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.
David Oistrakh (violin) New York Philharmonic Dimitri Mitropoulos Columbia / Sony 1956 / 1998 Mono
Notes:"The work had received only two previous performances anywhere, when it was given its world premiere ten weeks previously by the Leningrad Philharmonic, October 29 and 30 1955. Directly after its first performance in America, the work was recorded for this record with Mr. Oistrakh once again as soloist."
Mstislav Rostropovich (cello) Philadelphia Orchestra Eugene Ormandy Mason Jones(horn solo)
Notes:"Five prime Soviet composers, led by Shostakovich, sat in box number 2 at the left of the stage and watched a star Soviet instrumentalist perform the first Western reading of the new cello concerto before an audience that included many of the top U.S. composers."
I have listened to Lisiecki and I have to say that although he is convincing in some of the Nocturnes it is when he gets into the later ones that both Arrau and Moravec have nothing to fear, belatedly of course. Arrau especially gives a wonderful burnished tone helped on of course by Phillips splendid recording. The only one who could be on the same side of the fence tone wise as Arrau was Horowitz but of course in a completely different way, both were breath taking. There was no one to beat those two.
Have any of you listened to Vikingur Ollafson's new Mozart recording, it is playing of stupendous quality. It is the type of playing that makes you say it's only Mozart then you start saying listen to those runs they are super fast and crystalline and then you start saying they are not only fast and super clear they don't slow down the impetus of the piece one jot. No this is one truly great pianist.
@jim204 -- I actually listened to Vikingur Ollafsson's Mozart earlier today. It seems his DG album was featured on my Qobuz home page. Yeah, he's truly excellent, and I enjoyed the heck out of his readings. But he still needs a bit more time to fully tap the depths that lie beneath the stuff that the kid from Salzburg brought to us. In other words, I'm still not ready to give up Perahia or Brendel.
@edcyn928 Yes I wholeheartedly agree about these young pianists needing more time to mature but so do all pianists and not just the young. i do think Perahia a much better pianist than Brendel was but that is only me. I spent a life time going to the Edinburgh Festival every year only to get jaded with Brendel with his mannerisms and finger slips and he certainly never ever had the technique that Olaffson has but I have never heard Schubert played live better than Brendel, but I for sure will stick with Olaffson.
I love her Len and have done for decades, her hands were tiny but that most certainly never deterred her. None other than Horowitz marvelled at her dexterity, in fact I have somewhere in my house a picture that shows her Horowitz and Arrau backstage at a concert she had given. In fact when they came to congratulate her on her performance she threw her arms around Arrau and then kneeled in front of Horwitz and kissed his hands and he then pulled her to her feet and he then kissed her fingers and said she was a marvel. I think she was a marvel too not only for her Mozart but her Iberian music also especially her Albeniz which can be ferociously difficult but her little hands coped admirably. That soundbite was superb.
Pavel Sporcl (violin) Prague Symphony Orchestra Jiri Kout Supraphon 2009
In 1933 Strauss (1864-1949) was appointed to two important positions in the musical life of Nazi Germany: head of the Reichsmusikkammer and principal conductor of the Bayreuth Festival. The latter role he accepted after conductor Arturo Toscanini had resigned from the position in protest of the Nazi Party. These positions have led some to criticize Strauss for his seeming collaboration with the Nazis. However, Strauss's daughter-in-law, Alice Grab Strauss [née von Hermannswörth], was Jewish and much of his apparent acquiescence to the Nazi Party was done in order to save her life and the lives of her children (his Jewish grandchildren)... Further, Strauss insisted on using a Jewish librettist, Stefan Zweig, for his opera Die schweigsame Frau which ultimately led to his firing from the Reichsmusikkammer and Bayreuth. In 1948, a year before his death, he was cleared of any wrongdoing by a denazification tribunal in Munich.---wiki
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor, Op. 8
Before a concert Liszt mingled with the audience, charming them with his
witty remarks. He had a semicircle of chairs placed around the piano on
stage so that illustrious guests could sit near him and converse with
him between pieces. He added extra bits of his own invention to the
pieces he was playing, improvising cadenzas, tremolos, double octaves,
and trills even to iconic pieces like Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata. He
brought his silk gloves on stage and threw them down to be fought over
by audience members. Women were said to carry his discarded cigar butts
in their cleavages. When he broke piano strings, as he often did in his
performances, people collected the broken strings and had them made into
bracelets. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/nothing-sheer-racket
Concertgebouw Orchestra Bernard Haitink Philips (now Decca) 1981
Notes: "Death and Transfiguration" is something different again, much closer to Liszt's concept of the tone-poem. It represents the victory of the human spirit over the sharpness of death. A man lies dying in his room. The atmosphere of death lies heavy over the sick-bed. He dreams of far-off happy days. A spell of agony racks his body, but victory over the world is his. He dreams again of childhood and youth. The music grows more and more impassioned and then we are back in the sick-room again. He grows weaker and his pulse beats ever more slowly until at last he sinks back into death. Now out of the darkness comes victory, release from the world, transfiguration.
