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 just rediscovered a wonderful version of the Symphonic Dances by an old colleague of Rachmaninoff’s: Eugene Ormandy with the Philadelphia Orchestra.Really outstanding performance. Maybe my current favorite version. On my system, the sonics are much better on this cheapo Sony Essential Classics label than on the super highly touted Reference Recording label with the Minnesota Orchestra.
Pardon me while I digress into audiophilia. I don’t know how others feel, but I, for one, have never liked the sound of Reference Recordings, no matter how good my system gets. i find the sound perspective distant and Ill defined. The opposite of Mercury Living Presence, which may to some be a little too close up, but which I greatly prefer. Please forgive my rant!
Re music recommendations vs audiophile recommendations, to paraphrase rvpiano, one must be aware of your audience's priorities when making recommendations. Fortunately, in this case it really is a win/win proposition.
Schubert recently made a recommendation for Vesper's, more correctly known as All-Night Vigil, but called both, and it is hard to find fault with his recommendation. The music in this recording is simply magnificent. The opening with the basses just grabs you and on you go. If it's the only version you have, great. Very Russian I think. I wouldn't be without it!
However, for folks who are audiophiles, such as we have in this forum, there are other recordings which present a valid alternative, performance wise as well as recording quality. The one I have in mind is All-Night Vigil by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir led by Paul Hiller (Harmonia Mundi 907384). Apart from the differences in performance, which I will pass on discussing here as those differences are, as always, a matter of personal preference, the acoustic and presentation of the voices, for both the choir members and soloists, has much greater clarity and the recording has a greater sense of transparency and openness.
Yes, I believe the two greatest Rachmaninoff conductors today are Pletnev and Ashkenazy, both extraordinary pianists as well. (Although Ashkenazy just retired.)
To my hears the greatest rendering of "Symphonic Dances "Is on DG 477 9505 with the Russian National Orch with Pletnev, It’s in a 4 CD of all his Symphonies which are Russian to the core , ending of the Dances is an explosion ! A simple one CD is Ashkenazy with the great acoustics of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw .
IMO Rachmaninov’s greatest work is his Vespers Op 37. A fantastic recording is HM Chant du Monde RUS 788050 St.Petersburg Capella , Chernuchenko The perfection of the ensemble and blend of the sheer beauty of tone is beyond words . There are many , many Russian choral works but in Russia itself THIS is considered the greatest of them all !
A recording on Idagio inspired the above post: Alexander Schimpf with the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie. Although it’s a version without winds (Mozart’s original draft,) the genius of invention still shines through.
A lifetime project of mine, consciously started as a teenager, is baring fruits now in my advanced years. I determined quite early that Mozart’s piano concertos were too precious to spoil by listenIng to them too often. Hence, throughout my life I’ve listened to them sparingly, so as to discover new sweetnesses every time. I’m happy to say that it’s worked. I still thrill to each concerto I hear!
I agree with you that the Johanos recording is very dry and somewhat sterile. I must admit that I recommended it on the basis of this being an audiophile site. That particular disc has really excellent sonics. Performance-wise there are many better versions. In general, I like Ashkenazy’s way with Rachmaninoff.
@rvpiano, The Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances are also one of my favorite symphonic pieces! Thanks for all the recommendations earlier in this thread: Dallas-Johanos / Minnesota-Oue / Concertgebouw-Ashkenazy / Concertgebouw-Jansons.
I wanted to add the Gardiner / NDR Sinfonieorchester recording to the list... to my ears, it's unmatched in suspense, scale and space. The Dallas/Johanos recording sounds comparably sterile and too measured for my taste, and far less expressive. What are your impressions?
I always steer people to the 6,7 ,8 masterpieces whether they have listened to Classical fifty years or fifty minutes ! As a religious person I have always thought the cherry on the top for Hayden was/is his piety . His church music is better than Mozart’s and IMO right up there with Bach's Passions , at least for a believer .
