Classical Music for Aficionados

I think Domenico Zipoli is a fascinating figure.

Schubert,

I got the beginning of your post regarding Mahler’s 7th Symphony in my email but it seems the full text was removed from the forum.  
What’s up with that?

It seemed you were beginning to say you liked the symphony, although I know you’re not a Mahler lover.  That is the most challenging symphony of the lot for most Mahler aficionados.  It took me a long time before I “got it.”

I was taken by the performance of Adam Fisher and the Dusseldorf Symphony . Fisher handled the over-emotionality and variants that bother me in Mahler very well and it was a live performance from the Dusseldorf
Tonhalle which has very good acoustics .
IMO Fisher is formidable, as good as anyone around .Budapest is the most musical city I know about, fantastic audiences and he is very beloved there , so I’m not alone in that .

I don’t like music that seems "bombastic" for its own sake to ME ,which to me ,Mahler does .
Obviously , says nothing about Mahler and a lot about me .
Janacek, for instance, brings the house down but all in the service of the music and in an organic way and I love him .
A lot of Mahler to me seems to turn back on itself like a dog chasing its tail.
Hard to do that in vocal music , that, and my deep love of the German language make Mahler A-OK in that realm to me .

Of course I’m not a musician and reading Music Theory 101 from The
U of MN bookstore and X thousand liner and program notes is the extent of my musical
education . But we all have to listen with our own ears .

To me, Mahler is the greatest symphonist since Beethoven. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion.  I, for a long time, considered him to be disjointed and arbitrary.  But, once I found him, there was no turning back.
Now Bruckner, I still have a very hard time with, but haven’t yet given up.
Of course it’s all very subjective.

I’m new to this site and have not read through all the posts, so these may have already been suggested.

Regarding Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances. Analogue Productions. — Dallas Symph Orch. Johanos, cond., it is an audiophile favorite and I have the LP. However for my taste the performance by Ashkenazy and the Concertgebouw Orchestra on London is much more satisfying, even on CD. The tempos are more spritely and make the Dallas version sound draggy in comparison. I find it to be a very good digital recording as well.

Since rv mentions sonics, and is not averse to vinyl, I can recommend a couple which I find to sound quite natural.

"Stravinsky Conducts Histoire Du Soldat Suite" with the Columbia Chamber Ensemble on Columbia. Nothing like going to the source. ;^)

Also "Rossini Overtures" by Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Fields with Marriner on Philips, 6500 878. Interestingly there was another Rossini by ASMITF on Philips, 9500 349, which does not offer nearly the same natural sonic presentation.