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.
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Ah! This remind me i am almost 71 years old and this remind me that he is a giant for sure... Sad... I will listen to him tonight with a prayer ... It does not take more than few seconds to discover an interpretion by him which is supremum... He walked on embers with an internal pulse that is never outside of the music, the music played him more than he play it...
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I had one Lupu lp that I loved, all Brahms, the Second Rhapsody and some of the late Piano works. I saw him in recital 20 years ago. He seemed uncomfortable in the large Orchestra Hall venue, maybe just a bad afternoon. I purchased a box labeled “The Complete Decca Recordings “ and it’s only around 12 discs, a relatively small recorded legacy, and not much for the last 3 decades or so. R.I.P. |
I have just been talking about Lupu playing Schubert and I am listening to another superlative player of the bard of the piano. Grigory Sokolov playing at the Esterhazy Palace and Schubert of such purity and crystalline beauty. He is another one who doesn't like the recording studio and prefers to have his recitals recorded instead. I remember it must have been 30 years ago a recital Sokolov did in Queen's Hall Edinburgh and he was just about ready to come on and the house lights went off and the piano was lit by one solitary spot. one person took exception to this and started mouthing off about it for quite a while when I suddenly jumped to my feet and shouted back to him "you wouldn't be shouting if it was Richter". He sat down meekly and didn't say another word and we enjoyed the recital after that. Sokolov may be a controversial pianist but there is no argument that he is one of the greats. |
...at great risk of preaching up the choir, here are some choice TIDAL categories. I suspect similar availability on Qobuz and other services: Deutsche Grammophon 120 ECM (label) Classical Living Stereo Top 50 Decca Sound Label Focus: Mercury - TIDAL Masters Jazz Rudy Van Gelder Edition Misc Computer Audiophile 100 More Peace Pin (laser ruler for sound room!) |
Appear very interesting to me...To say the least...it is very delicate and clear voicing... My favorite version is Feltsman in Moscow...This one is so different that it will be complementary...Feltsman was propulsed like a meteoritic surge in some sky, Angelich is inward in his own explicit way ...I cannot put words for now...it is a discovery for me... it seems we just lost two giant pianists...
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This version rival any other great one i know of indeed...It is very delicate and poetical interpretation...the drama is interiorized... Save for only one version nobody exceed anyway and which is in a class of his own but a version "sound purist" dont always love because too volcanic and too powerful playing by "Liszt reincarnated" for Hungarian People...
Angelich is with Lupu a giant for me... This piece is the key to Liszt soul...Many versions are welcome...
And Liszt is one the greatest underestimated composers there is because of his Christus among other works, which is the only oratorio with the Messiah for me rivaling Bach Passion... Liszt deeply influenced Bruckner with Shubert through this oratorio who rival even the Greatest Mass of Bruckner himself... So astounding that the first time i listened to it i was out of my chair and never understood at the first listening the majestic simplicity of Liszt devotion and his mastering of symphonic orchestration chorus and soloists so great and purified and refined to a a truly celestial perfection that nobody ever exceed it for me among any composers.. He unite the most moving simplicity with the peak of glory which is an impossible task and union save in Paradise... I think Liszt conversion was really a spiritual one... .. i owned four version of this three hours work... 😁😊 It is the life of Christ told by angels in heaven after the resurrection for me ...Not a Passion at all... It is like the Art of the Fugue by Bach, the only work i know at the same heights of perfection on all counts form and content which put almost any other works under them save few truly inspired spiritual works... I am ashamed to say i discovered Listz only late in life...Too great for my small mind and heart it seems, i was not ready ...I dont joke here...This work humble us... It is useless to put a link to this 3 hours work and feel the right impression without immersing ourself in it...You cannot judge the Himalaya from below... The only work for me that rival Liszt Christus is not his marvellous choral works so great they are indeed, but his 5 th symphony...Incredible work underestimated to this day, because the beauty of his other symphonies are easier to catch at first listening... But no one ever write a symphony so perfect in content and form with a so intense spiritual experience hidden in it i put it beside the cHristus and the Art of the fugue... The Bruckner 9 th symphony for example so deep, beautiful it is and it is rival almost any symphonic piece ever written, lack the purified, refined spiritual perspective over the cosmos itself and over all life there is in the 5th... A great critic in the 10 century say it all : "this is to the symphony art what the art of the fugue is to the klavier "...
