Classical Music for Aficionados

@rvpiano       I couldn't agree more RV I think of Mahler's First as an obvious choice for a host of reasons. If he had only written that one symphony then he would still be procaimed a genius. I would also nail my flag to the mast with Rachmaninovs First symphony and remember the composer never heard it again after it's first disasterous performance in fact it was thought lost for many years but I think that one has many things to say. My personal favourite of the Rachmaninof one is Mikhail Pletnev conducting the Russian National Orchestra.

Funny, I’m just listening to the Mahler 1st now on Idagio in what I think is the best performance I ever heard, with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
I just discovered it.

Jim,

I agree with you about Rachmaninoff’s 1st.  Very underrated.

Jim,

I’m just now listening to Rachmaninoff’s 1st with  Pletnev.  I see what you mean.
Really authoritative. He brings out so many interesting things and makes it sound like a major symphony.  Wonderful!
 I can really hear the Tchaikovsky influence in this interpretation.
What a  shame that the first performance, with a drunken Glazunov conducting, messed Rachmaninoff up so much.
Also a great pity that this great, great composer wrote so relatively little.
Think of how the world would be enriched if circumstances were different, and he had a full life of composing!

IMO Ivan Fisher is the greatest conductor alive when leading  his Budapest
Festival .

RV,I am glad you are enjoying Rachmaninov's First with Pletnev and the Fischer's Mahler First. There is also a superb Mahler's Fourth with Fischer and the Budapest Forces also on Idagio and it is so beautifully recorded. I think that is also a superb symphony from Mahler but of all the recordings that Gramophone reviewed and recomended the thing that often bugged me was in the last movement some warbling soprano always spolied it for me. i must say that the new Fischer one has a very acceptable soprano for me because after all it was a child's view of Heaven and he stipulated a soprano with a light childlike voice. Yes I must say I do indeed like Fischer.

Check out Pletnev in Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells.” Superb!
on the same set as the symphonies on IDAGIO.
What a talent Pletnev is.  A great pianist as well as conductor.
He loves Rachmaninoff.

Schubert,

I'm just watching Ivan Fischer live from Berlin on the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall (available by subscription.)  Performing Prokofiev, Debussy and Ravel.
He is quite a conductor.

To me Richter got both the tempo and voicing right,  the way Ravel wrote  his "Pavane"  , one of the beautiful pieces ever written , to be played on piano . orchestra, or anything else .


Would like opinion of rv or anyone else .  This clip was taken in Moscow during a flu epidemic .Correction is welcomed !
https://youtu.be/WsdnHaz90Fw?t=3

https://youtu.be/R2S31uVzNPo?t=2

Perfect Balance from a Giant I had forgotten .

Gorgeous playing from Richter.

@schubert    Len I agree the Ravel is handled beautifully by Richter, if you are looking for a different slant on the Pavan please look up on Idagio John Williams and Julian Bream playing it on two classical guitars it is wonderful . well worth a listen and I have listened to Rachmaninovs The Bells with Pletnev , what a wonderful work.

The Pride of My Hometown
https://youtu.be/b71uGcG567Q?t=2

The Bells was Rachmaninoff’s personal favorite of all his compositions.

Schubert,

Watched the documentary.
Some very fine playing!

You should hear the acoustics rv !jim, I have heard them and they are indeed wonderful .
The Pavane has at least a hundred clips on you tube of various combos for the spell-binder .
Here is my choice , one instrument playing some of the most spellbinding music I have ever heard . https://youtu.be/YZVqZnq7F4o?t=3
Hint, use best headphones.

Speaking of Richter and Ravel , , ,
Now listening to Richter/Kagan/Gutman
Franck and Ravel Trios
It does not get any better

True ,jcazador,I listen to the Ravel A minor on idagio.Wanted my own but 60$ + for a new one .The Music from Mahlboro  Laredo/lLaredo/Solow at 12 bucks is pretty good
but below  Richter etc .

I'll repeat some of what I just posted on the jazz thread here, since the Ravel Pavane has been brought up in both.  Myron Bloom, the former principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra in most of Szell's recordings, has died the other day.  His Pavane was one of the most beautiful renditions out there- I put it on when I heard of his death. It was on the same LP with the Debussy La Mer. 

