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 have to say this is my favourite recording of the Transcendentals and Arrau was 75 at the time of recording which is pretty incredible seeing as the incredible difficulties involved . If you have ever been to a recital by Arrau pretty much the first thing you would hear in his piano tone was that incredible midrange which was rich and full. Most recordings of his actually do him a disservice in that a lot of that rich and glorious depth is diminished somehow. His last Phillips recordings do redress this with his latter digital recordings much more faithful in tone. A wonderful recording which hopefully would sway people from saying they hate Liszt without hearing Arrau ever playing him.
Arrau's complete Liszt Etudes. Who knows this recording well?
The piano image is remarkably high, as if it were up on a raised stage and you were down in a seat close by.
Also the bass/lower midrange seems remarkably, err, generous. I'm not complaining, it just brings home again how many ways a single piano can sound different when recorded.
On Saturday night, he and the Berlin Staatskapelle orchestra
completed the programme as promised at Jerusalem's international
convention centre. But when Barenboim returned for a second encore, he
surprised the audience by asking if they wanted to hear Wagner.
An emotional 30-minute debate among the audience followed, with some
shouting "fascist" and "concentration camp music", and dozens walked
out, banging doors as the music began.
But most stayed and Barenboim, 58, played a piece from Tristan and
Isolde. He was reported to have been close to tears after receiving a
standing ovation.
"I respect those for whom these associations are oppressive. It will
be democratic to play a Wagner encore for those who wish to hear it. I
am turning to you now and asking whether I can play Wagner?"
He said he did not want to offend anyone and that those who would find the music objectionable could leave.
The debate, carried out in Hebrew, was lost on almost all of the
orchestra. Holocaust survivors were in both camps. Michael Avraham, 67,
an engineer, said: "Wagner was a giant anti-semite but also a great
musician. I'm against his views, but not his music."
Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Israeli branch of the Nazi-hunting Simon
Wiesenthal Centre, said: "We will urge all Israeli orchestras to
boycott Daniel Barenboim."
In 1981, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra tried to play a piece from
Tristan and Isolde, but a Holocaust survivor jumped on to the stage,
opened his shirt and showed scars from a concentration camp. The
performance was abandoned.
I also do not want to have politics coming between me and my music and if push comes to shove I would say that The Ring Cycle to me was the greatest operatic endeavour of the 19th century. He was still a stinker of a man.
I was surprised to find politics infiltrating this forum. I honestly couldn't care less of Wagners political views. I accept that he's vile anti semite, but I love his music. I don't think we should be canceling composers and classical music in general. Apparently, Beethoven is now racist too. At this rate soon enough all classical music will be censored and labeled racist.
Copland- Appalachian spring, rodeo and billy the kid suite all conducted by Leonard Bernstein NY Phil. Ravel- bolero- also Leonard NY phil Barber - Adagio for strings Len as well Debussy- Suite bergamasque, Clair de lune Cecil ousset Erik Satie- gymnopedies 1 2 3- aldo ciccolini Gershwin - Rhapsody in blue- Leonard again Grieg - peer gynt- Herbert von karajan- Berlin phil
Four days before his death, speaking to Gen. Benjamin Butler, Lincoln
still pressed on with deportation as the only peaceable solution to
America’s race problem. “I can hardly believe that the South and North
can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes … I believe that
it would be better to export them all to some fertile country…”
"While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to
know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality
between the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself
on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was
asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying
something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have
been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political
equality of the black and white races -- that I am not nor ever have
been in favor of making VOTERS or jurors of negroes, NOR OF QUALIFYING
THEM HOLD OFFICE, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in
addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white
and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living
together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as
they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the
position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any of her man am in
favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
On a warm September afternoon, a startling sound could be heard in a
rehearsal room here: a full-size orchestra, playing the second act of
Wagner’s “Die Walküre.”
“I’m not saying we planned this,” Donald Runnicles, who was conducting
the rehearsal, said in an interview. “But if you knew you were going to
have a six-month hiatus where you didn’t hear any live music, what would
you wish to hear after that six months? In my top 10, it would be ‘Die
Walküre.’”
