In case anyone tells you that Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1958-1963, 88 cds, 19439977432, c£178.00, is prematurely deleted I can assure you that it isn’t. The fact is that Sony sold out within five days and to make matters worse international territories under-ordered. But I’m told that while I write this, the set is reprinting so even if it doesn’t quite make Christmas – your stocking might need to hang there empty until early in the New Year – it’ll be available soon afterwards. And believe me there are so many spectacular recordings included – wide, spatially cinematic productions, handsome in the extreme for an orchestra (the Philadelphia) and conductor that justify the efforts taken on their behalf – it’ll be worth the wait. I’ll note just a few highlights.

The Russian-Soviet repertoire is especially memorable, Prokofiev, Symphonies Nos. 4-6 for starters, the Fifth a fairly famous recording, taut and epic in scale (though never ponderous), the playing superb, most notably in the quacking scherzo. I’m pretty sure that the Fourth (revised version) and Sixth were receiving their first stereo recordings in the West. Both are given big, muscular readings, their first movements enormously imposing – especially No. 6 with its ominously marching development section – their finales boldly conclusive.  Shostakovich Symphony No. 4 is definitely a Western stereo premiere, and again Ormandy and his players really go for broke, the strings raging wildly in the first movement, the work’s coda a short-lived reign of terror before the Symphony ends among unanswerable questions.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings is both sumptuous and disciplined – the ideal classical/romantic synthesis in fact – and there are strongly projected, unsentimental accounts of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, as well as the ‘Symphony No. 7’, revised, instrumented end edited by Semyon Bogatyrev, an account that has probably never been bettered. The narrative aspect of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade has rarely been so vividly captured and the closing movement from The Golden Cockerel Suite outclasses even famous recordings under Markevitch and Doráti. There’s also music by Rachmaninov, including a famous recording of the Second Symphony, a favourite version among many collectors young and old.

On the classical front, Ormandy was a stylish Mozartean and his recordings of wind concertos with Philadelphia desk leaders (including John de Lancie in the Oboe Concerto) are both poised and polished. Great concerto recordings abound, not least Robert Casadesus in Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand – the sound here unusually vivid, with a strong bassline. And with Rudolf Serkin, both Mendelssohn and Brahms Concertos and, on a similar scale to the Brahms, Max Reger’s Concerto, Op.114. There are works by Richard Strauss and lighter fare from the Viennese Strauss family, as well as music by George Rochberg, Ottorino Respighi (the Roman Trilogy), Charles Ives, Ferde Grofé (Grand Canyon Suite), Grieg, Bach (including a fine B minor Mass), Handel (not least, a more than worthy, even majestic Messiah), César Franck, an especially lovely – and beautifully recorded –  Delius programme (including Brigg Fair), Edmund Rubbra’s dazzling orchestration of Brahms’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, and so much more.

A second volume of Columbia recordings is due next year. For this volume yours truly has written the booklet notes (I hope you don’t mind – which is why I shan’t duplicate material about Ormandy the man and musician here). All I’ll add is that in my book Ormandy is too often underrated as a serious contender among the Greats of his era and overrated for flirting with luscious sound for its own sake, which he virtually never did. Eugene Ormandy’s rostrum idol was Arturo Toscanini and his best performances had a Toscanini-style rigour that made them durable, which is why I can recommend this set with such sincere enthusiasm. I know it’s expensive but the outlay will, over time, justify itself many times over.