Search - Artur Rodzinski :: Artist Profile

If you don't own this, grab it!

The Night Owl out on the Town | Los Angeles, CA United States | 03/26/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A few years back, EMI cleaned out their vaults and issued a series of two-fers, spotlighting great or near-great consuctors who had been on their lists in the early days of stereo. Most of these were excellent value--- Giulini, Kempe, Kletzki, Silvestri, Cluytens, and a very fine Efrem Kurtz collection come to mind. I was sorry they left out Fistoulari, and Goossens at the time. They left some fine recordings that still slumber in EMI's storehouse somewhere.

Rodzinski was a great conductor from the golden age with an erratic and irrascible personality. He headed a number of the country's great orchestras, but never for very long. He was rediscovered by Westminster in the early 1950s, who made recordings with him in Vienna and London. Some of these have made their way to the DGG label. A Nutcracker with Big Ben and violin concerti with the impressive Erica Morini are not to be missed.

Then EMI signed him and recorded him until he died in 1958.

By then his interpersonal wrangling had cooled, but not his passion for the music. Contained here are three programs of Spanish warhorses, Russian favorites and a superb Richard Strauss collection he made in London just before he died. The Death and Transfiguration is simply the best and most moving I have ever heard. The passionate struggle, the tears and the resignation are all here. The Philharmonia plays their hearts out for him. The recording concedes nothing for its age.



It's a shame there were not more. He was widely respected as a conductor and his recordings, few as they are, show it.

This collection is now out of print. If you love great conducting and great music in great sound, you must hear this, Grab it, if one is still available."