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.
Sarah Chang (violin) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Charles Dutoit EMI Classics 1995
Notes: "It was a new virtuosity that required new music, music that demanded of a composer more than a casual awareness of the violin’s newly enhanced technical and expressive potential. The Romantic age was at hand, and the Classical rules needed updating. Gone was the fey intimacy of the aristocratic salon, replaced by the vigorous, heightened atmosphere of the concert hall."
Symphonie Espagnole for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 21
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig Kurt Masur Philips Classics 1984
Notes: "Simply, he overestimated the role of the gipsies at the expense of older native Hungarian folk-musics, this later being corrected by
Kodály and Bartók
. Liszt naturally admired the romantic aspects of gipsy style, but failed to realize that a typical Hungarian melody is a distillation of a historical succession of several melodic veins in which the 'fioriture' of the gipsies, who came from Asia, is only one element."
Lilian Watson (soprano) Delia Wallis (mezzo-soprano) London Symphony Orchestra Andre Previn EMI Classics 1977 /1985 / 2002
Notes: "It is not surprising that Mendelssohn grew up with an interest in, and a love for the works of William Shakespeare, since it was his father's brother-in-law, August Schlegel, who had translated them into German. In 1826, when he was seventeen years old, Mendelssohn composed "in a state of delirium", so he said, an Overture inspired by Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Seventeen years later he added to this some incidental music for use at performances of Shakespeare's play in Berlin."
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Incidental Music, Op.61
My favorite Liszt Sonata/Six Paganini Etudes compendium is still Andre Watts' initial foray on CBS Masterworks. I wish the fidelity were better, but Watts plays them with unmannered, headlong passion. There's nothing cute in his performances. He has an innate sense of what the pieces are telling us and where the pieces should go.
@rok2id6 Regarding the Liszt Sonata I fully concur with the Arrau version but make sure it is his 60s analogue version and not his 80's digital version because by then he had slowed down considerably. Also another one to look out for is Krystian Zimmerman who is a blistering performance but I personally like the older Arrau version for it's passion and technical prowess.
Murray Perahia (piano) St. Martin-in-the-Fields Neville Marriner CBS Masterworks 1975 / 1984
Notes: "The Concerto No.1 in G minor for piano and Orchestra, Op.25, was sketched in Rome, in November 1830, and finished in Munich during a visit by the composer in 1831, when he was twenty-two years old. Describing it as "a thing rapidly thrown off," Mendelssohn played the premiere himself in Munich in October 1831."
Concerto No.1 for Piano & Orchestra, in G minor, Op.25
Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) Berliner Philharmoniker Hebert von Karajan DG 1981
Notes: "Any discussion of the outstanding violin concertos of the 19th-century German repertoire inevitably centres upon four works: the concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven(1806), Felix Mendelssohn(1844), Max Bruch(1866) and Johannes Brahms(1878). In many respects these works fall into two pairs: while the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms are considered particularly "demanding", those of Mendelssohn and Bruch enjoy enormous popularity both with audiences and among violinists."
A very young Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor, op. 64
Andrew Manze (violin) The English Concert Andrew Manze Harmonia Mundi 2006
Notes: "These 3 innovative concertos--composed in the last four months of 1775 to entertain Mozart's noble employer and to mollify his father Leopold -- show Wolfgang the 'wunderkind' blossoming into a fully-fledged compositional genius." Andrew Manze plays his own cadenzas.
Arthur Grumiaux et al. St Martin in The Fields Wind Ensemble Philips 1997
Notes: "His intensive touring as a child prodigy now effectively at an end, in 1772 the 15-year-old Mozart returned to his birthplace, Salzburg, to earn his living in the services of the new Archbishop, Hieronymus von Paula, Count Colloredo."
Arthur Gumiaux (violin) Arrigo Pelliccia (viola) Philips 1996
Notes:"Mozart's chamber music for strings exhibits a command of the medium unmatched by any other composer -- Mozart's favorite instrument was the viola and he never missed an opportunity to perform with friends, perhaps most notably in the case of the famous "composers" quartet in which he was memorably joined by Vanhal(cello), Dittersdorf(second violin), and Joseph Haydn, no less, playing first violin."
Berliner Philharmoniker Herbert von Karajan DG 1978 / 1990
Notes:"As befits a native of Salzburg, Karajan's very first recordings was of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE Overture, made with the Staatskapelle Berlin in 1938. Although he remained a loyal Mozartian all his life, Karajan never recorded any of the earlier symphonies, not even No. 25, the "little G minor"."
Notes: "Mozart's piano concertos can fairly be said to serve as a lifelong diary of his artistic and personal development, as they traverse virtually the entire span of his composing career. Both the present works date from the winter of 1785-86, and were conceived for the delectation of a highly sophisticated Viennese audience. There is perhaps no work of Mozart's, concerto or otherwise, that can surpass the Concerto in E flat, K.482, in grandeur of conception or for the sheer ravishing deployment of instrument color."
Valentina Lisitsa, Scriabin, Nuances. A collection of mainly short, little-played pieces by Scriabin, which don't form part of the main sets (mazurkas, etudes, etc.). Listening again, and I like it even more than the first time around. The two Impromptus are fabulous.
Murray Perahia (piano) Radu Lupu (piano) CBS Masterworks 1985
Notes: "Mozart wrote the D major Sonata in Vienna in November 1781 to be played by himself and Josephine von Aurnhammer. Fräulein
von Aurnhammer was one of his most gifted pupils, and she often appeared with him in performances of his concerto in E-flat for two pianos and orchestra, K.365."
Mozart: Sonata for 2 Pianos in D Major, K.448/375a:
Notes: "Schubert himself gave the first performance of the Fantasia, with Franz Lachner in Vienna on May 9, 1828. The score is dedicated to Countess Caroline, a young piano student of the composer."
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Andre Previn Telarc 1986
Notes: "When Prokofiev returned for good to his native Russia in 1933 from his years in the West, he quickly espoused the Soviet philosophy of promoting music that would appeal to the widest masses of the people. "It is the duty of the composer to serve his fellow men, to beautify life and point the way to a radiant future," he said."
I guess the West didn't impress him.
Peter and the Wolf, a symphonic fairy tale for children Op. 67 (1936)
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