Just heard yesterday of the death of the grear Jessye Norman , she will be sadly missed . Hers is the best rendition of Strauss's Four Last Songs I have ever heard and I have my daughter primed to have Im Abendrot at my funeral. My first live encounter with her was when my pal and I went to the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow to hear Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the SNO.Miss Norman sang the Urlicht and I shall never forget the experience when her voice rose above the orchestra the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Yes she was a one in a million voice.

Amen to that jim ! Also a fine person .

https://youtu.be/-lkwlFpickY

Just heard the most incredible performance of the Rachmaninoff First Concerto there is to my knowledge.  Krystian Zimerman with Seji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony, on Idagio.  I don’t know how this recording ever eluded me over the  years.
Brilliant beyond imagination, with recorded sound to match. 
You owe it to yourself to listen to this interpretation.
Rachmaninoff shines!

I overlooked these PC's by Zimmerman and Ozawa as well. Wild and Horenstein's performances of all four have been my 'go to' versions for years. Yet, I've not hesitated to order a new CD on your recommendation.  I have Liszt's PC's by the same forces which I also recommend as you did the Rachmaninoff.

Thanks for posting you thoughts on this.

My pleasure.
i too have loved the Wild-Horenstein interpretations of the Rachmaninoff concertos, Ever since they appeared on LP.

+1 0n Wild-Horenstein , Rachmaninov Concertos too. I really think Wild was one of the most fearsome virtuosos of the twentieth century , he could be compared to ANYONE !! He had such an easy virtuousity that he made everything look too easy so he was dismissed because he wasn't making a shed load of faces while playing Rachmaninov's Third Concerto. Another great pianist who I think is the same is Marc-Andre Hamelin , again he has this way of playing which can encompass anything you just have to look what look what he did for Alkan's works. I would love to se him tackling some of the great keyboard works of Bach , I bet he wouldn't slow down for the decorations int the repeats.RV I love Zimmerman , I know you don't like Liszt but I find his Liszt very palatible ( the Sonata and Totentanz ) do remember though that if you don't like a pianist playing Liszt don't blame Liszt ( old saying from Brendel )

If you want to be impressed, Google Earl Wild.

Here’s a nice outing by the Glasgow Philharmonic you won’t hear streaming .
Dia beanachadib Alba                The de facto Scottish National Anthem.


https://youtu.be/iYOBFj8jhS8?t=2 IMO, Scottish Pipes are a classical instrument .
https://youtu.be/a9nZ_qqf70I?list=RDa9nZ_qqf70I&t=3

That was also the opinion of my three grandparents born in Scotland .

“I was only six when I first heard Rachmaninoff perform, and I attended his
concerts regularly for the next twenty-two years until his death in 1943. I
heard him play not only his most of his own compositions, but the entire
standard repertoire that he chose to perform in public. I also had the good
fortune to hear him in the role of conductor. Sergei Rachmaninoff has been
the most important musical influence of my life. His sheer presence commanded
a respect which was formidable. The simplicity of his approach to
the keyboard was a model of perfection which I have strived to emulate.”
Earl Wild
Now listening to Earl Wild's Legendary Rachmaninoff Song Transcriptions

Jcazador,

Thank you for that quote about the greatest pianist of them all.
Memorable.

Richter, the EnigmaRichter at age 80 reminiscing about his life, interspersed with period footage.
He never played scales.
He was really powerful/dynamic at the keyboard!
Too much to describe, highly recommended.

In RICHTER: THE ENIGMA, Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997), one of the greatest pianists of all time, breaks his life-long silence and allows himself to be interviewed for this autobiographical film. He evokes his wild childhood, his encounters with the great names in the music world, his performance debuts, and his activities as a concert artist in the troubled Soviet Union. Acerbic and unpredictable, Richter reveals himself here with disarming candour and humour. The programme includes previously unseen archival footage, a wealth of performance excerpts, and works by the following composers: Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Schubert, Shostakovich, and more.

@jcazador     Oh jeremy you lucky lucky man having experienced Rachmaninov playing live. I would love to have been so fortunate but unfortunately he was already dead when I was born but I do consider myself very lucky that I have seen a lot of the other greats. I have a little nugget from Arrau about Rachmaninov that when Arrau was playing in concert one day he didn't know that Rachmaninov was in the audience and at the end of the recital Rachmaninov asked if he could taik to Arrau. Of course Arrau said yes and they struck up a conversation about the recital especially about Beethoven's 32 variations in C minor Arrau had just played. Rachmaninof told Arrau he had never heard of the piece and Arrau was cool to Rachmanonov after that. I thought Arrau a terrible snob after that , after all how could you not forgive a wonderous pianist, composer and conductor of not knowing a minor piece by Beethoven. I must say I did think a little less of Arrau after that, oh and another thing he said was that although Rachmaninov was a great pianist everything he played he turned into pure Rachmaninov ( I call that sour grapes ).

