Tag Archives: Philadelphia Orchestra

NYPhil Gets Morales Boost?

The NY Times reports that the New York Philharmonic has offered its principal clarinet seat, vacant since the retirement of Stanley Drucker, to Philadelphia Orchestra principal Ricardo Morales. Much as I would love to see him with the Philharmonic, his defection would prove another blow to the financially-buffeted Philadelphians.

NPR looks at the Philadelphia Orchestra

… and its continuing financial woes. It’s worth pointing out that the final section of the article puts perhaps too much of a link between the orchestra and their venerable former venue. The lion’s share of the orchestra’s recordings made during Eugene Ormandy’s tenure as music director were made not at the acoustically uneven Academy of Music but at other venues, notably Philadelphia Town Hall, which yielded a far different sound than the orchestra created on their “home turf.” Additionally,  the orchestra’s “Ormandy” sound had changed drastically before the move from the Academy to Kimmel Center under Ormandy’s successors Riccardo Muti and Wolfgang Sawallisch.