2. music
  3. 1124307981

A Good Classical SACD / DVD-A

Here's the deal.

1) I've been playing piano for aprox. 25 years. I love to play classical music and a bit of blues and jazz.

2) I'm also a child of the 80's and for better or worse, the music I listen to has been greatly influenced by that decade. To that end I listen predominately to 80's metal, rock/pop, and quite a bit of blues.

3) Again, for better or worse, and to the horror of many of you, I really really like multichannel. Some of my better sounding SACD/DVD-A's are the stringed or relatively unamplified recordings. Stuff like Muddy Waters - Folk Singer, Beck - Sea of Change, Diana Krall - Look of Love, etc... Much to my dismay, Megadeth and Aerosmith don't do much for me on the multichannel level. Addtionally, I've read more then once that SACD/DVD-A really lends itself to stringed recordings.

Can anyone recommend a good classical SACD/DVD-A that I might enjoy listening to? Something to get my feet wet with, and perhaps see what I've been missing.

Thanks in advance.
weekendtoy
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
The very best multichannel DVDA are the Tacet discs. Try the Mozart flute concertos for a start.
jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr
805 posts
 
Well, Week, I too LOVE multichannel classical recordings. I've loved classical and large-scale film music for about 35 years now. I'm an unabashed Romantic whose favorite composer is indeed Mahler, with guys like Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss not far behind.

One of the reasons I love MC classical recordings is that FINALLY it sounds as if the engineers set up 5 microfones, set balances once, and recorded the music without constantly screwing around with the mic levels! The recordings sound like real orchestras in real spaces, usually concert halls. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A piece of music you might really like is the Alpine Symphony of Richard Strauss. My SACD has Christian Thielemann conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the world's finest orchestras for decades. It's DG 471 638-2. Another fave of mine is Telarc's release of Jerry Goldsmith conducting his own movie music. It's not 'classical', but it's close. Philips recorded this for Telarc, in 2001 I believe. Goldsmith and the LSO were really 'on' for these recordings in EMI's big Abbey Rd. studio. The bass drum in the opening 'Star Trek' suite (and thruout the music) sounds fabulous; this may be my favorite MC recording. Telarc SACD-60433.

If you like the piano music of Johannes Brahms, probably you'll like his 1st symphony. A wonderful MC recording of that is by Marin Alsop and the LSO; on NAXOS DVD-A 5.110077.

Personally, I prefer the sounds of DVD-A to SACD, as the latter tend to have MUCH higher noise floors than DVD-As, but SACDs are much more common, not that they're common at all.

Live it up; there are hundreds out there.
.
weekendtoy OP
20 posts
 
Thanks for all the great suggestions!

With the recommendations here and similiar ones elsewhere, I went ahead and ordered Mahler Symphony #1. Along with the newly remastered Dire Straights SACD of course.
More to discover