Tchkaikovsky: Violin Concerto (Thomas Schippers, New York Philharmonic) / Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto (George Szell, Members of The Cleveland Orchestra) / Sony Classical Great Performances / Sony Classical Audio CD 2006/ 82876-78760-2

UPC 828767876023

Thomas Schippers (9 March 1930 – 16 December 1977) was an American conductor. He was highly regarded for his work in opera.

The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly referred to as the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, located in New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Founded in 1842, the orchestra is one of the oldest musical institutions in the United States and the oldest of the "Big Five" orchestras. Its record-setting 14,000th concert was given in December 2004.

George Szell (/ˈsɛl/; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is widely considered one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and for the recordings of the standard classical repertoire he made in Cleveland and with other orchestras.

Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over a respected if undersized orchestra, which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into "what many critics regarded as the world's keenest symphonic instrument."

Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. While on tour with the Orchestra in the late 1980s, then-Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi remarked, "We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review."

The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall. As of 2021, the incumbent music director is Franz Welser-Möst.

In October 2020 The New York Times called it "America's finest [orchestra], still", and in 2012 Gramophone Magazine ranked the Cleveland Orchestra number 7 on its list of the world's greatest orchestras.