Walter Meyer wrote:

>This has fascinated me.  Apparently the best conductors can get
>superb performances from otherwise obscure orchestras and, conversely,
>an orchestra of international reputation can fall flat from poor
>conducting.  Which raises a question for me.  The Philadelphia Orchestra,
>under Stokowski and under Ormandy was famous for its "Philadelphia sound".
>Did this Philadelphia sound remain when Toscanini guest conducted them?

I can't answer this, but I can speculate.  I recall years ago hearing
Donald Peck, the principal flautist of the Chicago Symphony, describe how
he would play differently for Solti and for Giulini, simply based on what
he knew about the sound each preferred.  (IIRC, he said that he produced a
harder, more focused sound for Solti, but maybe I'm just using terms that
one would associate more readily with Solti than Giulini.) In other words,
orchestra musicians get to know what kind of a sound a conductor wants and
try to give it to him (at least some of the time, and particularly, I would
guess, when they respect the conductor).  And then there was the musician
who complained that he couldn't get Solti out of his fingers for weeks
after the orchestra he played in had been conducted by the Hungarian . . .

Nick
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