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10 Classical Recordings You Enjoy Listening To


paul secor

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I thought it might be interesting for people to list 10 classical recordings that they enjoy - not necessarily their 10 favorites or 10 desert island recordings - just 10 that they enjoy listening to.

I'm not going to start it off, because my classical collection isn't that extensive and my knowledge doesn't run that deep, but I hope that anyone who's interested will participate.

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I'll play. :)

Some orchestral recordings that I enjoy and return to often:

- Sibelius: Symphony No. 1; Swan of Tuonela / Stokowski, National PO (Sony)

- Strauss: Don Quixote / Rostropovich, Karajan, Berlin PO (Warner Classics)

- Stravinsky: Rite of Spring; Petrushka / Boulez, NYPO & Cleveland O (Sony)

- Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 / Walter, Columbia SO (Sony)

- Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 / Rozhdestvensky, LSO (Alto)

- Ives: Holidays Symphony; The Unanswered Question / Michael Tilson Thomas, Chicago SO (Sony)

- Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique / Munch, Boston SO (RCA)

- Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 / Mravinsky, Leningrad PO (Melodiya/BMG)

- Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 / Ormandy, Philadelphia O (Sony)

- Vaughan Williams: "London Symphony" (No. 2) / Boult, LPO (Warner Classics)

 

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13 hours ago, HutchFan said:

I'll play. :)

Some orchestral recordings that I enjoy and return to often:

- Sibelius: Symphony No. 1; Swan of Tuonela / Stokowski, National PO (Sony)

- Strauss: Don Quixote / Rostropovich, Karajan, Berlin PO (Warner Classics)

- Stravinsky: Rite of Spring; Petrushka / Boulez, NYPO & Cleveland O (Sony)

- Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 / Walter, Columbia SO (Sony)

- Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 / Rozhdestvensky, LSO (Alto)

- Ives: Holidays Symphony; The Unanswered Question / Michael Tilson Thomas, Chicago SO (Sony)

- Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique / Munch, Boston SO (RCA)

- Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 / Mravinsky, Leningrad PO (Melodiya/BMG)

- Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 / Ormandy, Philadelphia O (Sony)

- Vaughan Williams: "London Symphony" (No. 2) / Boult, LPO (Warner Classics)

 

Good list, will contribute my view a bit later ....

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I like the title and concept of this thread.

Here are ten albums that get played a lot at my house. Some items will seem odd, maybe.

Bach Cello Suites - Mischa Maisky (Deutsche Grammophon). My current favorite version. I had six recordings of the Suites; I just got rid of the two that I never played.

Rascher Saxophone Quartet - Music for Saxophones (Cala). This album's highlights are the best recording (probably) of the Glazunov Quartet for Saxophones, a wonderful version of Steve Reich's "New York Counterpoint," and a transcribed Bach Chorale Prelude and Fugue that is one of the most beautiful things you'll ever hear.

Stockhausen - Stop/Ylem; London Sinfonietta/Stockhausen (Deutsche Grammophon LP). A high point of Stockhausen's writing in terms of the balance between composition control and improvisational freedom.

Ives - Symphony No. 4/Three Places in New England/Central Park in the Dark (Boston SO/Ozawa) (Deutsche Grammophon). Three of my favorite Ives pieces; excellent performances.

Samuel Barber/Thomas Schippers - NY Philharmonic/Schippers (Sony). Schippers' "Adagio for Strings" stopped my in my tracks when I first heard it in a record store.

John Cage - In a Landscape; Stephen Drury - piano, toy piano, and organ (Catalyst). I often turn to this calming, very still music when my mind is troubled.

Mozart - 51 Symphonies; English Chamber Orchestra/Jeffrey Tate (EMI). There are certainly more exciting performances of some of the major symphonies here, but Tate is consistently good, and I can put on any of these 12 discs and find enjoyment.

American Music - Donald Sinta, alto saxophone (Mark LP). Highlights are my favorite reading of the Creston Sonata for Saxophone and Warren Benson's heartbreakingly beautiful "Aeolian Song."

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra/Furtwangler (EMI). This 1951 recording is some of my favorite Beethoven on disc.

United States Marine Band - The Bicentennial Collection. An amazing 10-disc set by the best concert band in the world. It's not all "classical" - there are light classics, marches, and rags, but I turn to this set often for some the masterpieces of wind band literature: Holst's Suite in E Flat; Hindemith's Symphony in B Flat for Band; Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy, Husa's Concerto for Wind Ensemble, etc.

