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Please suggest a few really good classical recordings

After a somewhat scary number of years attending all sorts of musical performances ranging from avant garde jazz to Broadway shows to folk to pop to rock & roll to zydeco in every conceivable venue, we finally had the great good fortune to experience the Cleveland Symphony at Severance Hall this past Saturday.

While we've enjoyed Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Holst, Ravel, Stravinsky, Strauss and Tchaikovsky recordings, we'd never had an opportunity to listen to a live orchestra before.  This particular performance was of Sibelius' 1st with Susanna Malkki conducting, so as authentic as could reasonably be expected.  We quickly realized that the classical recordings we have simply don't do the material justice.

I have some MFSL, MasterWorks and Deutche Grammaphon pressings along with a few CDs of classical music.  To my ears, none of them really compared very well with pressings by those companies or others (Sheffield and various Japanese houses) of acoustic jazz, folk or rock.  Having read several comments here indicating that most classical recordings are not as good as they could be, I now finally understand why.  The basis of comparison was simply not there before.

So, please suggest a few recordings that might be worthy of the material.  Vinyl would be preferable, but CD or SACD are also fine.  Stuff we know really well includes the Brandenburg Concertos, Beethoven's 9th, Holst's Planets and Stravinsky's Firebird.  Those would be easiest for us to really grasp what we've been missing, but finding a great recording or three is the priority.  Thanks in advance and we look forward to your suggestions!
effischer
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Among classical symphonic recordings of familiar and immediately likable pieces, what may be the best overall combination of sonics and performance that I have ever heard is a Chesky cd, number CD31, containing a performance of Dvorak’s "New World" Symphony with Jascha Horenstein conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was originally engineered by the legendary Kenneth Wilkinson of Decca, and you would absolutely not believe that it was recorded in 1962!

Unfortunately this CD is long out of print, but you may be able to find used or unused copies on eBay or Amazon.

During the first minute or two of the recording there are one or two timpani strokes that are slightly distorted, presumably due to overload of the original tapes. But despite that minor issue, and assuming that your system can cleanly handle the very wide dynamic range, I cannot think of any recording that would fulfill your stated goal so incredibly well.

Regards,
-- Al

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millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
For the Firebird, that Dorati recording is about as good as I have heard of the piece.

My suggestion was based purely on it being on your list and being a Hot Stamper. Now that rcprince chimed in let me expand on that.  

If you really are keen on getting a good recording, well the recording itself is only half the battle. You would not believe how much difference there is between copies of the same record. Try a Hot Stamper, you will still not believe it. I haven't tried any classical yet, but all the Hot Stampers I have are so much better than my other copies its not even fair to compare.
effischer OP
553 posts
 
@almarg @rcprince @newbee 

Thank you all for your suggestions.  Have them noted down and will look to see what pops up at various resellers & Ebay.

@millercarbon 

I've had several copies of the same LPs by multiple artists that really show the difference the pressing machine can make, so often buy several of material I like.  Sometimes I give the less well-pressed copies away, sometimes save them for the album art.  I'll have to see what happens with this search and hope I'll be able to report back in the not too distant future.

Thanks again everyone!
rcprince
3,061 posts
 
Having been listening to them recently, I will add that the Reference Recordings SACDs of the Pittsburgh Symphony are very good, both musically and sonically, at least on the SACD layer.  I was particularly impressed by their new Shostakovich 5th recording (a few small interpretive surprises, but very impressive dynamics and clarity of instrumental lines), but the other recordings in the series are very good as well. 
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oregonpapa
4,867 posts
 
I have a number of "Firebirds," including the Mercury recommended above.

The best performance I have is on LP with Stravinsky conducting Stravinsky on Columbia. I believe I have the whole series of the Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky, and they are all excellent performances.

Frank
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