[frankclone]

Happy hunting, markl !
You'll notice that occasionally a rosette or full 3 stars goes to
sometning on the Naxos label --this means "GREAT DEAL" as
Naxos is a bargain label.
There's also a Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. I've found entries
not only instructive but entertaining. BTW, the Jazz Guide uses
up to 4 stars in rating as opposed to classical guide's 3 stars.

 

[Phlosopher]

Yo,
I have lately been addicted to the Brandenburg Concertos. I dig the last movement of the sixth.....THe orchestration is nothing short of perfect in the entire collection...I can't help but think of a few dudes wearing powdered wigs jamming like bastards with these tunes.

Check out Bohm's version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, it's the best of all I've heard...and of my favorite piece of music.

The Razumovsky Quartets are boring? You must not have the same ones that I do.

Also, you need to check out The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. There's something so unique about Stravinsky's music, yet I'm always given this irresistable urge to compare him to Beethoven. Give the piece a lisen more than one time, and whatever you do, don't like it just because it's different

Also, check out Rachmaninov's 2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos. You'll find that Martha Argerich does the fastest and most exciting version of number 3....The folks on Amazon says that Richter does the best Rach 2, but I've never heard it....

Just some suggestions from one novice classical listener to another!

John

 

[DanG]

John,

There are very many Razumovsky quartets! Razumovsky was a St. Petersburg noble who commissioned Beethoven to write many quartets -- I just find some of them to be slightly worse than the other non-commissioned pieces.

 

[Steril]

To complete DanG, I would add

Debussy - Ravel 's string quartets by the Alban Berg Quartet, EMI.

The recording (DDD) is fabulous (you really are with the players), the interpretation is marvellous and those are really fascining pieces of music. It's clearly one of my all time favourite records.

And as we speek of Stravinsky's Rite of the Spring (my favourite orchestral piece), you should listen to Pierre Boulez interpretation with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra (the first 60's-70's ? recording, not the one in the 90's). Record quality has nothing particular but the interpretation is the best I never heard (I own like 10 versions of this piece of music).

 

[aos]

I prefer Yevgeny Kissin's performance of Rachmaninoff's 2nd and 3rd concertos. Argerich performance of 3rd, last movement, sounds like very forced playing and tempo is too fast. To me it sounded like she was pushing it past her abilities. Technical skill required here is by all acounts very high. Another recording considered legendary is by Horowitz. This one has the first movement in VERY slow motion however. The orchestra and conductor (Ormandy) are the same that recorded the same piece with Rachmaninoff himself.

I double the recommendation of Beethoven's quartets by Alan Berg quartet. The last movement of Op. 131 is incredible and among the very best of over 300 CDs that I have. I've discovered it in my collection two months ago and was so impressed that I got the whole set recently. Later I've read in notes that some people consider that quartet as Beethoven's best work. I can see why.

I really like Bernstein's performance of Mahler's 2nd. Those who love Mahler might want to investigate Gilbert Kaplan's recording of this work as well.

One work that I've discovered few years ago and can't believe isn't more popular is A Colour Symphony from Arthur Bliss. I can't find recordings easy enough, so I have only two. Hyperion one is I think much better than Naxos but the Naxos includes Adam Zero ballet which I heard only once but has a great promise. At any rate, Colour Symphony is a masterpiece that shouldn't be missed.

Prokofiev's 7th symphony is great as well. But I haven't found a CD performance that sounds good yet. Only a USSR-made LP so far have mainained the beauty of this piece. However, you CAN find 5th symphony recorded recently by Ashkenazy (?) and a German orchestra (the same one Kubelik used to conduct, can't remember the name), and it will blow you away. I had to copy it from local library as it doesn't seem to be in stores (I even had trouble making salesguy believe me that it exists ). Stunning.

Also, some people here recommended an incredibly skilled pianist that seems to like to record unknown pieces (can't seem to be able to remember any names today, sorry). The one with works of Alkan contains not only great, forgotten music but also has high recording quality.

Karajan's collection of Tchaikowsky's symphonies (all 6 of them, recordings from 1970's) is also worth the money.

Hmm, maybe I should dust off those Bartok's String Quartets and listen to them

. I also have the Emerson Q. recording that I never listen to. Getting into more avantgarde 20th century music requires time, patience and it still does not guarantee satisfaction in the end.

Btw, Hindemith's symphonies (I believe my recording is by Maris Janssons, heavily misspelled) and Pacific 321 are also very nice, if you can handle 20th century music (this one is not that bad actually).

