Another small step in my further discovery of classical music - going back and appreciating Mozart fully. Have been enjoying his string quartets, symphonies, violin + piano concertos. Only dipped my toes in with regards to his operas (and operas in general), except a little of Le Nozze di Figaro - specifically the sull'aria....
Currently settled on the piano sonatas which are stripped down, intimate and most of all beautiful melodies.
Listened to Uchida and Brendel's versions which are very nice - I also really like Gould's style on Mozart sonatas, a nice contrast to the almost-legato interpretations.
Anyone else's versions which I've missed?
Yes, same here - after concentrating on 20th c. music for years, I returned to
Mozart and also
Schubert. Schubert has almost 1000 works to his credit, and he died even younger than Mozart!
Australian Eloquence recently reissued
De Larrocha's Decca Mozart sonatas. Critics prefer these to her later RCA versions and they may be right - these are great. (Enthused by this, I bought a disc of her Scarlatti & Soler sonatas - Soler is an interesting discovery, but sadly these versions seem glib.)
http://www.buywell.com/cgi-bin/buywellic2/efly.html?mv_arg=16283
Eloquence reissued the
Requiem conducted by Kertesz, which is now my reference version. Also, Sony recently reissed Zukerman's recordings of the complete Mozart
violin sonatas - well worth hearing, good sound too.
For the
symphonies, I really like the Marriner complete set, which I got a couple of months ago (an inexpensive reissue on the European Eloquence label). I think this music sounds much better with a chamber orchestra and a relatively light approach, as opposed to the humourless heavyiness of certain Great Maestros. In the late symphonies I find him much better than Menuhin, who critics praised to the skies for some reason.
For the
piano concertos, I've been meaning to pick up the complete Anda, as his recordings of the late concertos are my references. I compared a few other performers on Youtube - the highly rated Perahia seemed heavy and lethargic to me, not at all appropriate to Mozart. OTOH I was surprised that I really liked Uchida - the interpretations are actually quite close to Anda, except of course the piano phrasing is a bit more sensitive, and the sound is more hi-fi. So I expect to buy the Anda and Uchida boxes by the end of the year. (As Tate conducts for Uchida, I might have to consider him for the symphonies too.)
@Arcamera -
Prokofiev symphonies: I think the Naxos versions conducted by Kuchar are great (much better than his overrated Nielsen), especially 2-4 & 6 - unfortunately some of the symphonies have bad sound, especially 5. There's a classic disc of Malko (a Russian) conducting 1 and 7, plus the Oranges suite. Temirkanov's recording of 5 is convincingly expansive. Rozhdestvensky's old Melodiya set is worth hearing if you can find it. Ashkenazy's 2cd set of 1 & 5-7 is very good too. Avoid Gergiev's heavy-handed and under-prepared versions.
Have any other
Vaughan Williams fans ordered the 'new' cycle conducted by Rozhdestvensky? Prices at Amazon US are getting pretty high, but Amazon UK is still fairly reasonable (my copy is on its way).
http://www.amazon.com/Vaughan-Williams-Symphonies-Boris-Vasiliev/dp/B00JU5DGY8/