When Wagner began work on the text of the “Ring,” he was a young radical
fleeing the failed revolutions of 1848. “We are all in a situation like
Wagner,” Mr. Herheim said. “All somehow refugees, confronted with the
concept of not having a harbor, not feeling safe, and at the same time
having to face the destinies of so many people trying to get to us, and
face the fact that many of us are not ready to feel empathy.”
Fearing the fate of Louis-Philippe, some monarchs in Germany accepted
some of the demands of the revolutionaries, at least temporarily. In the
south and west, large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations took place. They demanded freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, written constitutions, arming of the people, and a parliament.
Wagner was the most known of any German in the world the day he died and the huge amount of the vile anti- Jewish hate speech he wrote is not forgotten to this day .
So my friend said "let's stop at that estate sale". Sunday's are the last day so usually slim pickin's. Three boxes of records still. They hadn't sold many all weekend. 90 percent classical. If I had my car (and more room currently) I would have made an offer for all. Instead I only purchased 18 (all of Columbia Masterworks (all they had) and 5 RCA shaded dogs. 50 cents each, close m- + cons. They had over 20 MHS...
Schumann, Humoreske, Novelletten, Nachtstucke, Piano Sonata #2 / Andras Schiff. Live recording by ECM, 2 CDs. Not surprisingly it being ECM, the piano recording is excellent, and Schiff is on top form for his audience.
There is a new book out on Richard Wagner,
Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Musicby Alex Ross. I came to Wagner while studying with Vincent Scully about Louis Sullivan, the Chicago architect, inventor of the steel framed skyscraper, always replete with ornamentation that has never been matched.
I realize that some here revile Wagner. This book refutes some of the reasons often given for this revulsion, so perhaps it is worth quoting: quote
Ross has much that’s interesting to say about the responses to Wagner’s
controversial, wide-ranging, and widely circulated writings about art,
nationalism, anti-Semitism, and any number of other topics; he’s
attentive to Wagner’s early anarchist and leftist views; and, of course,
he devotes many pages to the embrace of Wagner’s music and ideas by
Hitler and the Third Reich.
The strongest pages in Wagnerism—they come in the final third of
the book, mostly in the chapter “Siegfried’s Death”—deal with the
complex position of Wagner in Hitler’s imagination, Nazi Germany, and
the Allied countries before, during, and immediately after World War II.
Ross brings a feeling for historical paradox and ambiguity to this
prototypical case study in the relationship among art, society, and
politics. He explores the long-running scholarly debates about what he
refers to as “the Wagner-Hitler problem.” Addressing scholarly
discussions as to whether Hitler’s obsession with Wagner was dominated
by a rapturous engagement with the operas themselves or an enthusiasm
for Wagner’s writings on anti-Semitism and the German spirit, Ross
concludes that “Hitler’s relationship with Wagner remained one of
musical fandom rather than of ideological fanaticism.”
Whatever attracted him most strongly to Wagner, Hitler was determined to
make him central to the iconography and mythology of Nazism, though the
composer and his work were not wholeheartedly embraced by the citizens
of the Third Reich. Wagner “was too strange, too eccentric, to serve as a
reliable ideological bulwark” in Nazi Germany, Ross writes. “Nor was
his work popular enough, in the mass-market sense, to operate as a
unifying force.”
As for the claims that Wagner’s music was played in the concentration
camps, Ross examines them carefully and concludes that if it happened,
it was only rarely. “The vast majority of survivor testimonies,” he
writes, “indicate that the music of the camps was popular in nature:
marches, dance tunes, hits of the day, light classics.”
Ross argues that “Wagner’s popularity in America actually surged” in the
1940s. Arturo Toscanini and other conductors performed the operas
before enthusiastic audiences; apparently some concertgoers didn’t find
it difficult to separate the nineteenth-century artist from the country
that he had mythologized and that was now a sworn enemy. The New York Times
critic Olin Downes wrote that Wagner’s operas were “the antithesis of
Hitler, and crushing condemnation of all that Hitlerism implies.”
