Stanford Piano Concerto #2. Margaret Fingerhut. There are some *exquisite* moments in the quieter passages of movement 1, and movement 2 is delightful.
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.
3,876 responses Add your response
Juho Pohjonen
? NYT: "He again conquered Mr. Salonen’s “Dichotomie.” The second part of the piece unfolds in passages of oscillating chords and pummeling repeated figures, until the music bursts into a long episode of sweeping glissandos, through which thematic lines and pungent chords must break through. As he did 15 years ago to ease the execution (and protect the fingers of his right hand), Mr. Pohjonen managed to quickly slip on a thin glove to dispatch the glissandos, then deftly slipped it off — a neat trick. " NYT also likes Pollini, still going at 77. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/arts/music/pollini-pohjonen-carnegie-review.html?action=click&... |
schubert thanks for the recommendation finally got a chance to listen to Stavy/Faure Stavy is wonderful, and it is so well recorded Born in 1975, he must be about 44 years old. There is hope for the future! https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&rurl=trans... |
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my favorite Faure recordings are by Jean Martin
Fauré* -
Jean Martin
–
Nocturnes Nos. 1-6 / Theme And Variations, Op. 73
Label:
Naxos – 8.550794 Fauré* / Jean Martin – Nocturnes Vol. 2 Label: Naxos – 8.550795 |
I am sorry I haven’t posted for a while but I found I was locked out of the forum for a while ( don’t know why as I havn’t sworn at anyone lately )I am at the moment digitising my CD collection and and storing them on Hard drive, 3000 so it’l take me a while. The problem with it is I am constantly finding something I’ve forgotten I had so I usually start listening and the archiving gets forgotten about fo a while . I am one for recording whatever I find interesting on Radio 3 and I record it also for posterity using Sound Tap, a great wee program that records anything you are playing on your desktop. I then usually edit them in Sound Forge or Magix Sequoia and then at first I made CD’s of them ( hence the 3000 ). Nowadays I only save them on a hard drive so I have a few recordings kicking about. What about everyone else do you digitise new recordings now or do you just keep saving up CD’s and discs. Hope you are all well Jim. |
Jim almost all my music is on hard drive so easy to search, find and select just added a new 8Tb hard drive for security it is normally not connected to anything while another hard drive records new music and occasionally a copy gets transferred to the secure 8Tb another advantage: easier to maintain, no cleaning |
Here is a fascinating article about Pollini preparing and recording in Germany with the help of Angelo Fabbrini. https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/album/pollini-complete-edition/working-with-pollini.html |
Hi JC That was a very interesting article on Pollini ,he is very fastidious, a complete opposite to Claudio Arrau who would arrive at the studio take off his jacket and sit down and play what he had to record and then go . some of the recording staff were frightened to ask him to play something for a mike check because they knew that he couldn't just play he had to REALLY play and that would mean the whole piece not just a few bars. I think in later years he relented a bit because his technique had softened a bit with age. |
reminds me of a story . . . In 1955 Yehudi Menuhin got Ali Akbar Khan to leave India and play in the "West". They went to recording studio, director said "OK start" and AAK played his sarod for an hour, accompanied by Chatur Lal on tabla. Then the director said "OK that's a good sound check, now play it again." They did not realize AAK never "played it again". The recording, unedited, was released on Angel. https://www.discogs.com/Ustad-Ali-Akbar-Khan-Pandit-Chatur-Lal-Music-Of-India/release/2977633 |
Now reading Arrau on Music and Performance by Jospeh Horowitz (1982) originally published: Conversations with Arrau This is not the complete book, but it is free, and marvelous. https://books.google.com/books?id=LRJQAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA281&lpg=PA281&dq=arrau+and+kempff&source=bl&ots=9UWQ2C1C2W&sig=ACfU3U3p5fvF7eBmj-F-3EDVNSecaWWeyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTxMjdlvzhAhXCIjQIHaKNBmQ4ChDoATAEegQICRAB#v=onepage&q&f=true |
JC I have Conversations with Arrau and find it a fascinating insight from one of the greatest pianists in history and I was astonished at the photos of his hands , it actually showed him spanning an octave between thumb and forefinger. I read once about Colin Davis and his refiections of Arrau and he said that he was fascinated about his playing and he said you would see these massive paws kneading the keys but also playing some of the most beautiful sounds he ever heard from a Steinway. Although I never heard him play a piano concerto live I did hear him play Beethoven's last sonatas and I have never heard another pianist play with such a sound. A great loss indeed ! |
Jim, you are so lucky to have heard him. Here are some nice pictures, including his XL hands and his XXL great dane. http://arrauhouse.org/content/phot_04_middleperiod.htm |