Hear, Hear for Haydn!A friend of mine who’s otherwise pretty knowledgeable, is an ignoramus when it comes to this composer, as are many music lovers. Although I take a backseat to no one in my love for Mozart, in general, I prefer Haydn’s symphonies. There are a few exceptions of course, but Haydn wrote so many great ones. He was always a master tinkerer, with a wonderful sense of humor. Even the early symphonies are creations of genius and invention.I can always find something to love in ANY of Haydn’s 104 symphonies.
Dinna fash yersel laddy , yer nae the first that said that. To me its either six or a half-dozen . Here's one we all believe. This one of the finest souls ever born in Scotia . Video is not the best, but I chose this one because the Hall is nae 5 miles from where I sit right now . https://youtu.be/3UrzYCG0_-M?t=2
Len you are so right about Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven learned a lot of their craft from him. And that tripe about Beethoven having learned nothing from him is pure rubbish, you don't devote a complete set of string quartets to a person you said taught you nothing. Even Mozart devoted a set of string quartets to him also. I'll probably be branded a heretic for what I'm about to say but I'd rather listen to Haydn Symphonies than Mozart's .
Oh yes jim ! That was played yesterday on my local public FM aka "Classical Minnesota " . Every time I hear Haydn I am reminded how great he was/is .Takes a backseat to none . It was the stations spring fund raiser ( current regime is doing its best to kill it) , and managed to get over 600,000 $$ in 3 days to fight back .
@schubert Len thanks for that link to the Schubert , it was a lovely interpretation.
@rvpiano . I also have listened to D.959 and think it is a truly wonderful
performance. I think Volodos is a wonderful player and a real favourite of mine.
If I might give a little recommendation of my own while I am typing at the moment I am listening to Natalie Clien playing the two Haydn cello concertos. I must say they are delightful and done on period instruments which always gives me a little nervousness with anyone playing on gut. I can say the orchestral sound is superb , it has a beautiful fullness and no screeches anywhere ( can't say that for the rest of them ) Do try it as it is featuring on Idagio at the moment.
Here’s a song that deserves to be sung in every civilized land . It’s sung by a American iconic patriot artist who sang at President Trump’s Swearing -In, as one would expect .
Less than two weeks ago a nut slew 24 innocents randomly in Nova Scotia , such does not happen in Canada , unlike the USA . For fifty years US government has refused to ban military weapons designed to solely to kill human beings, though a majority of the nation would have it so , after children have been the dead in school time after time .
In Canada it took FIVE -days to ban all such weapons in Canada !!Period .
@rvpiano RV that was a lovely podcast about Julia Fischer I enjoyed it immensely. She really could succeed on either instrument, what a talent she is and her dedication puts her on my top 3 fiddlers list. I was bowled over by her octaves in the cadenza of the first movement of the Grieg. She really does deserve to be at the top of the tree.
@newbee Yes I completely forgot about that movement, that mighty crash from the beginning of that movement it' as if Heaven has been split asunder. Also Mahler was quite young when he penned it and a little aside , when he played one of the movements to Hans von Bulow he exploded at the end shouting to Mahler that it would never work. Thank goodness Mahler stuck to his guns is all I can say or ( maybe if he had been a better pianist !!! ).
The last movement of Mahler's 2d symphony - the 'resurrection' part of the symphony for me. Turn up the volume for this! It almost stands on its own. Almost......
Last Mov. of Mahler's 9th Last Mov. of Mahler's 3rd
That will have to do me as I'm quite at a loss to recall any more just now ( getting too old I think ) if you had asked about piano movements I would have rattled them off.
This thread has been somewhat moribund lately. I’d like revive it by posting a musical question. ”What is the greatest single movement in symphonic literature?” I’d like to posit a few suggestions off the of my head (in no particular order:) 3rd movement of Beethoven 3rd 1st mov. of Mahler 9th1st mov. of Brahms 1st. 4th mov. of Mozart’s 41st 1st and 4fh movement of Beethoven’s 9th
These are only a few of my favorites. I’m sure you have yours.