 

[XXhalberstramXX]

i'd watch out for the Penguin guide.

i've heard some bad stuff about it, saying that basically it's a very ifffy guide to classical music (especially when it comes to mahler).

try out www.musicweb.co.uk (i think). they have a great comparative review of the best recordings of each his symphonies. updated rather frequently too, reccomendations seem to be spot on, and they usually mention sound quality.

oh yeah, try out some of Jesus lopez Cobos' recordings of Mahler symphonies. great proformances, awesome recordings.

also Gardiner's recording of Gluck's Iphegenie en Tauride. one of my favorite opera CDs

 

[Bob]

Hello!
I am glad to hear that you are starting to listen to classical music. It is a dying genre here in the US and I am very glad to see that you are giving it a shot! My tastes in classical music are a bit particular. First and foremost for me when choosing a recording is what orchestra/conductor is performing the piece. There are many recordings of the same piece out there and some really do stink! I also prefer well-recorded CDs (look for the DDD as opposed to ADD on the disk, the telarc label is probably my favorite). One other thing that I am extremely partial to is pieces that feature the brass section. This is probably because I played trumpet in a few symphonies for a few years (New World Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas, Florida Philharmonic/James Judd). The absolute BEST brass section around today is the New York Philharmonic’s brass section. The best old school brass section (IMHO) is the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Brass Section under Eugene Ormandy. I do love old school Chicago Symphony stuff as well (for pure power), but for finesse as well as power Philly is your best bet. The sounds produced by the two eras of players are totally different, but each has their own place in history. If you want to give some orchestral pieces that have some really great parts for the brass section I would recommend the following:


Anton Brucker: 4th Symphony – New York Philharmonic / Kurt Masur

Gustav Holst: The Planets – there are a few recordings that I have heard that I like.

Gusta Mahler: 2nd Symphony – New York Philharmonic / Leonard Berstein (one my all time favorite recordings .. a must have).

Gusta Mahler: 5th symphony – New York Philharmonic / Zubin Mehta

Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition – New York Philharmonic / Giuseppe Sinopoli

Ok … one of my all time favorite recordings is Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome. My favorite recording is an older one by the Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugune Ormandy (A “Great Performances” recording by CBS recordings). The offstage trumpet solo gets no better then the one on this CD. If you prefer a newer recording go for the one by New York Philharmonic / Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade – New York Philharmonic/Yuri Termirkanov

Jean Sibelius: 2nd Symphony – New York Philharmonic / Zubin Mehta

Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegles, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote. I love all of the previous pieces. You can buy two CD’s and get them all (which is a good deal) by two great orchestra (older recording though). Philadelphia Orchestra / Eugene Ormandy; Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell: two orchestras on one CD playing the first 3 pieces listed. Philly/Ormandy: last 2 pieces listed. Both are Sony Classical recordings.

Stravinsky: Petrouchka, Rite of Spring, Fire Bird – again I have heard a number of recordings featuring these pieces that I like.

Tchaikovsky: 4th, 5th, 6th symphonies, I have all three by New York Philharmonic (telarc label). The 6th is my favorite.

Wagner: I prefer CDs of Wagner that are Wagner without words – Lorin Maazel (Berlin Philharmonic).

There are many, many more GREAT recordings that a brass lover would like, but these are just a few that I could think of off the top of my head. I can already see when reviewing the list that I have left off some major ones, but this post is far to long as it is. Hope you give some of the above pieces a shot, I think you will like them.

 

[beowulf]

Check out my post on this version of the Rite of Spring.
It fits the description pretty well.

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...&threadid=1036

 

[Phlosopher]

aos,
although this isn't a forum for debate about classical music, I have heard Kissin's Rachmaninov and don't like it all that much. The pieces seem to be designed to be played fast and furiously, which Argerich does. Kissin's playing, while technically more accurate, is dull and definitely not adventurous.

The first copy of the third I got was Kissin, and my disappointment with it is what led me to buy the Argerich.

By the way, I was also thinking that the Razumovsky Quartets were the ones that include the "Harp" and "Serious" quartets, and they are not included. Yes, except for the third movements (always good Beethoven movements in the quartets) and the first of the Razumovskys (the very famous one), they are boring. That being said, I have the Guarneri Quartet and like those more than Alban Berg.

What is all this talk about Mahler? The only piece I could really get into of Mahler was The Song of the Earth (don't remember it in German)...It has some great songs in it.

Finally, you will need some Bach....Look for the inventions for keyboard, which are very exciting and, of course, Well Tempered Clavier....With Bach, I've found that many of his pieces sound great at any tempo and also with or without liberties being taken on the part of the pianist....so just find a recording you'd like. Glenn Gould plays them like a bat out of hell, so maybe you would like that.

my .02

John

 

[Paul Laurens]

I would also be cautious about using the Penguin guide.

Finding great performances that are also well recorded can be tricky. I have certainly found it so.

Here are a couple.

Rachmaninov symphonies on Decca: Ashkenazy, Concertgebow.
Used to come in a 2 for 1 set. The first symphony is bombastic. Pretty vulgar in places. Though the slow movement is likable. It's the Second and Third symphonies on this that are wonderfull. The recordings are warm and spacious; the string playing ardent. Red blooded stuff. The second will make your hair stand on end. It sounds as though they are playing for the end of the world. Actually most of Ashkenazy's Decca/Rach records are highly regarded.

