Classical Music for Aficionados

Got the Ingrid Fliter Chopin disc with Sonata #3 and a miscellany of other pieces (3 Mazurkas, Barcarolle, Grande Valse Brillante, Ballade no.4). Very nice but generally not transcendent. The three Waltzes (op. 64) were what I liked best, so I’ve ordered up her CD of complete waltzes. Reviews on Amazon all over the place, so we shall see...

For years I've been using the first movement of the Barber concerto, with Gil Shaham on DGG, as a loudspeaker and audio system test CD.  If Shaham's violin sounds strident, then there's something wrong; likewise, if the falling bass figures in the background aren't clearly discernible, then something else is wrong.

Listening to Dohnanyi's Symphony no. 1 on the much loved and lamented Telarc label.  Leon Botstein (not Leonard Bernstein!) conducting the LPO.  Lovely music, and the soundstage here is arrayed from speaker to speaker.  This tells me my system is telling me how different recordings are engineered, as some trio sonatas I was listening to recently sounded quite clustered towards the center.

For enthusiasts of Bruckner, Mahler, etc., I recommend this.  The second (slow) movement is especially fine.

@jim5559 The live Benny Goodman version from the Carnegie Hall concert will never be surpassed.

Here's another underrated Scottish composer, William Wallace.  Hyperion have a couple of very good CDs.

One of his symphonic poems is called "Sir William Wallace"!

I have Marik Janowski Brahms 2+3 sitting in my Amazon cart at the moment.  The thing is, I can't remember now why I added that recording.