Best recording labels for orchestral music

hi tobias:

i do not own any vocal music on that label. none of my instrumental recordings are bright. i like harmonia mundi very much.

it is difficult to generalize about the two labels.

i will now add other labels:

naive
opus
accent
astree
pierre verany

admittedly music is generally from the baroque period.
it is worth listening to anything on these labels.

however, it is worth listening to some of these labels

By the way, these are really wonderful recordings:
http://www.highdeftapetransfers.net/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?listcategories

Mrtennis, I have to agree with you that Pierre Verany is a very good bet. Always really good recordings and IMHO the performances are often first-class as well. Nothing wrong with the other labels you also mention but I have been consistently pleased with PV.

Foehn, there is a recording on Bis of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, Leonidas Kavakos as soloist, that is worth searching out.

In response to your last question, I now shop exclusively on the web. Here are the ones I frequent:

Amazon.com Marketplace - sellers like Caiman and Moviemars often have very low prices for new discs, and I've been using them for years.

MDT.co.uk - great for Europe-only releases, but the dollar has taken a beating.

HMV.co.jp - great for Japan-only releases. They have many excellent remasterings of great American recordings. Unfortunately, they only ship by express mail, and it's expensive. Americans don't buy enough to keep them in the catalog here.

Also, someome mentioned classicstoday.com for reviews. It's an excellent resource.

Generally speaking, I have not found the label alone to be a criterion for classical collecting. I typically research the artist/conductor/orchestra first, then filter selections further by recording quality. The fun thing about classical is that some of the greatest recordings are on mid-priced, even budget labels (i.e., Sony Essential Classics, DG Originals, RCA Living Stereo). Further, many great recordings have been issued several times, the most recent release almost always having improved sound. I've found the Hyperion and Chesky labels to be very good, but there are excellent recordings on just about every label. Also, SACD is a huge factor in classical, and hybrid discs are typically only a few more dollars (the same price in the case of RCA LS). Hope this helps.