[insanefred]

Just a belated recommendation for Naxos CDs from another college student! Buy with confidence! I have rather a lot of these beasties, and the majority are good to bloody excellent. The recording of the Faure Requiem is blissful! I can't find a better one anywhere, it's so damn good!

Buying Naxos cds is almost as good a way to discover new music as buying second hand vinyl! (plug, plug, plug...)
Andrew

 

[templeboy]

Mainly first rate Eastern European performance w/ quality German and American sound engineer for low price. See my post:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...=&threadid=547

 

[grrr223]

I just bought that 10 disc Meditation boxed set, thanks for the recomendation. I am somewhat of an impulse shopper. (is it bad when you have your credit card memorized?) While I'm waiting for them to be shipped (they're on backorder) could you give me a few more details about them? I saw enough good songs on their to make it worth $25, but how does it sound?

My mom just bought me Best of Ravel on the Naxos label (I just heard Tzigane (spelling???) performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra last thursday) and I really like the piano and violin pieces a lot more than I thought I would. It was easily worth the $6.99. Thanks everyone for all of your helpful feedback to my initial question.

 

[XXhalberstramXX]

the newish recording of Bruckner's 9th symphony with the Scotish symphony orchestra on NAXOS is supposed to be very very good despite it's omission of the last movement.

I, however, am going to buy the Horenstein 8th and 9th set, because it's supposedly one of the best. I have Horenstein's recording of Mahler's 8th and it's by far the best proformance i have heard on disc (out of about 6 i've heard) although the sound isn't spectacular. anyways, enough of that. feel free to message me for Mahler reccomendations, if you like that stuff (loud, angry, ironic, damn good).

 

[grrr223]

Thank you all for your responses and recommendations. I just bought Discovering the Symphony on the Naxos label, it is a great 2 disc set tracing classical symphonies from the late 1600s to I think the 1900s (I totally forget now that i'm trying to remember). It's over 20 songs, 2.5 hours and it's only $12 at Barnes and Noble (probalby cheaper online somewhere) and it includes an 84 page booklet with a biography and timeline of each composer as well as some info on each song. It's totally worth the money and I really love a lot of the music on it. I highly recommend it.

 

[aos]

XXhalberstramXX, are you saying they forgot to include the third movement??? The best one??? Oh my. Like forgetting Ode to Joy in 9th Beethoven's...

 

[XXhalberstramXX]

no, the fourth one. since Bruckner died with this symphony unfinished, there are different completions of the last movement, and this conductor apparantly thought that it went against the conposers wishes to include one.

 

[MacDEF]

Funny, I didn't read this thread before today, when I bought a Classical collection from... Naxos

I've enjoyed classical for some time, although I've never been an expert in it. So I was in my neighborhood record store this afternoon and I saw this set called "A-Z of Classical Music" from Naxos. It's basically 2 CDs with bits and pieces of around 40 different pieces, and it only cost $7.95. I thought it would be a good way to get a taste of a few things I've either never heard, or heard buy never knew the name of.

But get this... it came with a 560-page book on classical music. There's about 450 pages of information on *every* composer you could ever want to know about, including bios, type of music, recommended recordings, and further reading. Then there is a 60-page glossary of musical terms. Finally, there is a 45-page section of every major movie of the past few decades, along with the classical pieces used in the movie -- so if you hear a piece in a movie and think "I like that -- I wonder what it is?" you can just look in here

Some of the stuff in the book is a bit below me, but a *lot* of it is way above my knowledge level, so this turned out to be a great purchase for dirt.

 

[beowulf]

Together with a friend, I have compiled a list of Naxos stuff with maximum scores in performance/audio quality (10/10 out of 10 possible points) in review sites like grammophone.

It's a big DOC with about 50 pages, the idea was to help me pick up Naxos stuff a the store, both with great sound and performances.

If anyone wants it I might find a way to post it somewhere or email it perhaps...

I can tell you right away that one of the 10/10 is a Stravinsky Rite of Spring/Firebird Suite with really amazing sound quality.

 

[aos]

XXhalberstramXX, that's the first time I've heard anyone included the 4th movement. I have 3 different recordings of Bruckner's 9th and there is no 4th movement. If I remember correctly, he wrote very little of the 4th movement by the time he died (10 bars or something).

beowulf, it would be interesting to see that "the best of Naxos" document. You could put it on some free www or ftp site...

I just picked up "Classical music for dummies" and I agree, it's hillarious. I might post a review sometime. I'm thinking about picking some of the more obscure recommendations from their lists and it would be great to cross-reference it with the Naxos list...

 

[XXhalberstramXX]

yeah, i haven't heard bruckner's 9th, but i guess i'll see when i buy the Horenstein recording of it.

must... resist.. urge... to.. buy...... cds

 

[beowulf]

Quote:

Originally posted by aos beowulf, it would be interesting to see that "the best of Naxos" document. You could put it on some free www or ftp site... I just picked up "Classical music for dummies" and I agree, it's hillarious. I might post a review sometime

The list is a bit messy, but I might organize it a bit better and do that. Meanwhile, I'll just email it to people who ask as soon as it's decent.

Yup. Hillarious. I hope you enjoy Pogue as much as I did. I've been trying to do a review for quite some time now, there's never time. I'll have to do that eventually since I keep mentioning the book.

I also enjoyed Opera for Dummies (since it's also a Pogue title) and also want to post a review eventually,