Eugene Ormandy/The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Original Jacket Collection (SonyBMG Masterworks)

My favorite classical reissue of 2008. Oh, there were rarer items (most, maybe even all, of the performances here had already appeared on CD), and more adventurous repertoire, granted reissue, but none I play more frequently or love so much as this limited edition ten-CD set. And, I admit, it gains points with me for finally placing Columbia's most prolific conductor up there among the label's other big names honored in this series (Bernstein, Stravinsky, Horowitz).

He was Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1938 to 1980 (having been named co-conductor in '36, and continuing to appear as conductor laureate afterwards), the longest conductor tenure in the West, and for that entire time it was considered one of the best orchestras in the world.

The criticism of earlier issues in the Original Jacket Collection series was that having LP-length programs on CDs was not good value. SonyBMG answers that with a move that adds more music but somewhat undercuts the very name of the series: the albums that have had music added have had their front covers altered so that they are not the originals. Doesn't bother me a bit; the only part of this move that I regret is that Pictures at an Exhibition's original coupling, "A Night on Bald Mountain," has been dropped in favor of Scheherazade, while Bizet's Adagietto from L'Arlesienne has been dropped from The Romantic Philadelphia Strings. That, to me, is going too far.

"Respighi's Roman Trilogy for the First Time on One LP" the cover of the top album proclaims. Roman Festivals was originally interrupted by a side change, but not any more, of course. Pines of Rome (1958) and Fountains of Rome (1957) are among the earliest recordings here (Columbia adapted to stereo a little later than some other labels, and there are no mono recordings represented in this set), but the sound is rich, if a bit undefined and two-dimensional. The orchestral colors glint warmly (and occasionally wildly, notably in Festivals' crazy "La befana"), and the few moments where intonation is a tad sub-par don't interfere with enjoyment. Oddly, the sequence has been altered to start with Pines instead of ending with it, depriving the album of its boffo conclusion with the glorious pomp of "The Pines of the Appian Way," but it's easy enough to revert to the original order.

Ormandy's lack of musical ego combined with his professionalism and high level of orchestral preparation gained him renown as a fine concerto accompanist, and that aspect of his talents is represented on two discs here. Isaac Stern's 1958 recording with the Philadelphians of the Tchiakovsky Violin Concerto and Mendelssohn's E minor Violin Concerto catches all concerned at the tops of their games.

On the Shostakovich disc, the soloist in the Concerto for Cello No. 1 is Mstislav Rostropovich, recorded in 1959 shortly after the same forces gave the U.S. premiere of the work. This has long been the recommendation for this piece; Shostakovich himself was present ("the first Soviet composer to attend an American recording session of his own work and to supervise its progress in close cooperation with conductor and instrumentalists," the original liner notes proclaim proudly). The Philadelphians had also given the U.S. premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (in 1928 under Stokowski), and that work was reprised (though not, despite the booklet's lack of differentiation, at the same recording session) with superb results. Amid his profusion of standard-rep recordings, the casual observer might overlook Ormandy's sterling service to contemporary composers, but he was never shy of new challenges and led many premieres -- and in his time was one of the finest Shostakovich interpreters in the U.S., with several other excellent recordings of his symphonies.

He also was long considered something of an expert in Russian repertoire, and his Tchaikovsky was much-praised; it's represented here by a disc with his Symphony No. 5, now augmented with the Serenade for Strings. Ormandy's Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration) is one of the great recordings of that piece. The Philadelphia strings are famous, but the fat brassiness throughout is impressive, Russian in size without the wobbly vibrato. The most impressive aspect, however, is the way Ormandy perfectly proportions everything. This is not a skill that instantly attracts attention; one's gut response is probably just that everything "feels right." Eccentricity is always more obviously distinctive, even if it distorts the musical fabric; that's something Ormandy never did. The absolutely luscious Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov) features violinist Anshel Brusilow. Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 is heard with the then-traditional cuts, which means some folks won't make it a recommended recording on principle, but this is such a fine version that even fifty years after it was recorded some people still consider it among the very best. Rachmaninoff had a long relationship with the Philadelphians, and in fact conducted them in the U.S. premiere of this work. Good luck finding a more richly hued, voluptuously phrased rendition than this one. The bonus here is a later recording of the orchestral version of his "Vocalise."

The Bach Album is a two-disc set of orchestral arrangements of, mostly, J.S. Bach, but with J.C., W.F., and C.P.E. represented as well, occasionally even without being updated. Musicologically this stuff has gotten a bad rap, for understandable reasons, but for listeners of a certain age (and I am on the youngest end of that age, thank you) this was often their introduction to some of these pieces. I still find Ormandy's arrangements of the big organ works -- Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major -- to be thrilling and effective, and I retain a nostalgic fondness for the syrupy charms of the smaller pieces (more often arranged by other hands). Needless to say, it helps immensely that one of the greatest string sections in the world is playing them. I don't care how inauthentic the lushness is, it still sounds great.

Ormandy was Hungarian (born Jenő Blau), and although neither that nor his ties to Bartok guarantees success in his music, the conductor triumphs in the Concerto for Orchestra, The Miraculous Mandarin, and Two Pictures, drawn from two LPs. Anybody still clinging to the notion that Ormandy's interpretations lacked bite will have his ears cleaned out by these bracing performances, overflowing with piquant timbres that Ormandy gives full rein. The Concerto in particular dazzles, and in Ormandy's hands the underrated Two Pictures sound spectacular.

The Romantic Philadelphia Strings was an LP of ten "lollipops"; here the Bizet mentioned above has inexplicably been dropped. While three additional tracks plump up the running time to 70 minutes, there is still room for the little Adagietto, which would bring the timing to a still-manageable 73 minutes. There is some very corny stuff here, especially the Arthur Harris arrangement of "Londonderry Air" (tune used for "Danny Boy"), but anyone not allergic to schmaltz can wallow in the Philly string sections (not every track is for strings alone, but it's close). Vaughan Williams's "Fantasia on 'Greensleeves'" and an especially wonderful Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, the two main additions to the program, certainly outclass most of the original LP, though a heavily inflected Tchaikovsky Andante Cantabile (arranged by the album's producer, Thomas Frost) shines as well. Notably, this is the box's only disc containing American music: Barber's Adagio for Strings and a Frost arrangement of MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose." This low percentage severely underplays Ormandy's service to the composers of the country he became a citizen of in 1927.

But though it would be very easy to whine even more about what wasn't chosen -- SonyBMG could do another ten-CD Ormandy set and still be far from exhausting the long list of his great recordings -- what's here is wonderful, and I've been reveling in it for months. - Steve Holtje

Mr. Holtje is a Brooklyn-based poet and composer who splits his time between editing Culturecatch.com, working at the Williamsburg record store Sound Fix, and editing cognitive neuroscience books for Oxford University Press. No prizes for guessing which pays best.