“The Philadelphia sound – it’s me.”

The Hungarian-American conductor Eugene Ormandy (1899–1985) was music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years, during which time he made it one of the world’s very best.

He conducted a wide range of repertoire, but specialised most of all in 19th-century and later repertoire. He gave premieres of music by Bartók, Webern, Rachmaninoff and Britten.