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
twoleftears
I downloaded a 10 cd collection of Staier last night, listening to it now, Scarlotti and Bach so far, harpsichord.
Excellent, thanks.
Another story?
This one was told by Edward Said, famous Columbia professor who rewrote the meaning of literary criticism, and then was drawn into advocacy for Palestinians, and throughout was the nyt critic of piano recitals/concerts in nyc, and yes he played classical piano, tho I never heard him.
Anyway, story goes
Saint Saens won some piano competition in Paris as a child, and was given a visit to Wagner in Germany.  This was horse and buggy days, no trains from Paris to Germany in those days.  So he arrived at Wagner's and was greeted by both Wagner and Liszt, (they were buddies, hung out together, Wagner married Liszt's daughter).  St Saens sits down at the piano, and there is an orchestra score of Tannhauser Overture, which Wagner was working on. As you probably know, that is one of the most complex orchestra scores ever written.  St Saens sight-transposes it to piano and plays it through.
FTM
The Andreas Staier 10 cd torrent hash I used is:

e389b4a3189aaa6605b61a7930079a3d786abc81

google it, you will fink free links to download

It is 3.35 GB, excellent quality


Wagner’s Lohengrin, Kempe and Vienna Philharmonic, from 1964. Super duper.
New book on Debussy reviewed:
" He came out of nothing, and the eruption of his genius is a complete mystery. There was no musical tradition in his very ordinary family. Within two years of starting to play the piano he was admitted to the Conservatoire; and two years after that, aged 12, he was being given prizes for his performance of a Chopin concerto. Almost from the start, his own music was exquisitely formed, and even the earliest of the songs and piano pieces give a lot of pleasure. "
. . .
" Walsh’s biography deliberately focuses on the music rather than the life. Debussy was perhaps not a very likeable person, so this approach serves to remind us what we most admire about him. Mary Garden, the first Mélisande, said that he was a ‘very strange’ man; and it does sometimes appear as if he had no real sympathy for, or interest in, other people."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/debussy-the-musical-genius-who-erupted-out-of-nowhere/