I would just like to cite two not very well-known concertos that I regard as sublime masterpieces of the Romantic era. First is Glazunov’s Violin Concerto. There are many recordings available, including Heifetz, but the most beautiful one, for me is a mono recording that Oistrakh made in the fifties, available on Amazon for about six dollars. Secondly, is Eduardo Lalo’s Cello Concerto, available in a great sounding Mercury Living Presence recording, played spectacularly by Janos Starker. To me, these works represent the pinnacle of Romantic music. Its really a pity they’re not better known |
@rvpiano, Yes, the Lalo concerto is a seldom played gem. Glazunov never rocked my boat. He was a little too romantic for my tastes. One recording of Oistrakh that I always remember is the Khachaturian Violin concerto. I got it on a MHS record decades ago, but have never forgotten how good a recording it was. I listened to other versions, but they never came close. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but Anton Rubenstein's 4th piano concerto is one my favorite 'Romantic' pieces. BTW, did you ever listen to the Schumann symphonies with Norrington that I loaned you? I listened to the Holliger versions, but I think Norrington got it down pat. Bob |
@rvpiano, Yup, that’s the sound "Historically-informed" or "Period" performers (of which Norrington is) are after. Their argument is that the sound of the modern Symphony Orchestra is far too influenced by the Romantic period (the number of players, use of vibrato, tempi, etc.) to "correctly" perform (as the composer intended) music from earlier periods. It started with the Baroque period, and has moved forward in time to the Classical (Beethoven, etc.). Not everyone agrees with that assertion, or likes the results. |
Yes, I’m afraid you’re right about HIP in this case. However, there are numerous examples of imaginative use of this practice that I like, Francois-Xavier Roth, for example, using period instruments, manages to convey Mahler symphonies very convincingly. .Norrington’s application in Schumann, though, is not my cup of tea. |
I'm afraid Norrington in anything is not to my taste . I attended one of his Edinburgh Festival appearances some years back and it was awfull with violin playing that had your ears bleeding nearly. I hear also that he will not countenace any violin soloist performing with him unless they eschew Metal strings for gut. I heard a Proms performance some years ago and it was Victoria Mullova playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto on gut with little or no vibrato. It was absoloutely dreadful robbing that girl of her wonderful golden tone and replacing it with a dreadful screech that reminded me of those dreadful busking pipers who plague the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh . No wonder tourists think we reside in caves . |
Whoo, you guys are a tough crowd. I think bdp hit the nail on the head.-And, the liner notes on the Schumann symphonies relate that Norrington used scores that as close to what Schumann wrote, if I recall correctly. When I recall listening to the Brandenburg concertos when I was young and then listening to them performed on 'Period Instruments', it seemed like a breathe of fresh air. I, for one, like the 'cleaner' sound of period instrument recordings. And, though Schumann was in the Romantic Period, he was at its' beginning. B |
The first Classical I heard was on TV when I was a teenager (I didn’t come from a musical family). Being a modern, "raised-on-rock" kinda guy, I found it SO boring: slow, plodding tempi, orchestras with huge ranks of stringed instruments played with an extreme degree of vibrato, all sweet and cloying (think Montovani ;-) . Bla! Those adjectives I now associate with the overly-Romanticized performances of what can and should be bracing, energetic music. That was done to Beethoven and Mozart by the 20th Century Symphony Orchestra, and it imo emasculated their music. Then a couple of things happened; I heard the debut albums of Van Dyke Parks and Randy Newman, both of which featured orchestration. And, I got a job at the best record store in San Jose, Discount Records (owned by CBS), which had a complete Classical inventory and clerks who knew the music, a couple of them music majors at nearby San Jose State (now University of California San Jose). Van Dyke Parks had collaborated with Brian Wilson on the ill-fated Smile album, with which I was obsessed. Van’s Song Cycle album was a revelation; if you haven’t heard it, remedy that situation! On that album Van included a song by some guy named Randy Newman, so when his first album came I had to hear it. And I loved it. I asked the Discount Records Classical clerks for advice on music less "easy-listening" than that which I had heard, and they steered me to Stravinsky and the other 20th Century composers, even Penderecki ;-) . Next came recording with a songwriter who was a music major at The University of California Riverside. He helped me navigate my way into Mozart, and finally to the source of all: J.S. Bach. This songwriter (who died at a young age, the victim of his terrible diet) used his knowledge of composition to write his songs, just as does Brian Wilson. See, that’s "the problem" I have with guys like Keith Emerson/ELP and other Progressive bands; they wear their "Classically-trained" badges on their sleeves, but the songs they write exhibit no evidence of compositional wisdom.
