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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
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
Gioachino Rossini

OVERTURES

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Fritz Reiner
RCA Gold Seal / BMG     1958 / 1990

Notes: Gioacchino Antonio Rossini--child prodigy, boy soprano, composer of almost 40 operas in about 20 years--was born on February 29 (leap-year day, as he was fond of pointing out), 1792 in Pesaro, Italy.

Rossini wrote his first opera, 'Demetrio e Polibio', at the age of 16, although it was not produced on stage until four years later at the Teatro Valle in Rome.  'La cambiale di matrimonio' followed in 1810, and after that operas flowed from his pen, never fewer than one a year and sometimes two or three, ending with William Tell, a grand opera first produced in Paris in 1829.  After that Rossini composed no more for the stage, although he was to live until 1868.  Why a composer of such international fame chose to abandon opera while still in his 30s and at the height of his career is still one of the great mysteries of musicology.


La gazza ladra  /  The Thieving Magpie
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JK7cLxxxWs

La scala di seta  /  The Silken Ladder
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrugBmgKIIQ

La cenerentola  /  Cinderella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxobxMdR1AA

Guillaume Tell  /  William Tell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJNGz0RL6qo

Cheers
rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano OP
2,653 posts
 
I’m not sure if anyone here has mentioned it, but there’s a wonderful set of Rachmaninoff piano selections by Sergei Babayan which can be found on Qobuz and Idagio. Atmospheric and highly sensitive. He spins magic.
One could imagine Rachmaninoff himself playing.
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
Franz Schubert

3 PIANO PIECES

Mitsuko Uchida (piano)
Philips   1998

Notes: "The Three Pieces D.946 were composed in May 1828 and were the last piano works Schubert wrote before embarking on his final three sonatas.  Schubert's autograph lacks the finishing touches he gave his music when preparing it for publication; nor do we know if he intended the pieces to form a coherent group, along the lines of his two sets of impromptus. 
At any rate Brahms, who first edited them for publication in 1868, gave them the neutral title of Drei Klavierstücke."

3 Piano Pieces, D.946

No.1 in E flat minor (Allegro assai)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-VLCaP0vQc

No.2 in E flat (Allegretto)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngsHbxQE5-I

No.3 in C (Allegro)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51LCccZqHVI

Cheers
frogman
7,409 posts
 
**** One could imagine Rachmaninoff himself playing. ****

https://youtu.be/sTUxrPJfpqk

https://youtu.be/lRkTOx2WwTU

https://youtu.be/ZcG-DnGdWRw

https://youtu.be/M8RyWFA7PSY
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
Franz Schubert

PIANO SONATAS

Mitsuko Uchida (piano)
Philips   2000

Notes: "The Sonata in A minor, D784, dates from February 1823.  It was Schubert's first piece of it's kind for several years, though just three months earlier he had composed his greatest and most important piano work to date--the "Wanderer" Fantasy.  The sonata is as different in character from that work as could be imagined, yet the two have an important feature in common: both seem to be conceived without regard for the limitations of the piano."

Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 14 in A Minor, D. 784 

1. Allegro giusto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8mVi1pKNaY

2. Andante
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoM4Xs_yN9Y

3. Allegro vivace
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq5TJx2XZpQ

Cheers

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