Edited by jeffcrom
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I rarely listen classical music nowadays, but my very slim CD collection consists of:

J S Bach, Brandenburg Concertos

J S Bach, Suites for Solo Cello

Debussy, Piano Works

Ravel, Piano Works

Bartok, String Quartets

Bartok, Mikrokosmos (piano)

In my equally slim vinyl collection I find:

Debussy and Ravel, String Quartets

Stravinsky, Firebird/Petrushka

Stravinsky, Rite of Spring

Stravinsky, Soldier's Tale

Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste/Hindemith, Mathis der Maler

I think these are typical tastes for someone whose first love is modern jazz. Many years ago I heard Ronnie Scott on "Desert Island Discs" and a number of his choices coincided with mine, that is, after he'd chosen the up-and-coming tenorman, Joe Henderson - which tells you just how long ago it was!

Recently, though, I've been branching out by listening to Steve Reich, particularly Six Marimbas and Different Trains.

Edited by BillF
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Ten MAHLER symphony recordings that I enjoy:

- Symphony No. 1 / Horenstein, LSO (Unicorn)

- Symphony No. 2 / Scherchen, Vienna State Opera O (Westminster/MCA)

- Symphony No. 3 / Kubelik, Bavarian RSO (studio) (DG)

- Symphony No. 4 / Levine, Chicago SO, Judith Blegen (RCA)

- Symphony No. 5 / Kubelik, Bavarian RSO (live) (Audite)

- Symphony No. 6 / Barbirolli, New Philharmonia (Warner Classics)

- Symphony No. 7 / Boulez, Cleveland O (DG)

- Symphony No. 8 / Ozawa, Boston SO (Philips)

- Das Lied von der Erde / Kubelik, Bavarian RSO, Waldemar Kmentt, Janet Baker (Audite)

- Symphony No. 9 / Walter, Columbia SO (Sony)

 

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Here are my ten recordings.

 

Haydn - String Quartets Op.76 - Tokyo String Quartet

Mozart - Piano Quartets K.478 & K.493 -  Jean-Claude Pennetier / Quatuor Ysaye

Mozart - Piano Concertos No.23 & No.25 - Ivan Moravec - Czech Philharmonic

Beethoven - Piano Trios Nos. 3, 5 & & / Schubert Piano Trio No.1 - Suk Trio

Beethoven - String Quartets Op.59/1 & Op.18/6 - Quartetto Italiano

Schubert - Unfinished Symphony & Beethoven Symphony No.5 - Bruno Walter - Columbia Symphony

Brahms - Piano Trios No.1 & No.2 - Julius Katchen, Josef Suk, Janos Starker

Brahms - Symphony No.1, Haydn Variations, Academic Festival Overture - Bruno Walter - Columbia Symphony

Mendelssohn - Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2 - Julia Fischer, Daniel Muller-Schott, Jonathan Gilad 

Chopin - Nocturnes - Ivan Moravec

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Ten recordings I enjoy (from my admittedly limited perspective):

bach-cello.gif

Bach: Cello Suites - Pieter Wispelwey

51GHUrS8GNL._SY300_QL70_.jpg

Borodin: String Quartets 1 & 2 - Borodin Quartet

Canteloube: Songs of the Auvergne

Cantaloube: Songs of the Auvergne - Netania Davrath

Haydn: String Quartets Opus 76

Haydn: String Quartets Opus 76 - Quatuor Mosaiques

Varied Air Charles Ives the piano music

Ives: Varied Air - The Piano Music - Philip Mead

Charles Ives: Songs

Ives: Songs - Jan DeGaetani

Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht; Schubert: Quintet

Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht /Schubert: String Quintet in C Major - Hollywood String Quartet with Alvin Dinkin and Kurt Reher

s3581119.jpg

Schumann: Piano Trio No. 1 - Rubinstein/Szeryng/Fournier

R-1735946-1240052241.jpeg.jpg

Webern: In Sommerwind/Orchestral Pieces/Variations - Staatskapelle Dresden/Sinopoli

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde - BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra/Horenstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by paul secor
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Here are 11 works/recordings that I enjoy (no reps/warranties made about the recordings, they're just what I happen to own for whatever reasons). Bach is definitely my favorite. I listen to very little orchestral music, but like opera. Obviously much great and worthy stuff had to be omitted.

Bach, sonatas/partitas for solo violin (Podger / Channel Classics, Grumiaux / Philips, Szeryng / DG)

Bach, solo cello suites (Bylsma 1 / Philips)

Bach, keyboard partitas (Schepkin on piano /  Ongaku)

Bach, Goldberg Variations (Hantai / Op. 111 on hpschd, Tipo / EMI, Schepkin / Ongaku on piano)

Wagner, Parsifal (Kna 1962 / Philips)

Beethoven piano sonatas (Kempff mono / DG, Yves Nat  / EMI)

Beethoven string quartets (I have the old Vegh set on Valois)

Mozart violin sonatas with Grumiaux and Haskil on Philips

Borodin string quartets # 1 and 2 with Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence (Borodin Quartet on EMI)

Haydn string quartets op. 64 (Quatuor Mosaiques on Naive)

Tchaikovsky Symphonies 4-6 (Mravinsky / DG) - had to expand to 11 because I couldn't stand to leave this out.