After reading the The young Icelandic pianist Vikkingur Olaffson's favourite Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould was his perfomance at Salzburg in 1959 I have to concur. He still dosn't heed any of the repeats but it is a blistering performance all the same. It is much faster than the 1955 recording and a world away in terms of recording quallity. By the way I don't know if any of you have this CD or not but a man called Zenph invented a way of re recording classic recordings from quite far back and he makes a remarkable job of it. He takes the basic recording and electronically processes it . it gets played back through a modern concert grand of the Yamaha type where it goes onto a disc which is inserted into the piano and you get a modern repoduction of the piece minus the distortions of pre 1950s discs. I must say up to now if I wanted to hear Gould play the 55s it would then be the Zenph copy. I don't know what happened to Zenph but I thought he was onto a winner but probably the big record companies crushed him before he could get started . I'm sorry I digressed and I do appologise but see if you can find it and you shall be in for a treat ,( I just don't know how he can play so fast ) the 59 copy not the 55 Zenph.
from pianostreet:
This performance given by Georges Cziffra took place September 20, 1962
in Montreux, France, under conductor Roberto Benzi with the Orch.
National de la RTF. The live recording was never commercially released
and is not available in any box set. Neither is it available in full on
YouTube, or anywhere else, it appears. It was forwarded to me from a
friend's hard-drive collection. The program was: Grieg Concerto in A minor and Liszt's Totentanz,
with an encore being the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6. As those familiar
with this pianist will tell you, Cziffra's live performances differ a
great deal from his studio recordings, which further diminished with the
sudden death of his son, Cziffra Jr. The significance of this concert
is that, so I believe, Cziffra gives the single greatest performance of
his life and, almost by definition, one of the greatest ever. It truly
has to be heard to be believed, particularly the Totentanz where he not only plays at mind-boggling speeds but openly improvises. The orchestra is also stunning.
Puccini based his Madame Butterfly on a short story by John Long, which was based upon a French novel by Pierre Loti. Subsequently, David Belasco wrote a one act play "Madame Butterfly, A Tragedy of Japan" which Puccini saw in Londonin 1900.
On Madame butterfly, Puccini made extensive use of Japanese melodies. Quite different from "North Africa" melodies. "One of the more striking aspects of exoticism in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is the extent to which the composer incorporated Japanese musical material in his score. From the earliest discussion of the work, musicologists have identified many Japanese melodies and musical characteristics that Puccini used in this work." Kunio Hara
schubert you say:
"Puccini wasn't picking on Americans,. He was a liberal who was against
the Italian Fighting for colonies in North Africa .If he used an
Italian Navy man he wanted to the Opera would be banned ." If Puccini has used an Italian Navy man, he would not have been composing an opera about Japan. It was USA Commodore Perry that forcibly "opened" Japan in 1854. Italy had nothing to do with it. And what makes you think that Puccini "wanted" to use an Italian Navy man?
This is another treasure from Jussi and Victoria and Pucccini. This is a not so hard to find , a "Great Recordings of the Century""from La Boheme . https://youtu.be/PRHuqqEk3Bk?t=2 I recall a long TV interview with Pavarotti. Interviewer asked the big guy about this and that tenor , what he felt about then , what he has learned from etc . The perpetual smile of the big guy never left his face.When he asked Pavarotti how he compared him self to Bjorling , his face turned dead and he said , "Do not ask me that Question , I am only human ’". He wasn’t joking .
Pushed to the wall this is my favorite , THE best duet I have ever heard ,The fantastic de los Angles and the greatest singer I have ever heard ,Jussi Bjorling . Opening aria , This is on an old LP that was lost by me in a move . Never found other (sob) I'm a combat vet and not much gets to me . I've seen Butterfly live at least 20 times and have cried every time, not teared , cried . Along with all the women and half the men.https://youtu.be/5TUtRRfAOMs?t=2
A little known fact . Puccini wasn't picking on Americans,. He was a liberal who was against the Italian Fighting for colonies in North Africa .If he used an Italian Navy man he wanted to the Opera would be banned .
Yes Cherkasky did have flashes of brilliance but he also had a lot of the waywardness of his master Josef Hoffman as they were always trying find hidden meanings in everything they played. Don't get me wrong Hoffman was peerless in Chopin but he really was all over the place in Beethoven. No very much two pianists for the Romantic repertoir.
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