Classical music thread welcoming your suggestions and why...

I've got my share of Musica Antiqua Koln LPs & box sets. Whether the stuff they perform is obscure or Greatest Hits, they do it with soul and panache. A particular favorite of mine is the three LP set Deutsche Kammermusik vor Bach, stuff J.S. listened to when he was a sprite. I've come close to wearing out Side One, the side that features the works of Johann Adam Reincken, an under-rated, under-heard composer if there ever was one. A kaleidoscope of moods. Great tunes.

Me and the wife saw the ensemble live when they did a concert in Pasadena. After the performance, they joined the concertgoers in the lobby to share drinks & snacks. My wife considered it an imposition to ask the band to mingle with us but I was in seventh heaven. I mumbled a few words in German to 'em and shook a couple hands.

@edcyn Interesting, I had read the Goebel could be a bit standoffish, nice to see something to the contrary.

  @mahgister No one is disputing that Telemann was to prodigious for his own good, in the Historical Appreciation sweepstakes.  He worked on the model of great painters of the day, in that he had a room full of apprentices.  How that system worked is beyond me. Perhaps he whistled a tune he had thought up while using the water closet and told them “Use formula IIIb on this and show me what you have before lunchtime “. Presumably there is a fair amount of chaff in there, and we rely upon the likes of MAK to be sort of a quality control expert.

  However, we can only judge the results. At the end of the day I don’t care if a canvas by Rembrandt has 20% or 80% painted by an apprentice with the great man supervising.  One cannot imagine Beethoven or Brahms using Telemann’s compositional method (actually, there is some evidence that a substantial amount of Beethoven’s Works without opus—the stuff that he churned out to make a living-may largely be the labor of students such as Ferdinand Ries), but ultimately one should accept the music on it’s own terms.  It may not storm the gates of heaven like J.S. Bach, but it paves the streets leading to those gates, if you will accept that mixed metaphor 

You are completely right....

Telemann worked after the era where music was merely Church order or Prince order, but now middle class and bourgeois commands and demand was enormous and the musicians amateurs numbers too, and Telemann was a self taught musician and did not come from a musical dynasty , he taught more to amateurs musicians not like Bach who was busy with his multiples children...He then used the amateurs playing musicians and apprentice composers around him like Bach use his children ... Half of the work of Telemann is lost... And of the remaing half, half had never been performed...

i like your sentence :

It may not storm the gates of heaven like J.S. Bach, but it paves the streets leading to those gates, if you will accept that mixed metaphor

i too like the sentence :

It may not storm the gates of heaven like J.S. Bach, but it paves the streets leading to those gates, 

It resonates with my (short) impressions of his work -- which include the oboe sonatas (Holliger, I agree of course).

Sorry to join in so late, but I would like to add to the discussion on D Barenboim: I propose to rephrase the question as,

DB,  a conductor or a pianist?

I have heard DB both as a conductor (Elgar, Brahms, etc) and pianist (Brahms 1, 7 other recordings). 

My response is, definitely much better pianist than conductor... I am not a music professional so mine is an amateurish approach.

My experience with the discussion, re maestros, resonates with the thoughts expressed above, especially regarding Furt & Celi & T... to add a short comment, both F & C succeed in touching the listener's inner soul and, by their conducting, let out the humanity hidden in many compositions (many examples; Celi: Mozart Requiem, Furt: Beethoven 3 recording of 1944 (?) in Vienna...)

In this respect, trying to emulate Furt, for example, is a limitation in itself, in that 

a) we already have Furtwangler, the original item😉

b) following endlessly in someone else's footsteps often leads one away from discovering their own path

Whereas, as a pianist, DB played an exciting /interesting Brahms under Celibidache & recently under Sir Simon Rattle. (Although for this piece I would prefer Gilels)

Regards

Another conductor worthy of mention for his passionate dynamics, tender adagios, and understanding of soloists, is Sir John (born Giovani Battista) Barbirolli. When I first listened to Barbirolli's Mahler 2 & 4 I was transported. 

A contemporary who seems to be on a (relentless) path of discovery is Theodore Currentzis. While many are suspicious of his approaches and his affectations (spending the night at the music hall with the orchestra, rehearsing in the middle of the night, analysing together the score with the composer's personality, the moment in time of the composition, and the emotional content he wishes to inspire...) -- I don't care. I the listener, am only subjected to the result, and the result can be magical at times (take the Mozart Requiem Lacrymosa, for example).

At the end of the day, I believe that what attracts me the most is the conductor\s personality and their psyche which emerges through the music; T was a powerhouse and, although he was a master of timing and score, what I get from his music is ultimately the power, the strength, and a sense of huge confidence. Furt OTOH was an amateur philosopher, very knowledgeable in ancient Greek philosophy (which he apparently read in the original text...) and his sense of humanity is evident in the music - i think.

A note re, Pollini - his technical prowess is beguiling. The only thing for me is that he seems to attack pieces of music as if he is solving a mathematical equation...