2 CD set of Vladimir Sofronitsky, one disc a Chopin recital and the second a Scriabin recital. The Chopin was great but doesn't displace Moravec, but the Scriabin is truly other-worldly. I don't know if it has something to do with the acoustic of the recording space or the piano. Or perhaps it really is just Scriabin's sonorities...
The Ultimate in Music by 3 artists touched by God . I've been to over 2, 000 live classical concerts , only in Opera does the audience break into tears .
agree with you Jim, powerful performance by Hamelin I am not an opera lover, but I do love those melodies. Interesting note: Hamelin is broke, had to borrow money, caused of course by the cancellation of live performances. I am sure his standard of living is a lot more expensive than mine!
@jcazador Johnathan I have just downloaded the hi-rez file of Hamelin's new recording , stupendous jaw dropping playing. If Hamelin's playing is anything to go by then Liszt and Thalberg must also have been as great as what has been written about them. Great stuff indeed.
Tracklist Franz Liszt Hexaméron, S392 01. Introduction Extremement lent (3:56) 02. Tema Allegro marziale (1:25) 03. Variation I Ben marcato (0:56) 04. Variation II Moderato (2:49) 05. Variation III di bravura - Ritornello (1:20) 06. Variation IV Legato e grazioso (1:23) 07. Variation V Vivo e brillante - Fuocoso molto energico Lento quasi recitativo (3:26) 08. Variation VI Largo - [coda] (2:31) 09. Finale Molto vivace quasi prestissimo (3:05) Sigismond Thalberg 10. Grande fantaisie sur des motifs de Don Pasquale, Op 67 (14:15) Franz Liszt 11. Ernani '[Deuxième] Paraphrase de Concert', S432 (7:37) Sigismond Thalberg 12. Fantaisie sur des thèmes de Moïse, Op 33 (14:57) Franz Liszt 13. Réminiscences de Norma de Bellini - Grande fantaisie, S394 (17:25)
I don't think this is particularly well known, it's a youthful Andras Schiff playing Schumann. Gesange der Fruhe; Nachtstucke; Kreisleriana; Variationen in Es-dur [forgive lack of diacritics]. On Teldec. This displaces Lupu as my favorite Schumann recital. The way he handles the dissonances in Gesange no. 1 is extraordinary.
jim you say "
if you go back in someone’s past that there may be a black gene floating about somewhere
" indeed, you might well find some neanderthals too!
I saw and heard the witch is dead many times jim .Believe it or not I actually sang it to myself before I heard anything .Looks like an average American need not worry about being anywhere in Europe for years to come .
I had to cancel my last 2 Lufthansa business class Chicago - Berlin this Oct + December , 250,000 miles worthless .
.To be honest coming from an alcoholic family it is hard for me to be in Scotland , at least they vacinated me from it .I hear you on the Keyboard Partitas with Pinnock , I played them a hundred times till I forgot where I put them. Fun galore !
@rvpiano Yes RV he was not bad in the composing dept.
I am listening at the moment to a series of the Keyboard Partitas by Bach and played on Harpsicord by Trevor Pinnock and most enjoyable they are and he is throwing all kinds of things in like lute stops full double keyboard and single keyboard to add some diversity in the mix. Most recommended.
@jcazador Hi Jeremy I can only describe your snippet as laughable in that if you go back in someone’s past that there may be a black gene floating about somewhere but I am glad that I am of the age now that I don’t care any longer. If you say anything nowadays against it you are instantly pegged as a racist.