What I have heard is his DG with Debussy . Rameau and thought it was very good .
Rameau is one of my favorites , I listen to him a lot , have too , you won’t hear him live in US . You will ,IMO. in the most interesting city in North America , Montreal .
My first impressions of living with Idagio rather than Primephonic classical streaming...
1. The selection ain't quite as luxuriously, mind-bogglingly complete as the late, lamented Primephonic but there's no doubt they've got excellent taste.
2. I have yet to encounter the streaming glitches that often made dialing up specific Primephonic selections more a role of the dice than a done deal.
3. Through my system, sound quality can sometimes be slightly thicker and less-spacious than through Primephonic (or for that matter Qobuz), but it's always still enjoyable as heck.
4. Idagio is extremely easy and intuitive to log into and navigate.
My second impressions of Idagio -- Yeah, I'm learning how to navigate it. There's a lot more repertoire to explore. It's just a bit hidden. I was able to jack up the sound quality. Yeah, again the way to go about it is a bit hidden. Is it now quite to the level I got from Primephonic? I must continue to button push...
Len , I haven't listened to that kind of stuff for years but I listened to your clips plus many associated clips and found that my fingers were playing the notes of those tunes and yes there was a tear in my eye also.
Olaffson is highly skilled, and has excellent taste. I think his Philip Glass recording is the best piano Glass I've heard. But his Bach is rather boring, and his Debussy and Rameau lack life and verve. For Rameau, I prefer Angela Hewitt. For Debussy, try the incomparable Arturo Michelangeli.
His Quintet in C may be his Best . Sound could be better this but how Lindsay treats Schubert is there . The sound on record comes in about 20 seconds .
True. The Japanese were always excellent at sea warfare.
Wiki: China is bordered by 14 countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. Furthermore it shares maritime borders with Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
That list includes four nuclear powers. The last thing they need or want is some kind of conflict with the West. Their last adventure in Vietnam was a disaster. Even bigger than ours. They now have frequent
skirmishes
with India on their common border.
BTW, the thing I sent about 1CD, listed units from the world war ll era.
Last night I listened to Pavel Kolestnikov play Bach's Goldberg Variations and have to say it wasn't half bad.The performance was from the Proms and on the BBC Radio 3 catch-up player. The sound from the Albert Hall was not ideal because of that bloody fountain trickling away all evening. On the other hand Kolestnikov's playing was at times fascinating and exciting and absolutely sublime. He had an improvisatory style which was fascinating and sometimes so fast that one thought his fingers would run away with him but he never made any slips.I have listened to the Goldbergs' all my life and have never heard such a florid account but in the main I really enjoyed the performance. It is such a shame that there is no way to send recordings to each other as I can and do record a lot of these BBC one offs and therefor I have a great collection of recordings which very few people have access to.
@twoleftears The recording is different from the commercial one in that the Albert Hall one is more improvisatory and has much more second repeat decorations. So all in all it satisfies two camps, the traditional and the improvisatory. I am glad I now have the two.
They buy American, but they make sure it's assembled in Japan. :)
They sure are buying a LOT of F-35s.
One of the problems with the Military / Industrial complex is, they must continually make "better" stuff. They can never afford to shut down the assembly lines. Hell, the F-15 is better than anything else in the world except our own latest planes.
But, history has taught us that there is a high price to pay for having second best equipment on the battlefield. Such as, German armor in Normandy.
Yes, I've seen the famous pic of the Brit / Canadian when the ramp went down. What I have never understood is, why that beach was not a gigantic wall of napalm from end to end. We not only had Air Superiority, we had Air Dominance!
With all the firepower at hand, no one should have been killed by machine gun fire on that beach. Our ground attack fighter planes should have been dropping napalm, at tree top level, right up until the ramps dropped.
Canadians: The British were much more aware of and concerned about British causalities, then they were Canadian losses. Dieppe etc...
This Great American Conductor , Jo Ann Falletta , has made the rust-belt Buffalo Symphony into a first-class orchestra for 25 years , and she will stay till she retires if she does.
I'm just getting acquainted with Mahler. I have Mahler 4 with the NYPO and Bernstein. I am thinking of getting the complete cycle by Bernstein and the NYPO, just to get started. $32 on amazon.
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