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@rvpiano Hi RV just thought I'd let you know of a good harpsicord find which I am listening to now on Idagio. It's Henry Purcell , Suites for Harpsicord played by Ewa Rzetecka-Niewiadomska which I am playing at least three times a day at the moment. She has a beautiful technique and her ornaments are very tasteful and the harpsicord has a lovely lute stop which sounds really superb in the recording. The recording is really well done with the mikes not in the guts of the thing. Talking about lutes I played the lute and classical guitar for forty years but I'm afraid I was also a closet keyboard lover who never had a chance to study it. Never mind I'll leave it to folks who do it a whole lot better than I could ever dream to. |
Jim, Currently, listening to the Purcell harpsichord suites. Really beautiful, sensitive playing. And the sound really makes the speakers sing. The lute stop you mention is quite lovely. Truth be told, I’m not much of a harpsichord player myself, merely a pianist who has filled in on harpsichord when needed professionally. |
RV I'm quite sure you are being overly modest but I am glad your a harpsicordist now as there is quite a ressurgence in harpsicord popularity at the moment and I am heartily glad of it. I love the sound of the instrument with those wonderfull treble overtones, it must be a nightmare to record. I spent months one time trying to get an acceptable recording of the Goldbergs on it and I found it last week again on Idagio, Kenneth Gilbert .I must admit that I have allways loved the instrument but mostly live but now with modern digital recording techniques they don't now need to insert various mikes inside the poor instrument. I also think that todays instruments have a super tonal range from new but I do wonder if any of them will last for three hundred years as the old clavecins have. I will certainly look up that Schubert with Holliger conducting but a the moment I am listening to Sibelius Symphony No 1 with the Gothenburg SymphonyOrchestra cond by Santtu-Matias Rouvaly. Its on Idagio and it really is quite stirring. Well thanks for the recomenation and I'll let you know in a few days. |
@schubert I think you could be right and I remedied that this afternoon also. I listened to his harpsicord suites today as I was doing a bit of digitising my CDs and I came across Dido and Aeneas and of course I had to listen to it and what a pleasure it was to revisit it.It’s the one with Catherine Bott as Dido and Emma Kirkby gets a look in with a contribution.The Orchestra is a Period band that I like, The Academy of Ancient Music and conducted by Christopher Hogwood. The bass is provided not by a double bass but a Theorbo and Beautifully played as well.No wonder I am very slow at digitising my collection as I keep comming across "Finds" and I get distracted and my dear wife comes up to my garret and gently chides me for wasting time with that infernal recording thingamy as she calls it and me forgetting it’s a nice day and the garden is very untidy !!! |
@schubert Len you are dead right about the monster bit as I grew up in a rough part of our town and they always thought I was a bit "OFF" with my liking for classical music but I survived that part of my life thank goodness.With classical there are so many variables that there is no time to get bored. @rvpiano RV I gave the Schubert with Holliger conducting a listen yesterday and enjoyed it greatly. There is a lovely lightness about it all that you only get with reduced forces. Next week I shall make sure I listen to his Schumann. |
Jorge Demus died on April 16, 2019, age 90.
“I do not have a career,” he said. “I’m a person who had a life to live.
I am leaving ‘careers’ to other people. A career is like a racetrack
for horses — I’m neither a horse nor am I running on a racetrack.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/arts/jorg-demus-dead.html Now listening to his Chopin - Debussy, PIano of Erard Freres Wonderful recording |
As one of my grans was born and raised in the Gorbals I have some idea, Jim The other one was a "rich" girl from the Florida area . Since Hollinger is surely one of the greatest artists alive not surprising he is able to produce the lyricism of Schubert The 3 times I heard him live it was literally hard to believe he was human . You are spot on with the reduced forces . Heard our World Class St.Paul Chamber Orch . do Schubert’s 1 and 5 two weeks ago , to die for .Schubert is played more today than 50 years ago, thank God .When I first started with classical all the pundits treated his symphonies, as "juvenilia"compared to the mighty Beethoven. I kept playing both their 3, 5 and 9th and thought I must be an idiot to think Schubert was better .Haven’t got any smarter . Classical music changed my life 180, never heard a note of it till I was 30and heard the Great Jussi Bjorling sing a song in German on Armed Forces Radio . It was like turning on the light in a dark room and there stood beauty itself . On a Glazunov note try his 6th with Jose Serebrier and the Royal Scottish on Warner Classical . superb !Few days ago I heard his Ballet"The Seasons " on FM . A beautiful piece of music. To me he is like Brahms in that I feel like I’m having an intelligent adult conversation . |
rvpiano, went through Amazon and my mess of CD’s for an Oistrakh . no luck. I have heard Gil Shaham play the Glazunov live here with the SPCO , its one of his standards, and he is superb with it . Ordered him and Julia Fisher on Telarc , Fisher is my favorite living violinist and Oistrakh my #1 not with us .Fisher does remind me of him at times . Did find an 8 CD set of all of his symphonies and concertos with Serebrier and the Royal Scottish , ordered those . One has Rachel Barton-Pine with the Russian National Orch . Have you heard any of those ? What I did find in my treasure was two CD’s of Glazunov’s solo piano on helios with Stephen Coombs(never opened).Very interesting and very complicated with counterpoint on a Bachian scale. .To my hears he does everything to a piano that can be done to it , lyrical over the rolling thunder always there in his music, pushing emotion to the top but never going over it ! I imagine most players just stay away from it .In any event I was simply enveloped by it .His Sonata No 1 in B flat minor ,Op 74 is breathtaking . |