Arthur Foote...don’t know of him...what pieces would be a good place to start?
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.
3,872 responses Add your response
BEETHOVEN The New Complete Edition 118 cds https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/beethoven-the-new-complete-edition-4944 |
Here's a real revelation for me. Mendelssohn, complete piano music, played by Howard Shelley, on Hyperion. The playing is excellent, the recording is superb (the piano is in my room), and the music has come as a most pleasant surprise. I started with vol. 2 as that's the CD that arrived first: Rondo, Fantasias, Lieder, etc. Delicate, lyrical, and muscular, forceful by turns, I'm enjoying this more than a recent transversal of Schumann. Highly recommended. |
Between Pachelbel organ works by Antoine Bouchard and Bach Well tempered Klavier with Andras Schiff and my favorite version with Vladimir Feltsman i go on with: Samuel Feinberg sonatas. this Russian giant pianist among other some Russian giants pianists, was also a great composer... His sonatas, greatly influenced by Scriabin, even if they are under the best of Scriabin, are indeed very beautiful and over many other composers works anyway... I am in love with them.... They are my favorite with Shostakovich piano works....The only version i know by Nicolaos Samaltanos and Christophe Sirodeau is very good if not more than that.... 😊 When Scriabin died, all Russian people take a mourning for a long time....God sad for them, knowing anything from the beginning of time, gives them Feinberg sonatas, and Shostakovich piano works and one, if not the best, piano school there is in the world to console them....Then russian people can goes on listening Scriabin played in an optimal way.... And the rest of the world underestimate Scriabin and dont even know Feinberg works.... 😪😌 |
"
he remained an engaged and worldly businessman, who managed to sell the score of the Missa Solemnis
to three different publishers at once (the triple-dating only came to
light when two of the publishers met at a trade fair in Leipzig).
" https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n01/james-wood/a-great-deaf-bear |
https://youtu.be/ylqHYG5unW8?t=3 Ava Maria in Africa The reaction to the Western World greatest gift to the entire World by a soul that has never heard it . https://youtu.be/S4mVK04OPFI?t=2 |
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i am going on always with Pachelbel organ works....It is really a gift....His writing is so perfect that i cannot even choose a best of or a cd among the others.... Incredible perfection in the organ waving with pulsative melody....like i already said he was the very loved master of the older Bach brother, and Bach copied these partitions for himself with total devotion for sure.... How to improve Pachelbel ? Only Bach could in his way, he has improve it by his complex counterpoint, his complex harmony reaching a level that will never be exceeded.... But even Bach works hard to improve the unerring, foolproof, infaillible simplicity of Pachelbel; he succeed with his chorals, slightly more complex but paradoxically gifted with the same humble and powerful efficiency .... Really an underscored miraculous work; and between the complex beauty of Bach work and the soothing simplicity of this one, it is impossible to choose.... We need these 2...These 2 are me favorite organ composers .... I am very stun by the pleasure to flow so easily in the river of time with Pachelbel, and the pleasure of going so forcefully out of time with Bach.... Like Bach, Pachelbel is indeed irreplaceable..... The 2 goes hand in hand, the mathematician touch more the brain/spirit, the poet more the heart/soul....The 2 are heart/brain/soul/spirit perfect catalyzers.... 2 integrals of Pachelbel are not too much, even a third will not be too much.... Like the many interpretations i own of Bach klavier.... If you dont love the organ, this is your luck , try Pachelbel, if you dont like it, forget the organ forever.... :) |
https://youtu.be/gtnpMDYeZDo?t=3 Tried to get a better sound on Maestro Puccini ’s 3rd Masterpiece above which was still sung as a human being can sing, bad sound and all . 14 years latter the drink had taken its toll . Here Jussi sings" O’Holy Night’ in his native Swedish and you will never hear it done better ! https://youtu.be/ofKk_Etapq4?t=2 Sweden does Christmas the best I have seen . |
This guy was from Lucca . https://youtu.be/GZf0JHbrtpg?t=1 https://youtu.be/Lvkti1MlcLQ?t=1 https://youtu.be/gtnpMDYeZDo?t=3 Gods Mirror . |
I've been into American Composers lately, particularly Symphonists of the first half of the Century. Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, Charles Ives, William Schuman primarily. I've been less enamored with Menin, Diamond, and Perischetti, but still American Composers are so underrepresented compared to their European counterparts |
Every time I spin a Brahms LP I love him more . https://youtu.be/faNzWQysu5s?t=2 This piano qt #3 is so perfect I sometimes am almost scared to play it . https://youtu.be/R_EKGBCvKhQ?t=1 |
Got a wonderful set of Beethoven Piano Trios complete to recommend from a very talented French group. They are the Trio Sora and they have gorgeous tone, gorgeous playing and gorgeous girls. The pianist is an extremely gifted young woman, her runs are fast and faultless. That said both violinist and cellist are wonderful players also. They are just as good in the minor works as the major ones. A hearty recommendation and it is on Qobuz at the moment . |
