reiner was listening to the playbacks of Isle of the Dead and he said to his producer Richard Mohr "I sound like Stokowskii". He must have been referring to the gorgeous string textures the CSO produced in this performance.

[@gerontius3]

He sure does sound like Stokowski (listen from 11 minutes in!). Reiner had plenty of opportunities to hear Stokowski while teaching at Curtis and while he had a completely different approach to music he had some admiration for Stoki because he invited him to conduct in Chicago and took Stokowski's advice to get the huge curtains out of Orchestra Hall to improve reverberation. Reiner had hoped to succeed Stoki in Philly but that attempt was torpedoed by a long letter to the Board from Olga Samaroff who strongly recommended Ormandy ( a relatively young firebrand at the time and much nicer guy than Reiner). She argued that Reiner was really an opera conductor in spite of him being chief conductor of the Cincinnati and Pittsburgh orchestras for years!

[@lollol7688]

Good evening, Very entertaining these video’s, thanks for that. I was wondering what you’re point of view regarding the following is: how good is the sound quality of these original living stereo’s compared to later pressings from rca ( who also State ‘living stereo” (from the immortal classics series for example) , rca victor and the Victrola series? Would be interesting to know!

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

Usually much better. I’ve heard very few later copies that beat an OG Indianapolis early pressing. Cheers

[@axolotl8694]

you're right... players don't want to hear "nice". and composers don't want to hear "interesting".

[@gerontius3]

Respighi not your cup of tea - that's OK, but it is one of my guilty pleasures and I must say these performances are the very best ever recorded - stunning playing and wonderful sound, perhaps only bettered on RCA by the Munch SS #3

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

@@gerontius3 relistned lately. Such musical performances.

[@gerontius3]

@@AudiophiliaChannel Yes. Reiner is very good in the quiet passages as well as the loud ones. I still find Munch (live with the BSO) absolutely the best ever (Silvestri also wonderful). The CSO trumpets (Herseth, Kaderabek etc) have such precision and crispness at the beginning.....you also hear this in the Lt Kije of course..........

[@spodvoll]

Thank you. I'm a huge Reiner fan. But.... Regardless of sound quality, Bruno Walter owns Beethoven 6, Carlos Kleiber owns Beethoven 7, and Lisa Della Casa ruins the Mahler 4.

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

Walter’s 6th is superb, the new DG Original Source vinyl 7th is outstanding and I believe I mention Della Casa’s pitch.

[@spodvoll]

@@AudiophiliaChannel I recall you mentioning the pitch. That isn’t my sole quibble with the performance. Mahler was even specific in his instructions, ie that the soprano should sound like a little boy. My favorite in that regard was Kathleen Battle’s interpretation in the recording made by Lorin Maazel.

[@Mooseman327]

Szell and Reiner are my two favorite conductors. Superb musicians who molded fantastic orchestras. Unerringly good. Both Hungarian-born Jews. I LOOOOOOVE Reiner's Das Lied von der Erde. And, yes, it is VERY underrated. One of the very best, if not the best. I think it's underrated because people look at the two singers, Forrester and Lewis, and shrug their shoulders because better singers have done this piece. But, the orchestral playing by the Chicago, with Herseth, of course, leading the way, is miraculous. And Forrester and Lewis do some of their best work here.

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

Spot on. 👍

[@armenkhatchatrian8748]

Another excellent video! Thank you! Would you consider doing a video on the best recordings of Khachaturian’s work?

[@AudiophiliaChannel]

I really don’t have any on vinyl, but if I did,I like two, Spartacus VPO/Decca, LSO/EMI, both conducted by the composer.