Classical Music for Aficionados

I’m a classical music lover who just found this thread, as I’ve come to the site over the years for hardware info. To get acquainted I went through a bunch of posts randomly. I see that there is a great love of solo piano music in these parts.

My own tastes run more toward orchestral music and I try to find recordings with sound quality good enough to let me fool myself to being back in a concert hall. At least excellent if not the VERY best performance and the same for the sound.

A few of the digital recordings that work for me are:

Shostakovich Symphony 15 Haitink LPO
Berlioz Romeo & Juliet Muti Philadelphia
Bach Brandenburghs Dunedin Consort
Ravel Daphnae & Chloe LSO
Mozart Requiem Savall
Chopin Ballades & Mazurkas Moravec
Mahler Wunderhorn Songs Norman Shirley-Quirk Haitink

I also watch the Berlin Phil’s digital site from time to time. There are some performances there that I think are are unmatched on recordings.

Finally, in my meanderings I saw that someone here was surprised to find himself in a not so good seat at Carnegie Hall. Has there been much talk in this thread about halls? As for Carnegie, I can tell you that there are many, many bad seats. The reasons are easy to figure out. I’ve been there a lot. It’s really overrated.

About Ashokan Farewell:

Ashokan is a reservoir in upstate New York, not a lake.

The "Ashokan" in Ashokan Farewell refers not to a body of water but to a nearby camp.

Its composition had nothing to do with the Civil War.

It is not classical music. If "White Christmas" were played by the Vienna Philharmonic, that would not make it classical music.

Ashokan Farewell is a folk tune composed by a folk fiddler, Jay Ungar, celebrating the camp experience. His inspiration was Celtic fiddle tunes of a similar nature.

As for the Civil War connection, it was adopted, many years after its composition, for the Ken Burns PBS documentary series on the Civil War. It was played during the entire series and was not focused upon New York soldiers.

I don’t know which experts think it is the "one of the best pieces written in America." That would seem to bypass a great many American classical composers, not to mention Jazz and "American Song Book" composers. It is a good tune, no doubt. I knew Ungar and am confident that’s what he thinks.

This is the internet and people just dump their notions here. Be careful what you read.

Enjoy:

 

@frogman 

It's Important to distinguish between folk music and the classical music inspired by folk music.

There may be examples where they are hard to distinguish, but Ashokan Farewell is not one of them.  It is so very clearly on the folk music side.  First, watch Jay Ungar play.  He never leaves first position on the fiddle.  That is typical of folk music. I've never seen that on any piece considered classical.  It's a very easy, simple tune and the reason that millions of amateur fiddlers play that it, most often by ear.   The tune's simplicity is marked by having only one accidental note, one time anywhere within its two parts.  It has a VERY easy harmony.  I'm not much of a musician but I have improvised harmony on that tune as I play it on a folk instrument.  All of these are indications of simple a folk tune.  Also that its composition was inspired by other, traditional, folk tunes.  

So for Ashokan Farewell it's  not a close call--for a tune we all love!  But, just a good tune.

@frogman 

Some people just like to argue and like to fool themselves into believing they have made an irrefutable point.

Your post is ridiculous.  What you have referred me to is a series of didactic, pedagogic pieces written in a pseudo-classical style intended for young students learning the violin.  I have run across more than one of these in the Suzuki teaching series my son went through when he was about 9 years old.  In fact a recording of his playing a Seitz piece, one of those on this page, at that age is my ring-tone for him.  

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and waddles like a duck and has all the indicia of a duck, it's a duck.

Similarly, Ashokan Farewell has ALL the indicia of a folk tune.  It's a folk tune.

Please, let's all go on to something else.

For Rameau you might want to try the disk:

Une Symphonie Imaginaire conducted by Minkowski

That Ravel recording is by Monteux, remastered version.  Sorry for the omission.

Yes, Kantorow is a wonderful pianist. And he is beautifully served by the engineers. For a real trip, try his À la Russe album. His rendering of the Stravinsky Firebird Danse Infernale reduction will explode inside your speakers.

And, by the way he plays a Yamaha, at least on that recording.

@edcyn

I could only find it on EMI-Warner. That might also account for the unexpectedly fine SQ. IIRC Muti has been under contract to them for most of his career.

"and and of course a few by Horowitz. I think Chopin was all he played." 

Really?  What planet do you live on?

"Apparently I typed Horowitz, but was thinking Rubinstein."

Almost as wrong for Rubinstein.

@skyscraper
Since you say "pressing" I assume you are looking for vinyl. Two that I have enjoyed are Solti/Chicago on London/Decca and Davis/Concertgebouw on Philips. These are true analog recordings. Both are fine performances with great, but very different, sound. The Dorati/Detroit is an early digital which I found kind of harsh sounding. Good performance though. Dorati’s Stravinsky was excellent also. If I wanted Dorati I would look to Mercury or Golden Imports.

John Adams' recent "Must he Devil Have All the Good Tunes" with Wang, Dudamel and the LAPO is worth hearing.  IIUC is it available only on LP and on the usual streaming sources.