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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
jcazador
417 posts
 
Vikingur Olafsson

Big praise in NYT for this pianist.
So I downloaded his Bach and his Glass.
Very nice.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/arts/music/vikingur-olafsson-debussy-rameau.html

Also in NYT, article about Heinrich Schütz 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/arts/music/heinrich-schutz.html?action=click&module=Well&...


jim204
881 posts
 
I discovered Olafsson last year through a Wigmore Hall Concert by BBC Radio 3. I am very impressed by his Bach which is exceptionally clean and the counterpoint is peerless in my opinion. I even discovered a disc of Bach on Idagio, but I have tried to listen to his twentieth century recordings and I can't get my head around it. My appreciation of piano music seems to stop with Rachmaninov and I can't seem to get any further than that. If he brings out more Bach I will snap it up in a Jiff but the other stuff it just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
jcazador
417 posts
 
I have listened to his 2 Bach cds.  The first is quite traditional, the second adds electronic musicians (not to my taste).The Glass piano works are fine, but I am not a big fan of Glass, so will say no more.  I have not yet found the Rameau/Debussy album which NYT praises so highly. It may not be available yet.
jcazador
417 posts
 
I love having my music stored on external hard drives, so that it is simple to program for hours in advance.  I usually make selections before I go to bed.   Last night it was Claudio Arrau playing Mozart, still going. 
Does not get better than this.
jim204
881 posts
 
Yes Jeremy you are in good company with Claudio Arrau, He is great in almost anything. His Debussy discs are so liquid and his Liszt Transcendental Etudes are so powerful and so tender by turns and to think he was 75 years old when he committed them to disc. His Beethoven is peerless , I went down to London to hear him play the last three sonatas and in the train back up to Glasgow I was in cloud 9 all the way I couldn't get those trills from the ending of Op.111 out of my mind. Yes although it was my only concert with Arrau it was enough to tell me he was / is the best pianist I have ever heard. Has anyone heard any of his CDs of recordings done in the Forties and Fifties, oh how I wish the recording quality was better because they show a man at the very peak of his powers. You should have heard his Albeniz it is explosive and the technique is faultless , every bit as good as Horowitz but with a far bigger repertoire. Yup, for me he is the man.
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