A Glinka Favorite from Philadelphia and Boston

The overture to Mikhail Glinka's opera Ruslan and Ludmila is one of the great program openers, beloved of maestros who want to stun the audience with orchestral viruosity. And two of the great virtuoso ensembles of all time are those of Philadelphia and Boston, and they do indeed amaze in these vintage recordings led by Eugene Ormandy and Arthur Fiedler, respectively.

The young Fiedler

The earlier of the two is from 1939 and is devoted to the Boston Pops, then in the ninth year of Fiedler's 49-year reign. Victor issued the performance on two sides of a Red Seal 78.

The Philadelphia Orchestra version comes from 1946, when Ormandy was eight years into his 44-year tenure as music director. He had recently moved over from Victor to Columbia, which issued this endeavor on its own 78.

The Boston performance is perhaps the more lithe; the Philadelphians were unrivalled in the depth of their string tone, which has an intoxicating effect in the overture's rapid string figurations. 

I do prefer the Fiedler, perhaps because it is much better recorded and because the pressing at hand is far superior. Either way, I am sure you will enjoy the experience.

Ormandy as the Phantom of the Orchestra