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
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 IN B-FLAT MINOR, OP.23
Lang Lang (piano)
Chicago Symphony  --  Daniel Barenboim
DG  2003

Great Booklet with lots of information. 

From The Notes: 
The Chicago Symphony played Tchaikovsky's B flat minor Concerto at its very first concert in 1891, two years before the composers death.
     Nikolia Rubenstein's claim that Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto was unplayable is one of music history's most famously mistaken first impression.
     After hearing the entire work, Rubenstein did not mince words, declaring the solo part was impossible to play and that the music itself was vulgar.  When he suggested it needed to be completely recomposed, Tchaikovsky insisted he would not change a note.
     Eventually it was played by Hans von Bulow in Boston in 1875, where it was a big hit.   The rest is history.

Allegro non troppo e molto maestose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h_0cr7CiCU

Andantino semplice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8pi8IvYhfU

Allegro con fuoco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV2KRF1zbiU

Cheers
If this isnn‘t classical music I don‘t know what is.

I'll go with option B; you don't know what is.


George Gershwin

RHAPSODY IN BLUE / AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Earl Wild  (piano)
Boston Pops  --  Arthur Fiedler
RCA Living Stereo  SACD   1959 / 2005

Excellent booklet with tons of info on Gershwin and the music.  " He is a link between the Jazz camp and the intellectuals..." A Critic

I always thought the Jazz Camp were the intellectuals.   Silly me.

An American in Paris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQGaAbKshvs

Rhapsody in Blue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfdFiFWsTa0

Cheers

Luciano Pavarotti

PAVAROTTI'S GREATEST HITS
Another blast from the past.  DM69.95 from some place called, Muller. 
Decca   2CD set.   1968 - 1980

Amazing Booklet with the lyrics of all the songs on the two CDs.  In several languages!   They don't make them like this anymore.

Puccini: Turandot / Act 3 - "Nessun dorma!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJlnl4JxQE&list=OLAK5uy_mdpfkbCAgj99QnD3OG_hifjNuhUxG5UDM&i...

Donizetti: La fille du régiment / Act 1 - Ah mes amis - Pour mon âme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_FuB2JYcZ8

De Curtis: Torna a Surriento (Arr. Chiaramello)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyAquu_c15w&list=OLAK5uy_mdpfkbCAgj99QnD3OG_hifjNuhUxG5UDM&i...

Verdi: Rigoletto / Act 3 - "La donna è mobile"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-nx9LaGw6s&list=OLAK5uy_mdpfkbCAgj99QnD3OG_hifjNuhUxG5UDM&i...

Puccini: Tosca / Act 3 - "E lucevan le stelle"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWbakwE-C_o&list=OLAK5uy_mdpfkbCAgj99QnD3OG_hifjNuhUxG5UDM&i...

And many more.

Cheers




Anne-Sophie Mutter

THE BERLIN RECITAL
Anne Sophie Mutter(violin), Lambert Orkis(piano)
DG  1995 

Not only a great violinist, but also, a Stone Fox.

Notes:  "That indefatigable conversationalist, Johann Peter Eckermann, once asked Goethe, more or less in passing, why the phenomenon of precociousness was so widespread among musicians.  The great man answered without hesitation:  music, he said, was something entirely innate, something inborn, a gift that needed no outward stimulus to sustain it and was not based on real-life experience."

Mozart: Sonata For Piano And Violin In E Minor, K.304 - 1. Allegro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwCXYG2W0c

Brahms: Hungarian Dance No.5 In G Minor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVTuFLIUNH4

Brahms: Scherzo In C Minor For Violin & Piano (From The FAE-Sonata)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJnYL0twLEA

"Anne-Sophie Mutter's highly developed musicianship is "something entirely innate, something inborn" to quote Goethe.  Such gifts can never be coerced.  -- Peter Fuhrmann

Cheers