Edited by T.D.
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Here's 10 I enjoy, but still being a novice, take that for what it's worth. Still very much in an exploratory/learning thing with this continuum, and there's more than 10, but these meet the criteria ofbeing both on the "works as recreational/car listening as well as other types of listening" test and being on a shelf where I can readily get to them to make this list.

I can also tell you that, having gotten into this world from where I had gotten to in jazz, I'm far less interested in "repertoire" than I am "story", both known through history and sensed in performance.

 

91A4yuL26lL._SL1436_.jpg

and anything else with Olly Wilson's music on it.

ktc_2507.jpg__1080x980_q85_crop_subsampl

if you're one to go for extreme intricacies that eventually reveal themselves to be exquisite logicalities, then this is a feast!

516hWy82kkL._SX466_.jpg

it's never nice to say "hey, if you don't like this, you're an idiot", but with this....yeah, go ahead and say it.

f3ff228348a0698ba8e41110.L.jpg

Radio broadcast of a Hitler birthday concert, with Der Fuher himself in the audience, replete with announcer before and after...to call this an intense performance of an already intense piece is an understatement...there's a little bit of footage up of the last minutes of the last movement from this gig, and to call Furtwangler "eccentric" is an understatement, as is saying that he looks more than a little uncomfortable when Hitler insists on shaking his hand afterwards. People who believe that history repeats itself coud find more wateful uses of their time than to listen to this, look at the footage, and ponder what happens when one chooses to "stay" even though they don't like what they're staying in, and also what happens to them after it's over.

51o2YXToEuL.jpg

oh HELL yeah.

MI0002311973.jpg

have yet to here them done more satisfyingly. seems to be totally "in the moment" both chronologically and in performance. Also, originally issued on Dial!

francesco+trio+contemporary+american+pia

I don't know if this is good or not, I just know it's fun to listen to.

chicago-symphony-orchestra-fritz-reiner-

actually have a history with this one. Pete Gallio hipped me to it during the Quartet Out days, long story short, he made the point that Bartok's math and later Coltrane's math were very much overlapping at times, and that this was as good a place as any to check it out. It was good advice.

71dt7hdfPYL._SX466_.jpg

all the viswceral excitement and power of a rock concert with none of the rock. Win-Win!

Bonus cut -

412K0F4EB4L.jpg

It's not nice!

There's more than these, a lot more, although not a bajillion more. Yet.

 

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2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Here's 10 I enjoy, but still being a novice, take that for what it's worth. Still very much in an exploratory/learning thing with this continuum, and there's more than 10, but these meet the criteria ofbeing both on the "works as recreational/car listening as well as other types of listening" test and being on a shelf where I can readily get to them to make this list.

I can also tell you that, having gotten into this world from where I had gotten to in jazz, I'm far less interested in "repertoire" than I am "story", both known through history and sensed in performance.

 

91A4yuL26lL._SL1436_.jpg

and anything else with Olly Wilson's music on it.

ktc_2507.jpg__1080x980_q85_crop_subsampl

if you're one to go for extreme intricacies that eventually reveal themselves to be exquisite logicalities, then this is a feast!

516hWy82kkL._SX466_.jpg

it's never nice to say "hey, if you don't like this, you're an idiot", but with this....yeah, go ahead and say it.

f3ff228348a0698ba8e41110.L.jpg

Radio broadcast of a Hitler birthday concert, with Der Fuher himself in the audience, replete with announcer before and after...to call this an intense performance of an already intense piece is an understatement...there's a little bit of footage up of the last minutes of the last movement from this gig, and to call Furtwangler "eccentric" is an understatement, as is saying that he looks more than a little uncomfortable when Hitler insists on shaking his hand afterwards. People who believe that history repeats itself coud find more wateful uses of their time than to listen to this, look at the footage, and ponder what happens when one chooses to "stay" even though they don't like what they're staying in, and also what happens to them after it's over.

51o2YXToEuL.jpg

oh HELL yeah.

MI0002311973.jpg

have yet to here them done more satisfyingly. seems to be totally "in the moment" both chronologically and in performance. Also, originally issued on Dial!

francesco+trio+contemporary+american+pia

I don't know if this is good or not, I just know it's fun to listen to.

chicago-symphony-orchestra-fritz-reiner-

actually have a history with this one. Pete Gallio hipped me to it during the Quartet Out days, long story short, he made the point that Bartok's math and later Coltrane's math were very much overlapping at times, and that this was as good a place as any to check it out. It was good advice.

