Ondine set to capture Philadelphia Orchestra on SACDs
Long dry season for U.S. Big 5 orchestras ends with Finnish connection
The Finnish classical music label Ondine looks likely to begin collaboration with the renowned Philadelphia Orchestra. A contract is in the works and should be signed in the next few weeks or sometime in March.
The news is almost mind-boggling, since the orchestras popularly known as "the Big Five" in the United States practically ceased all recording activity at the turn of the millennium, when the large recording companies threw up their hands and declared that the musicians’ studio tariffs were too high to make the exercise worthwhile.
"The planned cooperation is based on the fact that the orchestra will now be producing its records itself, and the rights to the master tapes will remain with them", explained a delighted Ondine managing director Reijo Kiilunen, when he casually let the news out at the company’s 20th anniversary celebrations.
And why did the Philadelphia Orchestra pick Ondine?
"Their Music Director Christoph Eschenbach wanted us, because he also records for Ondine with the Orchestre de Paris", grins Kiilunen.
He admits that the Philadelphia Orchestra will be being paid a larger-than-usual share of the royalties from sales.
The Philadelphia Orchestra was established in 1900 and rose to international fame under the baton of the legendary Leopold Stokowski (1912-38), and also the first decades with Eugene Ormandy were a time of enormous public and critical success. Studio work was also carried on with Riccardo Muti in the 1980s, but under Wolfgang Sawallisch from 1993 there were a number of poor choices in the Beethoven recordings released. These did not sell well at all, and effectively put the last nail in the coffin of cooperation with the EMI label.
Nevertheless, the Philadelphia Orchestra remains a very powerful musical force, just like the other members of the "Big 5" - the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Eschenbach’s services have been hired in the hope that he can restore the Philadelphians back to the glories of their heyday.
"The prospective deal is for three CD releases a year, and they will be released in hybrid SACD format, in other words they will also be playable in standard CD-players", says Kiilunen.
"The first disc should be coming out in the autumn of this year and then the full annual quota of three discs would start from 2006, but negotiations are still going on over details and the repertoire to be included."
The collaboration across the Atlantic also opens up new opportunities for soloist engagements.
"Discussion are ongoing, for instance, in the case of violinist Gil Shaham. What is certain is that this arrangement will bring an increasing number of foreign stars to Ondine", says Kiilunen.
Some of the other North American orchestras are also examining the idea of producing their own recordings and are looking around for suitable labels to work with.
The feisty Helsinki-based label, which initially grew out of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in the mid-1980s, has gained a good foothold in the niche classical market in the past ten years. The company also has plans for a project to record Finnish operas, as Ondine is to release four such works with financial support from a number of Finnish foundations.
The news is almost mind-boggling, since the orchestras popularly known as "the Big Five" in the United States practically ceased all recording activity at the turn of the millennium, when the large recording companies threw up their hands and declared that the musicians’ studio tariffs were too high to make the exercise worthwhile.
"The planned cooperation is based on the fact that the orchestra will now be producing its records itself, and the rights to the master tapes will remain with them", explained a delighted Ondine managing director Reijo Kiilunen, when he casually let the news out at the company’s 20th anniversary celebrations.
And why did the Philadelphia Orchestra pick Ondine?
"Their Music Director Christoph Eschenbach wanted us, because he also records for Ondine with the Orchestre de Paris", grins Kiilunen.
He admits that the Philadelphia Orchestra will be being paid a larger-than-usual share of the royalties from sales.
The Philadelphia Orchestra was established in 1900 and rose to international fame under the baton of the legendary Leopold Stokowski (1912-38), and also the first decades with Eugene Ormandy were a time of enormous public and critical success. Studio work was also carried on with Riccardo Muti in the 1980s, but under Wolfgang Sawallisch from 1993 there were a number of poor choices in the Beethoven recordings released. These did not sell well at all, and effectively put the last nail in the coffin of cooperation with the EMI label.
Nevertheless, the Philadelphia Orchestra remains a very powerful musical force, just like the other members of the "Big 5" - the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Eschenbach’s services have been hired in the hope that he can restore the Philadelphians back to the glories of their heyday.
"The prospective deal is for three CD releases a year, and they will be released in hybrid SACD format, in other words they will also be playable in standard CD-players", says Kiilunen.
"The first disc should be coming out in the autumn of this year and then the full annual quota of three discs would start from 2006, but negotiations are still going on over details and the repertoire to be included."
The collaboration across the Atlantic also opens up new opportunities for soloist engagements.
"Discussion are ongoing, for instance, in the case of violinist Gil Shaham. What is certain is that this arrangement will bring an increasing number of foreign stars to Ondine", says Kiilunen.
Some of the other North American orchestras are also examining the idea of producing their own recordings and are looking around for suitable labels to work with.
The feisty Helsinki-based label, which initially grew out of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in the mid-1980s, has gained a good foothold in the niche classical market in the past ten years. The company also has plans for a project to record Finnish operas, as Ondine is to release four such works with financial support from a number of Finnish foundations.
Helsingin Sanomat