RCA Red Seal Records (now a division of Sony Masterworks) has just released—for the first time as a set—the complete Chicago Symphony Orchestra recordings led by our sixth music director, the legendary Fritz Reiner. The sixty-three discs are beautifully presented in replicas of the original album jackets (front and back), spanning the recording of Richard Strauss’s Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome and Also sprach Zarathustra, recorded in March 1954, through Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4 with Van Cliburn, recorded in April 1963.
The beautifully packaged set includes a detailed booklet with repertoire and recording details, along with an excellent article by Kenneth Morgan (author of Fritz Reiner: Maestro and Martinet).
The set also includes Reiner’s last recording (made in September 1963, barely two months before his death): Haydn’s Symphonies nos. 95 and 101. The ensemble is billed as “Fritz Reiner and his Symphony Orchestra,” which included musicians from “the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Symphony of the Air (formerly NBC Symphony), and others.”
from the archives 
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November 16, 2023 at 8:07 AM
Fritz Reiner – operastars
[…] beginning in the fall of 1953. Under his leadership, the Orchestra made several landmark recordings for RCA including orchestral works by Bartók, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Respighi, Rossini, Strauss and […]
November 16, 2021 at 8:02 AM
Jean Martinon + CSO = 10 | from the archives
[…] commissioned for the Orchestra’s seventy-fifth season. And similar to the previously issued Reiner set, the booklet includes numerous images from the collections of the Rosenthal […]
October 12, 2020 at 11:39 AM
Celebrating Theodore Thomas’s 185th birthday on CSOradio | from the archives
[…] CSO recordings of music by Strauss have never been out of print, and in 2013, Sony re-issued Reiner’s complete CSO catalog on RCA, a boxed set of sixty-three […]
May 5, 2020 at 9:03 AM
Remembering Rosalind Elias | from the archives
[…] On March 7, RCA was on hand to record Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky—the first recording collaboration with the Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Chorus—in Orchestra Hall. Richard Mohr was the producer and Lewis Layton was the recording engineer, and the recording recently was re-released as part of a comprehensive box set of Fritz Reiner’s complete recordings with the CSO on RCA. […]
January 10, 2020 at 9:11 AM
Happy birthday, Sherrill Milnes! | from the archives
[…] new world of musical ideas and rehearsal ideas. . . . I’m on the recording of Reiner’s Beethoven Ninth in the chorus [and] Alexander Nevsky with Reiner too. . . . I was hearing phrases thrown at me for […]
March 13, 2019 at 9:46 AM
Happy birthday, Rosalind Elias! | from the archives
[…] On March 7, RCA was on hand to record Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky—the first recording collaboration with the Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Chorus—in Orchestra Hall. Richard Mohr was the producer and Lewis Layton was the recording engineer, and the recording recently was re-released as part of a comprehensive box set of Fritz Reiner’s complete recordings with the CSO on RCA. […]
March 22, 2017 at 9:46 AM
Seiji Ozawa + CSO = 6 | from the archives
[…] the success of [Fritz] Reiner’s CSO recordings, RCA was eager to continue expanding its catalog with the Orchestra, and the label wasted no time […]
January 3, 2017 at 9:19 AM
Remembering Theodore Thomas | from the archives
[…] CSO recordings of music by Strauss have never been out of print, and in 2013, Sony re-issued Reiner’s complete CSO catalog on RCA, a boxed set of sixty-three […]
November 18, 2016 at 2:52 PM
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra celebrates 100 years of recording | from the archives
[…] On March 6, 1954, sixth music director Fritz Reiner and the Orchestra recorded together for the first time: Strauss’s Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome and Ein Heldenleben for RCA. (Reiner’s complete CSO catalog recently was re-released by RCA.) […]
June 6, 2016 at 12:01 PM
Remembering Phyllis Curtin | from the archives
[…] April 27 and 28, 1961 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 Fritz Reiner, conductor Phyllis Curtin, soprano Florence Kopleff, contralto John McCollum, tenor Donald Gramm, bass-baritone Chicago Symphony Chorus Margaret Hillis, director Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was recorded by RCA on May 1 and 2, 1961, in Orchestra Hall. The recording recently was re-released as part of a sixty-three-disc set featuring Reiner’s complete discography with the Orchestra. […]
September 12, 2014 at 9:14 AM
“O say can you see . . .” | from the archives
[…] Fritz Reiner (the Orchestra’s sixth music director from 1953 until 1962) in 1957 by RCA; it was recently reissued as part of a comprehensive 63-CD set. The Banner was recorded a third time in 1986 for London Records, with Sir Georg Solti (our music […]
November 7, 2013 at 3:58 PM
Remembering John F. Kennedy and Fritz Reiner, part 1 | from the archives
[…] with Van Cliburn as soloist (the Beethoven was recorded by RCA on April 22 and 23; see here and here for more information). Reiner was scheduled to close the season on May 2 and 3 with an extensive […]