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Jim204 , I Was going to say that Lupu was THE Schubert pianist . But every one knows I am a Schubert freak and perhaps It would not go over well at his death . BUT our Scottish Icon of all things pianist did it for me. I have every Lupu of Schubert that is (I think) and IMO no reason to play anything else ! |
@jim5559 My dear friend I agree with you one hundred percent, his Schubert is as if God himself is at his back and willing him on to give nothing other than life itself on a palette of 88 keys, such was his genius. |
Some people are saying this and that pianist produced the best tone, I have been to many many live concerts and believe me live is the only way you can judge a pianist. The pianist who is number one for me was Claudio Arrau whose tone could be a soft whisper or an earth shattering roar but never once with a rough tone. He was like the old pianists like Rachmaninov or Hoffman who were quiet at the piano not for them the histrionics of hand waving and tragic faces , even Horowitz hardly betrayed his playing and not portraying todays penchant for playing with evermore hand and arm waving. I now hate watching the Leeds or other pianoforte competitions as each successive pianist is more flamboyant than the last. I managed in the late sixties to get down to London to hear Arrau play the last three piano sonatas by Beethoven. I have not to this day heard piano tone like it with a total economy at the keyboard producing such a regal tone that I was enchanted. When he got to the last sonata in C Minor he got to the bit where it is nothing but trills and I have to say that being a big gruff Scotsman I surprised myself to find floods of tears flowing down my cheeks and of people around me also. I never will forget that concert and that tone and it was in my head for weeks after . I find that most of Arrau’s records are just a poor imitation of the great man, and after all this is the man that Rachmaninov and Horowitz used to go backstage and congratulate him on his interpretations and tone. Horowitz also whispered to him once that he Horowitz was glad he didn’t play any Beethoven. |
Between live performance concert in big hall and listening recorded concert there is a difference always a changing one with no absolute superiority of one over the other in all case, for me... It is true that a lived performance will always own a potential superiority for sure in principle because the musician spirit and body is in the room... A very small room concert is then the ONLY ideal way...Or playing ourself with this musician for sure.... 😊 Glenn Gould prefered studio recording... I dont say he was right , i say he was not wrong either... But for sure we can judge to a relative high degree a great pianist playing even from a bad recording... We cannot assess the level of an artist only if we were "there" so to speak...
Another example: i own albums of a tanbur Iranian musician, very badly recorded , which are among the most powerful musical performance i ever listened to, Yehudi Menuhin wrote and tought the same about him and to be frank i listen to this musician after reading Menuhin impressions... But for most people it will be only an horrendous recording and a not tamed music at all (persian origin) ... I know i test it with many music lovers, and they cannot understand why i loved it so much... Any music must be learned so to speak and must be approached like we tame a wild unknown beast.... And at the end music is not only sound and is not even any more related to the musician body and spirit , it is a personal spiritual event that transcend even the musician personality and precise moment of the event...
Then there is one mountain peak yes, but many roads to musical illumination like in religious matter i think.... 😁😊😊😊😊😊😊
By the way, what i appeciate the more here, is the diversities of experiences and opinions, this is these diversities which is the door to new discoveries for me... Like said frogman one day here, to tamper my always too great enthusiasm 😁 , there is no objective best of the best... I will not dare to contradict him, because he is right for sure, especially if we take into account all opinions in the world...But for me there is, like for each one of you, the best of the best... It is normal and a testimony to our own different spirit journey...
Some musical event is like a first love, we cannot renounce it for the rest of our life...