@schubert Again in complete agreement with you Len, LvB string quartets no other comes near t hem I think especially the late ones. I love the last three esp. Op.127 and who cannot but admire the Grosse Fugue which if played to someone who doesn't know it would probably think Stravinsky had wrote it. Talk about tossing your lance into the future I'm sure it will still be thought as written in the Twentieth century long into the future. At the moment I am typing I am listening to a masterful reworking of Tchaikovsky's Seasons played by Trio Zadig on Qobuz. If you have Qobuz I think it is is a must listen as it brings a new slant to this lovely work. Of course if you want to listen to the original piano version then Mikhail Pletnev who I think is the definite best in this work. Enjoy your weekend everyone. Jim. |
B.S. in an opera he dam sure does ! Can’t but agree with you Jim.I At my age time is of the essence . Like any Classical lover I have played all the LvB sonatas many times . Bach takes about 1/3 of my 5-6 hours daiily time. My biggest love has always been String Quartet and to me that’s LvB’s best music . His last are beyond compare . Haydn needs no help there nor does Schubert or the 2 gems of Leos Janacek for starters And a few hundred others . If you want to go deep kids ,the Buxtehude outing on Naxos 8.557251 will get you there. As will Byrd, Purcell and the Bach of his time,the Great Josquin Desprez. P.S. Jim , I have long thought the Haydn Piano pieces were up there with Mozart but never said so. Few years ago I heard Imogene Cooper the great knock out a few live in the wonderful acoustics of MACALESTER college in St Paul( started by Scots and one of the elite US liberal arts colleges ), the women was so powerful and skilled the audience was frozen . Say it to any one since ! |
I go on with Pachelbel organ 2 complete sets.... Antoine Bouchard and Joseph Payne.... My impressions did not change and i prefer the more interiorized and intimate version of Bouchard than the more extrovert version and more spectacular one and more celebrated and more rhetorical gesture version of Payne...But get me right, the Payne version is very beautiful, and many will prefer it... I enjoy the 2 sets....Only in the case i would be in the obligation to choose i will keep Bouchard...in fact the 2 versions are so different that it double the pleasure....Almost 24 hours of Pachelbel with these 2....😉 I an very pleased by Pachelbel genius in simplicity, clarity, and soothing melodic inspiration....Pachelbel is a genius because nothing is never out of place or with less interest.... All is perfect .....I can have preference about some part or works but really all is on the same scale of beauty all the time....No low nor high really in the writing composition....It is like Scarlatti, amother giant, with no defect in his output .... No boredom at all, only a sweet and immersive contemplation with an always perfect humility that persuade us with no arguments, some wave of sounds floating like swans on a lake of silence... Some genius dont ask for attention and dont force the attention at all to their points for the sake of being known....They gives to us the precious gift of an attention of a new kind, an encompassing one....The music of Pachelbel walk with us or in us and never on us and passing us....It is a commentary on silence.... There is something taoist in Pachelbel....I am not surprized that at least 2 Bach admired him.... By the way with Bouchard we even forgot that the music is for organ, the organist disapear and even the instrument.....Not with Payne.... |
@schubert Len, I do agree with you regarding Haydn that his symphonies are just as great as Mozart and some of them more so. I would rather listen to Haydn than Mozart any day of the week. Haydn piano sonatas are rated greater than Mozart to me but no one comes near to Beethoven for piano sonatas as after listening to Op.111 there is no music I want to listen to after that, it has all been said. |
The finer expression of all the range of emotions (Puccini) is not the same that the pure elevation of heart to the spirit with voice that sings but speaks no more (Mozart Cosi)... But i will give you that the seven last words on the cross of Haydn is on par with any Bach.... Only that is a testimony for this giant..... But i must confess that no one beat Bach for me..... 😊 All composers act or react with or against Bach with all the degree of freedom between the 2 positions..... My favorite opponent to Bach is Scriabin ( 2 minutes of Scriabin may transcend anything else sometimes)......My favorite disciple of Bach is Bruckner....The 5 th symphony is the art of symphony.... The final fugue is the most beautiful and deep works ever written after Bach.... All other symphonies of other composers seems like gentle toys.... 😉 Beautiful poems sometimes compared to Bruckner like the 6th or 7th of Beethoven the greatest composer in symphony after Bruckner(before him by date of birth), or for example Mahler.... But the 5th of Bruckner and over are so great that they crush the business of symphony making after them....After him the symphonies of all other composers are more like some cinema, they can be masterful, but yet always less spiritual and more mundane and yet sure may be very moving.... But emotions only are not spirit.... |
As did Haydn did with his superb religious works that challenge the Bach Passions and beat them all with his superb St Qts . Mozart’s piano concertos are the best and his opera’s are excellent . There is a little guy named Puccini who did better in song and strikes even deeper to the human heart but I don’t think he wrote any symphony’s. https://youtu.be/1woH96ROG-c?t=5 I’,ve seen half the men and all the women in tears at Madam Butterfly , Never seen anybody crying at a Mozart opera . Unless you are God there is no such thing as" elevation" of the heart this side of heaven and we all know that Bach is the Zenith . You have the right to tell us about you emotional state , I do it all the time .But it is just ours . And only God knows what is what about human spirit etc |