@jcazador jeremy do forgive a stupid old man for his glaring mistake. I thought it was you who had seen Rachmaninov and I didn’t realise it was a quote from Earl Wild. again many appologies. Jim.

I never heard Rachmaninov, I was 3 years old when he died.
I had a chance to hear Richter, I was in college just a hundred miles from Carnegie Hall.  My aunt was a perennial student at Julliard, she said tickets were impossible.
The only first rank pianist I have ever heard was Ashkenazy.

For a change from the 17C, I’ve started an Elgar survey. Kind of fascinating to go back and see what CDs I bought years and years ago, when I was guided primarily by the successive editions of the Penguin Stereo Guide and reviews in Gramophone (before it got dumbed down). Starting with Symphony #1. Surprised to find I own Handley, Judd and Marriner, rather than what I’d expected (i.e. Boult, Barbirolli or Solti).

@jcazador      Hi Jeremy I have seen Ashkenazy a few times and one of the best was a Beethoven cycle in Glasgow. He was with the SNO and within a fortnight he treated us to the five Beethoven Piano concertos and the Choral fantasy. How he remembered all those notes I will never know but it was incredibly enjoyable all the same. although not what I would say my favourite pianist i think he is a very ejoyable pianist and one of the best Beethoven interpreters that I know.

My favorite Ashkenazy recording is the Shostakovich Preludes. 
Somehow his recordings are all excellent technically, which cannot be said for many other great pianists.  I don't know how that happened.

jcazador, You might also enjoy his performance of Shostakovich's  Aphorisms, op 13. available on a Decca CD. It's quite good. FWIW I'm  a Askenazy fan,  both as a pianist as well as a conductor, especially in  Rachmaninoff's and Sibelius' music.

Newbee
thanks, i have that,
love it, peaceful, my kind of music
https://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Piano-Works-Dmitri/dp/B0000SWNIO

Elgar #2, which I definitely prefer to #1.  Sinopoli recording sounds good; Larghetto movement seems at moments to be channeling some Mahler (is it Elgar or is it Sinopoli?).

Another favorite Ashkenazy recording:
Rachmaninov Moments Musicaux,
which includes Morceaux de Fantasie

jcazador, Although not likely, if you missed Ashkenazy’s Preludes you might like to give them a listen. I  like them a lot. -)

newbee
me too
Watched part 2 of "The Enigma" last night.  Awesome.
Interviews with Gould, among many others.
And lots of footage of R playing. 
R describes why he prefers Haydn to Mozart.
Never realized how much Richter looked like Kesey at age 40-50!

Elgar #3 (!), completed by Anthony Payne.  Very fine recording--the way full orchestras need to be recorded.  So far the symphony itself is not convincing me.  Clearly Elgar's genius lay in shorter-form orchestral works, which are splendid.  Cueing up the Barbirolli soon.

Sv Richter
Here is the Richter documentary "The Enigma" in 2 parts.
Highly recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfJVpjI3wJM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVhxqEN9j7k

Daniel Triifonov has written a wonderful new piano arrangement of the first movement of The Bells, Rachmaninoff’s favorite composition.
Along with the First and Third Concerto, it can be heard on Idagio.

rv, I finally got around to the Ozawa/Zimmerman Rach 1 st..
Is everything you said it was . To be honest he has always been a peripheral composer to me , more because of time than anything else .
Bach has always taken at least 1/3 of my listening time since the first note. Put in Brahms , Schubert and early music and well over 50% .

That said , I saw another rendition of Rach 1 with Leif Ove Andsnes and the BerlinerPhil , listened , and it seemed right up there as well .
Cheers

What’s interesting about the Rach 1st is that, even though it’s labeled #1, it was reworked by the composer later in his life, so that it is really representative of his maturity, and as such a truly great concerto.

RV, do you think this accounts for the resemblance to his Symphonic Dances? Interesting that his 1st symphony could be so similar to his last (symphonic) works. Wonder how his unreworked version would compare to the Symphonic Dances. BTW, the Symphonic Dances are my favorite orchestral works by Rachmaninoff. They have everything that really wakes one up, nothing here to drowse to. :-)