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A god not God... It will be a theological mistake and a pure misplaced idolatry otherwise... We all have our own admirations... A thread like this one is interesting... Supposed you claim that the best Schubert interpreter is Radu Lupu... Supposed i never pounder Lupu in Schubert, or for some reason i never listen to him my attention directed at some aspect of his Schubert playing... I will listen to him anew with new ears, thanks to you... And i will perhaps discover something that has passed over me before because of my distraction ...And i will thank you without sarcasm for that ... I try to evite sarcasm about other people impression in spiritual matter...And music is a spiritual matter for me... This is the reason why this thread is interesting... When you say that some pianist is the "best" there is for some composer interpretation, it is not a theological truth, but a way to enlightened me...It is the way i read you... It is the way i take it... Take my enthusiasm for the same as yours... 😊 A way to partake music and surprise ourself about others differences and perspective... Superlative adjectives here are only a way to express our own amazement...Not objective truth... Yes for me E. N. is a god especially in Liszt Obermann .... Like Sofronitsky is a god in Scriabin... Sometimes i cannot choose between great artists, i renounce to claim that some musician is better than an another one ... For example i am unable to pick between Feltsman or Schiff, my two favorites pianist in Bach Klavier... I dont doubt there is even other great one here to place beside them... But miraculous events exist too....Even in music... And sometimes like Marian Anderson singing "ave maria" of Shubert my heart is vanquished and it is, if not a goddess, an angel without rival here FOR ME... I hope to have been clear about "my entusiasm" which is not a rational claim about a rational argument to be winned or lost... Only a poetical way to focus others attention on some aspect of listening and convey my experience... Then i thank you for the occasion given to me here by you to clear this point about admirations... My best and deepest respect to you ....
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Late this night i was dumbfounded by the beauty of this two playings of Liszt , the first by a "playing giant" and the second version by a "singing god"... Pick the one you prefer, but listen attentively to the continuity uniting "pulse" behind all successive passing states and the subsisting constrasts polarities at the same times and read how alternate emotions coming from the unconscious mind of the very conscious Liszt are translated by the two pianists unequaly, one in a more spectacular but beautiful playing, the other with an absolute clarity about the poetical and unified alternative emotionals rumination of Liszt in the same moment sometimes in the piece... The "playing giant" tempo is faster than the "singing god"... It is a lesson in piano playing by two masters...
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Now i will propose to you a listening experiments with three versions of the same piece of Liszt "the evening bells"... The first version with a good pianist...
The second one with a great pianist....The beautiful one...
And the third one with a god pianist, one of the supremum few one... The eepest version the more moving one....He is so in love with this piece that he repeat it two times...We dont listen here to a beautiful sound only like in the second case but to a pure emotion emerging with his own time flowing in eternity...
Judge by yourself....
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Is music an emotion becoming a beautiful sound ? Or is music a sound becoming pure intense sometimes terrifying emotion ?
These two interelated notions, which we may distinguish but Two polarities intricated in one another and dominatating one another at the service or disservice of one another ... I will illustrate each one of these polarities by two versions of the Mephisto Waltz no 2 from Liszt...
The second one by the godly pianist is terrifying in his brutish character coming directly from hell... No more Beautiful sound here, only a mesmerizing violent emotion that let us in pieces... The 4 last minutes of the second version shatter all other versions for me...Pure daemonic summoning which transform the worst heavy metal ceremony in children play...
«An angel is terrible»-Rilke «Imperfection only is the peak and the apex»-René Char
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I think the same... The mix of the right folks diversities all around in their country ? They had a way of singing when playing that make them unique... All countries had a soul, but the Czechs have been tuned by God toward singing not opera so much than poetry, with violin or anything else... Think about Dvorak and Zelenka among many others...Their music is poetry for me...
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@jim5559 The live Benny Goodman version from the Carnegie Hall concert will never be surpassed. |
I decided to come back listening my beloved Zuzana Ruzickova complete Bach Klavier, especially the Partitas... For two reasons: First it is my favorite Bach integral... Second the sound... His harpsichord produce a deluge of harmonics on all scale that is very difficult to catch in his beauty , like a rainbow for each register timber change in a new world of colors... It is an acoustic test for your speakers/room treatment and control, i remember the difference in sound with this album before and after my acoustic control implementation not so long ago...The sound was if not awful, ugly at times and compressed without the actual mesmerizing harmonic palette... In truth this sound interpretation is like a colored ongoing kaleidoscope dance, it is impossible to be bored...On the opposite it is like a drug induced sound hallucination more akin to heaven than to this world... Then it is not only by his masterful interpretation which match even the greatest harpsychordist , it is for his unique sound that i am entranced ... This woman is born with the Bach angel near his bed and after his survival through concentration camp decided to promote the harpsichord , not a primitive musical instrument, not inferior to the piano, but unique and irrepleacable even OVER the piano...Like the original Veena in India which is in no way primitive or inferior to the modern sitar...
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