The 1934 Victor recordings were a commercial and critical success, and the Minneapolis Symphony and Ormandy became respected names in classical music. O'Connell eagerly returned with his Victor crew in January 1935 for another concentrated period of recording.
The Victor sessions of 1934 and 1935, spread across twenty days - nine the first year, and eleven the second - committed 54 works to disc (including premiere recordings of VerklC$rte Nacht and the Háry János Suite) and spanned 169 disc sides. In his 1948 autobiography, O'Connell claimed that the Minneapolis recording project was "the most important and effective contribution to the resuscitation of recorded music" in the mid-1930s. Selected recordings from the Victor sessions have been reissued on compact disc on The Art of Eugene Ormandy (1999) and The Minnesota Orchestra at One Hundred (2003).
Nothing did more to advance the reputation of Ormandy and the Minneapolis Symphony than this series of recordings. According to Ormandy, "it was wonderful for the Orchestra. . . . I was told within two or three years they had a million dollars revenue. Of course, I got nothing out of it, neither did the orchestra. It was in my contract. So it wasn't a financial matter for me; it was an artistic and, of course, reputation-wise, it helped the orchestra tremendously." The recordings not only sold well, they were also broadcast widely in the United States and Europe. Through the recordings, Ormandy forged his international reputation, and his successful recording sessions in Northrop Hall made him an attractive prospect for the appointment in Philadelphia.
When Ormandy left for Philadelphia in 1936, the musicians' union in Minneapolis insisted on changes to the orchestra contract to bring it in line with the major orchestras of the east. Although the orchestra had become a successful brand name for Victor, O'Connell was not allowed to return to Minneapolis for further sessions because of the increased expense resulting from the new contract. The success of the Minneapolis recordings, however, allowed him to proceed with recording sessions in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Rochester, St. Louis, and Cincinnati.