Haydn Ormandy

From the notes: Until the last years of his circumscribed life, Hans Rosbaud lived and worked within a geographical triangle that had Graz at one corner, Aix-en-Provence at the other, and Frankfurt-am-Mein at the apex. His zeal on behalf of twentieth-century music was far-reaching, however, just as his excellence deserved bigger posts that the ones he chose….. Rosbaud was a notable advocate of music that other conductors tended to neglect or overlook after their first performances, and beyond that was a consistently diligent, profoundly insightful interpreter.

The new box contains no fewer than three different Williams recordings of that most popular of all guitar works, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez – from 1964 with the Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, from 1974 with Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra, and from 1983 with Frémaux and the Philharmonia Orchestra – plus a performance of its much-loved Adagio in Williams’s celebrated 1993 “Seville Concert”. That entire concert is presented here too, on both CD and DVD – the latter also including a bonus documentary portrait of the artist. Reviewing his second studio recording of the concerto, Gramophone in January 1975 proclaimed: “John Williams himself has already made one of the finest [versions], yet if possible even more conclusively this new one must be counted a winner, irresistible from first to last.