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.
@schubert I found my copy the other day tucked away in a record store for $6.99. Cleaned it and was impressed by how enfolding the music was, not to mention the organic precision of von Karajan's conducting.
I knew Pipers and Drummers that did and more ,Jim .
My youngest Aunt was an excellent Highland dancer . Came in 2nd at the greatest Highland Games in North American , Maxwell. Ontario , damn near deaf .
I would think a Band from Ayr must be a good one.
God Blessed me in all that , hear well as ever and have 20/20 no glasses well in my eighties , was 20/10 in my youth , came in handy as a Infantryman .
simao, I need to get after that .
I’m clueless why , but I have heard "Peer Gynt" a least a thousand times and yet every time seems like the first time . Only piece that does .
@schubert Hi Len I have just got round to good old Alfred's Emperor concerto and must say he and Mazur were certainly enjoying the experience. I also listened to some of your pipe band records and it took me back to the sixties when I used to play in the Ayr Pipe Band but gave it up because I was always getting tinnitus so I stayed with the guitar and lute.
Many of the National Service men stayed in Germany when they found out how well off the other side was. And how the German lass’s had all their teeth .
Been listening to Paul Badura-Skoda, some very old recordings. some modern piano, some historic pianos. "He is the only person to have recorded the complete piano sonatas of
Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert on both historic and modern instruments." The more I listen, the more I like.
Every year towards Easter I play most of the greatest Religious Pieces. On here 2 hours + will not fly . This Great Vesper from perhaps the Greatest Russian composer of modern times solves that and is fantastic .
I used to say what was the difference between an American house -painter and a German one .
Ans . Neither knew LvB ’s music from a rock , but the American says he doesn’t listen to that uppity trash, and the German said , O’ Great man, Great man !
When you get into the German grove, hard to live anywhere else , you always know where you are and where you are likely to be.
I did know that about Arrau . My wife and I often went down to Liepzig in the DDR to hear the Gewandhaus and Masur , About 3 bucks US . Americans could do that anytime .
At times we had been at the Berlin with von Karajan the day before . Many the day we both thought Masur and company the better of the two.
Every man in the Gewandhaus was trained in the Leipzig School and with the original Mendelssohn scores , Now . that’s old school !
Cheers . Len
P.S., Jim , here is another Piano man who liked Masur . https://youtu.be/76DXQLbXEks?t=1 I've said it and I don't regret it , You just don't need more .
Len my friend thank you for your words , you are very kind. We seem to be on the same planet regarding lots of things and especially music. I have always loved Kurt Masur and did you know that none other than Claudio Arrau revered Masur especially when going over Europe concertizing. We are in good company then. I also love deep in my heart the German Romantic tradition, Wagner excepted. I am glad that music in Germany is still in rude health. The new German Baroque Orchestras that have sprung up in the last 10 years has been so great with the Freiburg band a notable example. I hope you are feeling a bit safer now you have had your 2 jabs. Be safe my friend ,
slangevar Jim.
Well rv, old buddy and Great Leader , if there is any little bit of Bruckner you might tolerate , my guess it might be this little bit .(for Bruckner) .
BTW, Brahms couldn’t see anything in Bruckner either.
Even genius own an ego...
Bruckner is the greatest symphonist, and Mahler was in the obligation to reinvent it in his own way to be there.... I love the 2 but Bruckner is a geometer and a poet, Mahler a poet...
Don't ask me why I got the clip from the Frankfort Radio Symphony in the middle of my first paragraph , Mister "Puter is acting up . Just get the 2 at the bottom .
None of the German Radio Bands were ever second -rate .
I like Bruckner , not in love like Bach or Brahms , but enough to listen now and then .
This is my favorite recording .
The Maestro had come home to his Orchestra of 20 years for his last time.https://youtu.be/Az-kHLRQhsk?t=45 He was on deaths door in his 90’s and all , including him, knew it . He was beloved by the Minnesota and they gave him ALL they had and in a few months he passed . Just opening with Minnesota .
For whatever reason the label has a clip for every page. I have a full recording on second paste , about 6 months before with the Frankfort Orchestra , you can see how frail he was yet he still was the most sought after Bruckner Conductor in the world .
