The best Carl Orff Carmina Burana?

Yes, the Smetacek/Czech has a big sound, (nice soundstage/miking). The sound quality is not as good as others though. The chorus is outstanding (maybe tops), especially the male chorus!! The conducting is good/ok. Keep in mind, one very beautiful tracks is #20 (or 21) for soprano. V. Babikian/Stokowski is without doubt tops. As well G. Gardner on the baritone parts is tonally perfect (Stokowski). So this Czech recording may be a must just for the fantastic chorus if you really love this compostion. Though the Jochum with the Berlin Chorus is as well very good.

I was the only one to choose the Previn on EMI in the last thread. Some things don't change. Happy New Year;ya all.

Some smart person here mentioned this a while ago and I purchased Stokowski/EMI on CD, this is an excellent version and may be my top choice now.

The Jochum/DG Originals is a great performance but the recording is brightly lit.

Not sure if I mentioned this before but the budget priced Ormandy/Sony is amazingly good.......I see you rolling your eyes, heh heh. But let me reassure you this is not your typical Ormandy performance, and the sound is excellent.

Has anyone heard the Ray Manzarek version?

And I think I was the only person to recommend the DeBurgos performance on EMI (SAN 162), and that's where I still sit notwithstanding the virtues of the other very worthy candidates that have been mentioned.

Another excellent recording is the Kegel on Philips 6768 070. It may be the most well recorded performance. But like ALL the of the various Orff Carmina Burana's on LP, it unfortunately is compromised by trying to fit too much music onto just two sides of a single LP. Too bad we never got a 3-sided LP version of any one of these excellent performances.

For something different, I still highly recommend the performances from the original Carmina Burana manuscripts by the Clemencic Consort on Harmonia Mundi.