71dt7hdfPYL._SX466_.jpg

all the viswceral excitement and power of a rock concert with none of the rock. Win-Win!

Bonus cut -

412K0F4EB4L.jpg

It's not nice!

There's more than these, a lot more, although not a bajillion more. Yet.

 

I'm in much the same boat as you, probably even more so, since I'm not a musician. Enjoyed seeing your list. Thanks for posting it.

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More than happy to do so.

Here's one that missed the list because I couldn't find it on the shelf and couldn't remember the details: I really like listening to "vintage" classical recordings, especially of then-(relatively)new music that had yet to be disseminated through recordings. I like to feel the newness, the lack of the benefit of hindsight when making the decisions. Especially with singers, because ?I don't care who/what it is, a singer's decisions are always very much "of the moment", I mean, Sinatra singing those songs when they were new(ish) and singing the same songs 30 years later cannot be the same, all but impossible. Same with things like this, imo. That Walkure, pre (barely) WWII, people felt ok with bringing a certain...bravado to Wagner that was pretty much impossible post-WWII. Same thing with Mahler, art songs about dead children, people our age grew up with "dead baby jokes" and stuff like that, but, I don't care how decadent 1928 Berlin was getting, anguished songs about dead children were not all the rage, and I'm sure that bringing all that to a concert singer at that time, just caried a different...weight to it that it would later.

So yeah, this is a really good listen:

mahler-lieder-early-recordings-1915-1949

Perhaps of interest to you is this session:

[04] Kindertotenlieder: I. Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n
[05] II. Nun seh’ ich wohl
[06] III. Wenn dein Mutterlein
[07] IV. Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen
[08] V. In diesem Wetter

Heinrich Rehkemper with Kapelle des Staats-Oper Berlin – Jascha Horenstein 1928

and along those lines, this:https://www.allmusic.com/album/release/igor-stravinsky-the-rite-of-spring-the-firebird-mr0002155980

MI0001006567.jpgMI0001006568.jpg

192-28, conducted by the composer. Between these and the pianola version, no "informed" exploration of Rite is incomplete, imo.

 

 

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I see that Ives gets cited a lot, I've loved everything I've heard but have only started to get into him more in part thanks to this forum. His music is rarely played in Paris.

 

Ten that come to mind and have been enjoyed a lot this year:

Debussy Préludes - Krystian Zimerman

Debussy - Alexis Weissenberg

Debussy La Mer - Pierre Monteux

Haydn 4 Sonatas - Eschenbach

Darius Milhaud La création du monde - Charles Munch

Bartok Concerto for Orchestra - Pierre Boulez

Zoltan Kodaly Dances of Marosszek, Dances of Galanta, Hary Janos Suite - Ferenc Fricsay

Aaron Copland Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, Symphony n3 - Leonard Bernstein

Camille Saint Saens Organ Symphony - Charles Munch

Morton Feldman Crippled Symetry: at June in Buffalo - Feldman Soloists

 

Overall, anything by Debussy, Milhaud and a lot of Ravel and Saint Saens really works for me. Lots of piano, but I tend towards historic recordings for that.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

192-28, conducted by the composer. Between these and the pianola version, no "informed" exploration of Rite is incomplete, imo.

 

 

Pierre Monteux's (original conductor in 1913) 1945 recording of the Rite is my reference version.

I was also shocked and fascinated when I discovered the story and images of that 1942 Choral symphony and read plenty about it at one time.

If you're into recordings where one can sense history, this one is interesting:

?u=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.classicalm.com%2F

Public laughing at a première of Varèse in 1954.

Edited by OliverM
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Of the records I've picked up cheaply over the years, these are the ones that have been played most

 

Shostakovich String Quartet No 8 (I never play the Borodin side!) - Decca / Borodin Quartet

Stravinsky - Firebird Suite - Decca / Ansermet

Stravinsky - Rite of Spring - Decca / Solti

Ravel - Mother Goose - Decca / Ansermet

Debussy preludes - Deutsche Grammophon / Monique Haas

Wagner - Siegfired Idyll (there are others on the disc, but I don't often play them) - Deutsche Grammophon / Raphael Kebelik

Beethoven - Eroica - Philips / Bruno Walter

The Red Army Ensemble (!) - Columbia

Mahler 9th symphony - EMI / Klemperer

Witches Brew - a compliation of various composers - my version is the Decca reissue

 

I think that, like Bill F, my selection is quite jazz-led. Even the Red Army Ensemble - when I first heard "Annie Laurie" I remember racking my brains, certain I'd heard it before. It eventually came to me that I'd heard it on a Jimmy Forrest album (I now know it's a trad folk song)

 

 

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