Haydn worked more about his inspiration than only with it... He is a craftsman... All he wrote is perfect workmanship.... His quatuor exceed Mozart one in perfection... But Mozart rival his master with his quintets...And his symphonies.... And for voices composition, no one on earth ever equal Mozart at all...No one has ever create melodic voices so much ethereal, almost angels voices.... Cosi fan tutte is so ethereal, than reading the libretto is ridiculous....Cosi is like the art of the fugue for voices, but not like the Art a work coming from a supremum mathematical combinatoric, but more a pure gushing from the heart elevated to the spirit.... There exist no formula for that....No mathematics either.... Mozart dont work in a steady pace like Bach and Haydn did, it is more like Vivaldi, an uncontrollable melodic output with no rear thinking, but on a more deep inspiration than Vivaldi....Their creations gives something that does not comes from works.... But there is exception, moment when they work hard, for example Vivaldi gives to us when he was very young, his sonatas for violin opus 2...( one of my favorite Vivaldi works with the seasons) Listen and you will hear the working refining the inspiration.... His immense concertos output was created, except for example the 4 seasons, with melodic inspiration but almost no works except formulas... It was for him like Vivaldi, too easy for them to do really hard work....Telemann was like that....We feel this easy inspiration also in Mendelssohn....But none of them reach the deep touching of Mozert.... Except at some moment of exception: for example the Kyrie of Vivaldi on par with Mozart... By the way Karl Ristenpart is a great maestro..... |
The real Haydn when he wrote what HE wanted ! Very top of Classical music . https://youtu.be/69r1k8oUaGs Haydn is the equal of Mozart and he him. Most all on here would choose Mozart, I lean a bit toward Haydn because the String Quartet is my wheelhouse. We are both correct . |
It is impossible to die without listening the trio sonatas Of Jan Dismas Zelenka, the bohemian bach.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTaf-rL5zU |
I’m now interested in finding pieces from Heinrich Schutz. I recommend the marvellous interpretation by Mauesberger of the Geistliche chormusik....Schutz synthetise Italian and German influences... This work is examplary and operate with an irresistible compelling rythmic pulsation that is sublime and deeply felt by the heart and spirit in this old rendition by Mauesberger...The singers not only sings but we feel the prayers...It is an opera of the soul who walk toward the sunlike Christ..... One of my cherished choral music work, i listen to it each day for 7 years writing .... It is with the mastering of Italian lighter rythm and German heavier pulsation a choral masterpiece at the same level that Bach work will make habitual with his own contrapuntal complex means and this is not a small feat.... Pure diamond.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnZQ0EPuNqk I ask to a complete stranger in a music store 30 years ago:" what is the more miraculous choral work you listened to in the last years of your life ? He explode enthusiastically recommending that to me.... i never see him again.... Was it an angel walking in a music store or an audiophile forgetting his hell ? 😊 « Beside speakers angels listen music and the damned hear the sound »- Groucho Marx |
Hamelin at Verbier I have not been a big fan of Hamelin. Have always appreciated his skill and his daring to play difficult pieces, but always found something lacking. Until now. His Field Andante just blew my mind! And his countenance at the keyboard is so genuine, unaffected and precise. https://www.medici.tv/en/concerts/marc-andre-hamelin-verbier-festival-2014/ |
I just listened to the organ music Of Pachelbel.... The older J.S. Bach brother, Johann Christoph Bach cherish and admire him much, and was his pupil, indeed Bach too was admiring him and apparently copy the partitions book of his eldest brother...... His music is less complex than Bach, less profound, but pleasurable in his own way, relaxing, with a playful sense of melodies and great clarity in the immediate expressive gesture ... Buxthehude is a genius, and many other organ giant composers....Pachelbel is one of them for sure, with an appeal to all people that is like Vivaldi for people who are not fond of more emotionnally complex music like Beethoven for example......His easy to understand music is not from the highest point of the soul/spirit like Bach, but he know to soothe the soul of all of us...And that is marvellously easy to listen to just relax.... I listen to the Joseph Payne integral compare it to the Antoine Bouchard one... 24 hours of listening....😊 Payne is more diversified soundwise and spectacular, but i prefer the more calming introvert playing of Bouchard.... I own the 2 integral, then no boredom...... |
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now listening, Igor Levit, Encounter superb, especially "Palais de Mari" by Morton Feldman Levit says: "The most touching, open-hearted comments I got were about one of the least well-known pieces – Palais de Mari by Morton Feldman, which is very important to me.“ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08D3GK4TJ/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp |
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