Alice Sara Ott: Liszt: 12 Études d'exécution transcendante
Nudge up the volume just a smidgin, and you have a Steinway grand in your living room.
Classical Music for Aficionados
I would like to start a thread, similar to Orpheus’ jazz site, for lovers of classical music.
I will list some of my favorite recordings, CDs as well as LP’s. While good sound is not a prime requisite, it will be a consideration.
Classical music lovers please feel free to add to my lists.
Discussion of musical and recording issues will be welcome.
I’ll start with a list of CDs. Records to follow in a later post.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor.
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Vanguard Classics — Vienna Festival Orch. Prohaska, conductor.
Prokofiev: Scythian Suite et. al. DG — Chicago Symphony Abbado, conductor.
Brahms: Symphony #1. Chesky — London Symph. Orch. Horenstein, conductor.
Stravinsky: L’Histoire du Soldat. HDTT — Ars Nova. Mandell, conductor.
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances. Analogue Productions. — Dallas Symph Orch. Johanos, cond.
Respighi: Roman Festivals et. al. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor.
All of the above happen to be great sounding recordings, but, as I said, sonics is not a prerequisite.
I will list some of my favorite recordings, CDs as well as LP’s. While good sound is not a prime requisite, it will be a consideration.
Classical music lovers please feel free to add to my lists.
Discussion of musical and recording issues will be welcome.
I’ll start with a list of CDs. Records to follow in a later post.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor.
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Vanguard Classics — Vienna Festival Orch. Prohaska, conductor.
Prokofiev: Scythian Suite et. al. DG — Chicago Symphony Abbado, conductor.
Brahms: Symphony #1. Chesky — London Symph. Orch. Horenstein, conductor.
Stravinsky: L’Histoire du Soldat. HDTT — Ars Nova. Mandell, conductor.
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances. Analogue Productions. — Dallas Symph Orch. Johanos, cond.
Respighi: Roman Festivals et. al. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor.
All of the above happen to be great sounding recordings, but, as I said, sonics is not a prerequisite.
Showing 50 responses by twoleftears
I don't think this is particularly well known, it's a youthful Andras Schiff playing Schumann. Gesange der Fruhe; Nachtstucke; Kreisleriana; Variationen in Es-dur [forgive lack of diacritics]. On Teldec. This displaces Lupu as my favorite Schumann recital. The way he handles the dissonances in Gesange no. 1 is extraordinary. |
Listening to Kondrashin's Dvorak 9 for a first time on my improved system, and what an exciting recording it is. Superb dynamics! The tympani strokes in the first movement made me jump. I would never have guessed the recording's age. All cobwebs firmly blown away. Dvorak reenergized. All that said, anyone care to recommend a complementary more relaxed, "romantic" reading, with a suitably delicious slow movement? I'd like to have both. |
Mendelssohn: complete piano works, Howard Shelley, 4 vols. Honestly, I don't know why M's piano music, beyond the Romance sans paroles, isn't more widely played. Excellent. Also excellent performance and excellent piano sound from Hyperion. Hyperion are on a roll. Brahms, complete Variations for piano. Garrick Ohlsson. Wow! Some, err, muscular music here. Extraordinarily good piano sound. |
Listening to Buniatishvili's Schubert disc: Sonata D 960, Impromptus D 899 capped with the delicious Liszt Standchen transcription. I am entranced by her playing. Rermarkable lyricism and delicacy in the p and pp passages. The piano sound is interesting too; don't know if it's the piano she's playing or the recording, or both. Compared to the string of Hyperion recordIngs I've been listening to of late, it's softer, warmer, more rounded. It suits her meditative style of playing, I think. Has anyone else sampled this disc? |
@jim204 I thought you preferred the Kissin version to Khatia. For me it's pretty much a dead heat, though Kissin is really excellent. Khatia's whole Schubert CD where the Schubert/Liszt appears as a kind of encore is really really good. (BTW, tonight, Ott's Chopin Waltzes in the CDP, nice but not transcendent.) |
This is her latest.
@jim204 BTW, your "too closely recorded" was exactly what I was trying to get at with my "more forward in the soundstage". I also wish the producer had left slightly longer breaks between tracks. Otherwise superlative. |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9Pei_1-kOQ Here are Brigitte Engerer's complete Nocturnes. Sounds pretty good to me, as it did to the people who commented on youtube.
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I started a retrospective of British composers pre- and post-Elgar and Vaughan Williams. First up: Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Nice but not outstanding. I recommend sampling the Violin Concerto and Pibroch Suite. Currently: Hubert Parry. So far I'm through Symphonies 1 and 2. Parry has real orchestral chops. I can't understand why he is not more popular and most often played. I guess he's known mainly as a choral composer, but that does him a considerable disservice. |
Here’s a recording I hadn’t listened to in ages. Beethoven’s late string quartets 131 and 135 done by Bernstein with the massed strings of the Vienna Phil. Achingly beautiful. Also: is the slow movement of 135 really a significant foreshadowing of Mahler's slow movements... or is it just because Lenny's conducting it? |
A long time ago someone recommended Kiril Kondrashin's semi-historic (1981) recording of Mahler 6, which I finally acquired and am listening to. Reviewers resort often to the adjective "brisk" to describe this interpretation, and one can immediately understand why. Still I enjoy his rubatos, and the recording itself is remarkably good. |
John O'Conor recorded Field's Nocturnes many moons ago with Telarc (I can't find an original issue date); I remember getting the CD as soon as it came out. He also did a complete survey of the Beethoven sonatas (also Telarc) which is often overlooked. Contradicting J Gordon Holt's dictum, it's a very good performance of great music in excellent sound. |
I have several Mahler 4's, but my favorite is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-Felicity-Lott/dp/B000027KLY For me, Felicity Lott nails the vocal in the last movement. |