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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
craigl59
307 posts
 

newbee

Owe you a thanks for the Stanford recco you made above. My set came in last week and have been listening for a couple of days. Stanford is very strong in compositional technique and if you can accept his tendency to borrow and use popular Irish tunes his compositional skill makes all sound major league -- no second rate tendencies at all.

Enjoy the 6th Rhapsody (solo violin) and the piano concerto. The latter does owe rather a lot to Rachnaninoff.


schubert
7,386 posts
 
I’ve been doing some serious listening to Alwyn the last few days largely because of comments on here .
Of course as a non-musician its hard for me to understand what’s going on
that makes his music so fresh and original .
As best I can understand  he keeps melody and rhythm moving together
nearly all the time, uses 3-4 phrases used by soloists and gives them to whole sections, moves same small bits of music here and there in different
compos , resolves nothing and doesn’t move forward .
What IMO he is trying to do is just make music as beautiful and organic as he can , and he succeeds in that .
His masterpiece is his Harp Concerto which is on Chandos and Naxos .
I have a tendency to get freaky over composers I like but right now I’d put
on a level with Sibelius .

I would really appreciate wiser people correcting me .

craigl59
307 posts
 
No correction needed to your analysis; I agree with it completely after spending some time with the symphonies. Need to get the harp concerto.
What I notice in particular with his melodic style is that he likes to share the line between several orchestral sections. His orchestration skills accomplish this in a natural fashion. As I suggested above, the Sinfonietta shows this method immediately in the first movement.
Found some of his chamber music available on a Naxos release funded by the "William Alwyn Foundation." Wonder if this is run by his daughter who writes some of the notes on the LSO/Hickox release.
You will not be surprised that the chamber music is very strong. Like the Winter Poems written for string quartet.
newbee
4,781 posts
 
Glad you can appreciate Stanford, cribbing and all. Speaking of cribbing, I was just listening to a real Irishman, Hamilton Harty, who quotes the ’Garry Owen’ in one of his pieces. At least he was Irish! No so much for the 7th Infantry or a couple of movies out of Hollywood. FWIW this tune is a real earworm. You might even try Harty’s "Irish Symphony" where it appears, by Thompson on Chandos if you are inclined.

Following Stanford you might try Arnold Bax. His symphonies and tone poems appear in a set and two separate discs by Handley devoted to his synphonies and tone poems and Bryden Thompson has recorded all of his symphonies, tone poems, etc, on Chandos. One place to start on this music might be Thompsons single disc on Chandos of the 4th Symphony and one of my favorite Bax pieces, Tintangel (a historical and picturesque location on the cliffs of Cornwall). You might also like some of his piano/orchestral music played by Margaret Fingerhut, the LSO by Thompson, Winter Legends and Symphonic Variations (On 2 discs. I’d probably start with Winter Legends.


craigl59
307 posts
 
Newbee, you must be psychic. Ordered the exact Bax volume you mention a week and a half ago and it will arrive tomorrow.
Am having some fun in my mind comparing Stanford and Stenhammar. They are rough contemporaries, developed in similar fashions as musicians and composers, and wrote in the same genres (of the late romantic period).
So it is interesting that they are, to me, complete opposites. Stenhammar is the creative/innovative type who spent his life fine-tuning his compositional skill. So his music is fresh and exciting, and, occasionally, a bit rough.
By contrast, Stanford is the traditionalist whose writing skill always seems fully developed but the content may or may not strike you as exciting. It always sound "perfect" however.
So when you shift back and forth between the Stenhammar 1st piano concerto and Stanford’s 2nd, there are more differences than similarities.
BTW, think it was Stenhammar to whom Sibelius apparently dedicated the 6th symphony.
More to discover