Murray Perhia playing the middle Mozart piano concertos on Sony.
Crystalline spritely poetic performaces. Lovely.

Sibelius, Symphony 2 Ashkenazy, Decca; London or Concertgebow orchestras; can't remember which

Sibelius, Symphony 5 and 7, Berstein; Deustch Grammaphone; Vienna Phil.

 

[AndreYew]

Someone mentioned the SPARS code (the "DDD" or "ADD" or AAD" code found on many CD labels) as an indicator of recording quality, but, unfortunately, it's a pretty meaningless indicator of recording quality. It only indicates what domain each part of the recording production process was done in, and doesn't anything about the quality with which it was done, nor how it got from one stage to another. The first omission is pretty straightforward --- some guy could use a really terrible A/D convertor, a really terrible mastering program, release the recording on a CD, and call it DDD. The second omission is actually quite insidious: for a while, and perhaps still presently, some CD plants would perform an D/A conversion and A/D conversion between the last two D's. That means a DDD disk, could really be a DDAD disk. The mastering engineer could hand off a final digital master to the CD plant, and the CD plant would do an analog conversion, and sometimes some other random processing on the recording before pressing the CD.

More importantly, the SPARS code doesn't tell you how the recording was miked in the first place, which is the single biggest determinant in the quality of the recording, more important than almost every other factor put together. The one factor may be excluded is the mastering stage, which can have drastic effects on the final recording's quality, and can sometimes even fix up bad miking.

Unfortunately, there's really no good, reliable indicator for sound quality. You'll just have to buy it for the music, and discover great sound accidentally!

--Andre

 

[AndreYew]

John,

What's up with Mahler? His time has come, that's what! (Apologies for the obscure inside Mahler joke, as Mahler wrote that one day, his time will come, and everyone will understand and appreciate his music.)

My favorite Rites of Spring include:

1. Ben Zander, Boston Philharmonic on IMP. This is a very exciting, yet not vicious, performance of the Rite. The last part is taken at the specified tempo which makes it very fast and very exciting. Sound is closed-in and lacking in ambience, but has plenty of dynamic range. This recording will be hard to find as it's out-of-print.

2. Ricardo Muti, Philadelphia Orchestra on EMI. A vicious, vicious recording, showing the Rite's most brutal side. Sound is overloaded analog, but will still raise your roof.

3. Boulez on DVD, I forget the orchestra. A very tight Rite, with a controlled viciousness, and lots of forward momentum. Boulez also talks a bit about the piece. This is a recent performance, so it's Boulez in his later years.

--Andre

 

[aos]

Phlosopher,

I have to admit I judged Argerich's performance based solely on the opening of 3rd movement. But while the rest of the disk may have redeeming qualities, I still stand by my original thoughts. In order to ascertain what tempo is right I've measured three consequtive sequences in the opening of 3rd movement (all in seconds):

Rachmaninoff: 44-21-17
Arherich: 40-20-16
Ashkenazy: 48-23-18
Kissin: 48-23-19
Kocsis: 42-20-17
Eresco: 53-45-21
Lively: 49-23-19

Unfortunately, I don't have Horowitz recording (I had it taped from radio in 1993 and it's lost now) and it's too bad Napster is gone since it was perfect for previewing music and checking out recommendations. I doubled my Jazz collection because of Napster but I digress.

It's good I dusted all those CDs from the shelf because now I remember that I can recommend the Zoltan Kocsis performance of 3rd, not because his timing is the closest to the Rachmaninoff, but because his performance is really good. You will get the fury but you'll also get effortless playing, and the sound is liquid and sparkling (as is Kissin's and Ashenazy's, but they are considerably slower). Argerich starts good but then manages to make some mistakes; she's trying to outdo Rachmaninoff and at least in this movement she fails. Rachmaninoff's performances were organized around peaks, focal points, and I believe that she's missing that here - or the recording hides it since her playing seems to get drowned in orchestra during one of the most beautiful moments of the movement. It's her recording that I consider dull.

But that's just my opinion. It's good that there are many performances available so everyone can find the piece performed in the way they prefer.

 

[Phlosopher]

aos,
I concur with most of what you say. I don't think we would ever agree.

But, I think it would make us both very happy if there was a quality recording of the Rachman himself playing the silly thing.


Damn that Mahler!

John

 

[aos]

Definitely. According to Arthur Rubinsten, when Rachmaninoff played his own concertos, you'd have impression that it's the greatest music ever composed. But he concluded, after much deliberation, that Rachmaninoff was greater pianist than composer. Another interesing bit from Rubinstein is that Rachmaninoff thought that the greatest piano concerto was the Grieg's one, and he loved Rubinstein's interpretation...

Just listening to Kaplan's interpretation of Mahler's 2nd... Spectacular. And the notes are very detailed (Kaplan is an amateur conductor who has a passion for Mahler, especially 2nd symphony).