Classical Music for Aficionados


I would like to start a thread, similar to Orpheus’ jazz site, for lovers of classical music.
I will list some of my favorite recordings, CDs as well as LP’s. While good sound is not a prime requisite, it will be a consideration.
  Classical music lovers please feel free to add to my lists.
Discussion of musical and recording issues will be welcome.

I’ll start with a list of CDs.  Records to follow in a later post.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique.  Chesky  — Royal Phil. Orch.  Freccia, conductor.
Mahler:  Des Knaben Wunderhorn.  Vanguard Classics — Vienna Festival Orch. Prohaska, conductor.
Prokofiev:  Scythian Suite et. al.  DG  — Chicago Symphony  Abbado, conductor.
Brahms: Symphony #1.  Chesky — London Symph. Orch.  Horenstein, conductor.
Stravinsky: L’Histoire du Soldat. HDTT — Ars Nova.  Mandell, conductor.
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances. Analogue Productions. — Dallas Symph Orch. Johanos, cond.
Respighi: Roman Festivals et. al. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor.

All of the above happen to be great sounding recordings, but, as I said, sonics is not a prerequisite.


128x128rvpiano
Jim204,

Yes he was!

Ferocious technique and yet the power to reduce you to tears.
No pianist exceed him in raw power, and it is the reason why the composer Schoenberg wrote about him with the highest praise to the young Klemperer...Remember Schoenberg never give much to interpreter....It was like Einstein praising with admiration an engineer... He praised Tesla.....

This pianist is an Himalaya of emotion....Playing "right" like a pupil make no sense for him....He is not in the same league than Horowitz for example... A god is not a giant..... Schoenberg never praised giants, there is many, he praised a god....

We must listen the music here not the piano....

When you make love with a goddess you dont point to her "mistakes" or her "divergence of interpretation"....

Love is over perfection for a saint and for this pianist....



« Perfection is only the name of a dog walking behind his master....»-Groucho Marx
@maghister     I have tried as hard as I can to see something in your "God pianist" but I am sorry to have to admit defeat because all I can hear is massive rubatos and distortions of the melodic line . some of the Liszt pieces he plays are almost unrecognisable with massive agogic hesitations and splashy chords. No I am sorry he is not for me.
While there is a certain attractiveness to Nyiregyházi, I don’t find him to be in the “god” class either.  He seems to be a throwback to the 19th century, with its romantic excesses.