Eugene Ormandy

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At Judson's instigation Ormandy substituted for the ailing Arturo Toscanini with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1931. This led to an appointment as musical director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, a post he held from 1931 to 1936. In this post he became nationally known in the US through his recordings, which included the first versions on disc of Kodály's Háry János suite and Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. In 1936 he returned to Philadelphia as joint conductor with Leopold Stokowski. After two years he became the orchestra's sole music director; he held the post for 42 years (1938–1980), before stepping down to be its conductor laureate. He took the Philadelphia Orchestra on several national and international tours, and appeared as a guest conductor with other orchestras in Europe, Australia, South America and East Asia. Ormandy built on what Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls "Stokowski's voluptuous 'Philadelphia Sound'" and added further polish and precision. Despite, or even because of, this, among many music critics and others, as Harold C. Schonberg put it in a 1967 study, "there was a singular reluctance in musical circles to admit him into the ranks of great conductors". He was thought superficial; Toscanini dismissed him as "an ideal conductor of Johann Strauss", and a similar remark is attributed to Igor Stravinsky. Donald Peck, principal flute of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, reports that a fellow flutist was won over when Ormandy conducted the Chicago in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; he told Peck that it was the greatest Ninth he had ever heard. The conductor Kenneth Woods ranked Ormandy 14th of the "Real Top 20 of Conducting," saying,

Schonberg called Ormandy "an excellent technician with a technicolored approach". Grove comments that Ormandy may have contributed to this image by concentrating on the late-Romantic and early 20th-century repertory that showed to advantage the lush sound he could command in works by composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss and Tchaikovsky. Schonberg commented that Ormandy programmed very little Haydn or Mozart and approached Beethoven "in a rather gingerly manner". He conducted much less new music than his predecessor, Stokowski, had done, but did not ignore it, and gave the premieres of works including Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, which is dedicated to him and the orchestra, Bartók's Piano Concerto No.3, Britten's Diversions for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra and music by Ginastera, Hindemith, Martinů, Milhaud, Villa-Lobos and Webern. He did not neglect American composers, and among premieres he gave were works by Samuel Barber, David Diamond, Walter Piston, Ned Rorem, William Schuman, Roger Sessions and Virgil Thomson.

Schonberg concluded his study of Ormandy with the words, "Ormandy does not conduct with the overwhelming personality of a Furtwängler, or with the ferocity and clarity of a Toscanini, or with the immense knowledge and classicism of a Szell. But he has carved out an area for himself, and within it he is secure, a perfect workman and a sensitive interpreter. And it is an area that takes in a great deal more than Strauss waltzes".

In 1980, aged 80, Ormandy retired as chief conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, but continued to appear as its conductor laureate. His last concert was with his Philadelphia colleagues at Carnegie Hall on January 10, 1984. His tenure, as chief conductor and then laureate was the longest unbroken association between a conductor and a major American orchestra.

He died of pneumonia at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1985, at the age of 85.

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