@Schubert Len right you are about the Shotts boys they had a great pipe band. I used to play in Ayr Pipe band when I was young and Shotts used to win all the trophies in the sixties under the rule of Pipe Major John K McCalister and Drum Major Alex Duthart and they were unbeatable at all the major highland games especially The Cowal Gathering. Then also Duthart's boys regularly used to take the prize for the drum corps home also. Now sadly a lot of those great pipe bands are no longer playing together because they were mostly miners and we know what Thatcher did to mining in the Eighties and we now have no colliery bands and deep coal mines in Scotland now. I know I shouldn't admit to this but I let out a wry smile when in the news they were filming Thatcher's funeral procession going down the Mall in London and there was a deputation of ex miners with a placard that read "ding dong the witch is dead" . Really good that one so don't ever mention Margaret Thatcher in Scotland or you could stand a chance of getting lynched. She is despised up here.
@jcazador Hi Jeremy I had enough of the Rolling Stones the first time they hit the charts, an awful racket . I get you about Hewitt she has a very large following and I do listen to her sometimes. The Goldbergs are great enough for many many interpretations and I now have so many of them I could open up a record shop and make a tidy profit. Thank goodness my music is on hard drives now instead of discs as I was starting to worry in case my floor would subside.
Indeed a sad letter to receive. It is a sad situation, unfortunately one that started a long time ago. And yet, there are so many young people populating orchestras all over the world.
Jim et al Thanks for your response. Yes I love the Schiff recording too. Somehow it did not show up on my index, but there it is under "Bach Solo Keyboard Works". I have not heard the Dershavina recording, now searching.
Just received this sad note from a piano dealership that is closing:
Dear Client, This is very sad news. The flagship piano store in KC for over 100 years is closing. The store that brought Steinway and other great brands to our region is going out of business. You can still buy online, but where can you go to try out a new Steinway, Boston or Kawai grand? This is another major blow to the cultural life of our city. There were many cultural influences in recent years: the general shift from making our own music to being entertained electronically, the lack of true music education in schools, parents forcing children to choose between sports and music, the general rise of crudity in all art forms, and people who think practicing is too much work. There were also political influences. The political-economic decisions that brought on the recession of 2008-15 robbed many of our citiizens of their discretionary income. As a result, they stopped buying instruments and paying for private music lessons. This forced Schmitt to cut their store space in half. It forced the closing of the Toon Shop and other music stores. The 2020 economic shut-downs and pandemic hysteria have hammered the nails in the coffin. Music and its related businesses were labelled "unessential" for five months. As a result, major orchestras, ballets and opera companies have been irreparably endangered. Chamber music is "virtual." Piano lessons are attempted over the phone. Our beloved violin repair expert has closed her business and taken a government job. Luyben Music, the iconic source of classical music since 1947, has shut its riot-cracked and graffitied store. My business was cut by 80%. Indoor vocal worship singing is forbidden. Our leading presidential candidate promises to shut it all down again if scientists advise. No wonder people are afraid to make a major musical investment. I'm sick of hearing phrases like "in these uncertain times" and "we're all in this together." We're not. The liquor stores, grocery stores, pet-food stores and gun stores are doing well. The music industry is dying. Is a virus really so selective? Now that my rant is over, if you or someone you know is interested in purchasing a better piano, this is a rare opportunity. If you have been getting-by with a worn-out heirloom or donated piano, here is a chance to honor that legacy with a decent instrument, especially one that carries a warranty. Ted Horowitz, RPT
RV you stated the beauty of the music influenced your reaction and I can totally agree with you there. Lang Lang did really project that in his playing but he made a lot of the movements sound like Chopin Preludes which a lot of people may be happy with but to me way too much pedal on them.
jcazador Jeremy I have perused your list and there are some stellar names there of which most people would be delighted with and I have fitted that category most of the time also. I currently have two favourites which are poles apart so that lets you know that most interpretations have playing in them that are most enjoyable . My current two are not even on your list that shows just how diverse they are. My first is Andras Schiff 1983 version because you can tell how much he loves playing them and therefor he says goodbye on the aria repeat with a smile . I shall never tire of them and by the way I think technically this version beats the known versions by everyone else. My next recording is by Ekaterina Dershavina and she gives us a quite literal interpretation but she has you glued to your seat and you keep saying to yourself "I have never heard this or that detail before" Hers is a voyage of discovery which I love going on regularly. Guys have a lovely weekend. Jim.
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