Although Ormandy conducted and recorded a great deal of Tchaikovsky, Manfred is a work that I believe was new to his repertoire when he made this recording the day after a performance early in the 1976–77 subscription concert season. As with so many of the RCA recordings, the tempos are slower than average, but this heavy-hearted work (the first movement is marked Lento lugubre) can stand slow tempos. There are also some interpretive liberties in the final movement that one could live without. The other side of the coin is that the orchestra plays this most difficult of Tchaikovsky’s works effortlessly; the swirling woodwind figures in the second movement, for example, are preternaturally accurate. I wouldn’t want this as my only Manfred, but I know I will return to it, along with the Markevitch on Philips.