I really have to say that for me the greatest 5th is Beethoven's ,it exploded onto the scene in Vienna in 1808 and nobody had heard such audacity and daring in a symphony before. It goes through every emotion unimaginable despair to absolute joy. It to me is the most perfect symphony of the 19th century and beyond. When I was very young I burned myself out from playing it too often but now as I am old with lots of time on my hands I spend most of my time now streaming and have found lots of original instrument bands from Germany and the bring a crisp rawness to the sound that I like to think the folks heard at the premier of the symphony. I also love the Sibelius symphony again conducted by "Glorious John".
I've never gotten anything but harrumphs and eyeball rolling, but my favorite Fifth Symphony is Tchaikovsky's. Maybe it all started when, as a kid, I'd watch a TV show that recreated great moments in history...recreations doctored to make them look like aged, silent newsreel footage. The theme music for the show was the second tune of the Second Movement.
We can all beat our own character.... But in music it is very slowly like in life....
We cannot change our inclination and taste, but we can open our mind.... It is difficult i confess... For example Stravinsky is evidently a genius in music but dont spoke to me deeply...
I was a dreamer nothing will change that then i perfectly understand what you just said about your soldier character...
Very great choice.... Thanks for the link.... Barbirolli is the proof that some of the highest genius are not enough known.... Sibelius is a great poet like Mahler....
If Mahler is a poet, Bruckner is more a mystic and a projective geometer.... I love the 2 but Bruckner changed my life.... Mahler make it more beautiful....i am in love with all his lieder tough more even than with his marvellous movements in his symphonies... There is a unity of thinking in Bruckner 5 for me that override anything save Bach affine geometry....
Seriously , the greatest 5th I have heard from the greatest Conductor of the last Century is this .
The sound is nothing to write home about , but the perfection of tempo and every detail brought in just as written on the score blew me away as I followed it ! The musicians of the Halle did not like him , they truly loved him and it shows .
The Sibelius is uplifting , what is better from music ? .
Some French critic named it the "art of the symphony" like Bach has written the art of the fugue...
The final movement is for me the greatest fugue written after Bach... An astonishing powerful fugue resuming all preceding themes like all life is resumed in one singular multidimensional vision after death....
Astonishing when we learned that Bruckner study counterpoint with Schubert old master at the time with complete interdiction to wrote anything save counterpoints for the time of the study... I think Bruckner was pass his thirty years...After the 5 Bruckner wrote master pieces after masterpiece but this 5 was more "modern" in so much aspect paradoxically than the remaing next 4.... The perfect fusion of the past ancient music and the future of music perhaps...For sure this 5 changed my life, 35 five uears ago....
Bruckner is indeed my supreme master symphonist and i think Beethoven spoke and said to me that i was right but immediately he boast about his chamber music to change a tactful delicate subject.... 😁😊😊😊😊
There was a guy named Sit Thomas Beecham who made the best recording of a 5th I have ever heard written by a guy named Franz Schubert . It is on the EMI Great Recordings of The Century .
Some folk think the best ever 5th was written by one Shostakovich and recorded by a Bernstein with the NYO .
Another group think a heavy drinking Swede named Sibelius is the greatest 5ther .
I know , fact certain , his 5th is the best sounding and played by the foremost Finn conductor , one Osmo Vanska , at the helm of the Lahti Symphony . Said 5th is found on the BIS label in superb sound .
There are many in Moscow that are certain this and that Russian composer wrote THE greatest 5th . I would not know about that . I am sure those in Wien that claim Mahler or Brucker is the best 5er are wrong . LvB is FAR above those .
Schubert, Thanks for the tip about Julia Fischer playing Bach’s Partita in D Minor. I airplayed it on my home theater system (don’t have streaming on my main stereo rig) and thought it elegantly and beautifully played. I’m going to look for other recordings by her.
When that was finished, YouTube began to auto play Itzak Perlman playing the entire Partita in a BBC concert in a church in London, back when he was a young man (20’s?). I had never heard that version, and I sat mesmerized for the entire piece. Art, beauty, emotion...I do not have the words to describe it. Much more than just a listening session, it was a very moving experience.
I also listened to Jennifer Koh’s version that you linked to. I am curious as to what others more knowledgeable than I think about it.
RV Thanks for the tip on Zanders Mahler Symphony. Agree, very nice dsd and rendition. I don't think there is mention of this recording in the late Penguin Guide?
Koh on The Melodia of the Bartok Solo Violin . Though I have never heard it live , I dare say it could no be done better If the 2 good recordings I do have are any clue .
I just discovered a wonderful young Turkish pianist whose debut offering is a Rachmaninoff disc: Emre Yamuz. On Idagio. Some really great Rachmaninoff playing.
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