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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.


rvpiano
schubert
7,386 posts
 
There was a guy named Sit Thomas Beecham who made the best recording of a 5th I have ever heard written by a guy named Franz Schubert . It is on the EMI Great Recordings of The Century .

Some folk think the best ever 5th was written by one Shostakovich
and recorded by a Bernstein with the NYO .

Another group think a heavy drinking Swede named Sibelius is the greatest 5ther .

I know , fact certain , his 5th is the best sounding and played by the
foremost Finn conductor , one Osmo Vanska , at the helm of the Lahti Symphony . Said 5th is found on the BIS label in superb sound .

There are many in Moscow that are certain this and that Russian composer wrote THE greatest 5th . I would not know about that .
I am sure those in Wien that claim Mahler or Brucker is the best 5er
are wrong . LvB is FAR above those .

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,051 posts
 
For me the greatest 5 is Bruckner....

Some French critic named it the "art of the symphony" like Bach has written the art of the fugue...

The final movement is for me the greatest fugue written after Bach... An astonishing powerful fugue resuming all preceding themes like all life is resumed in one singular multidimensional vision after death....

Astonishing when we learned that Bruckner study counterpoint with Schubert old master at the time with complete interdiction to wrote anything save counterpoints for the time of the study... I think Bruckner was pass his thirty years...After the 5 Bruckner wrote master pieces after masterpiece but this 5 was more "modern" in so much aspect paradoxically than the remaing next 4.... The perfect fusion of the past ancient music and the future of music perhaps...For sure this 5 changed my life, 35 five uears ago....

Bruckner is indeed my supreme master symphonist and i think Beethoven spoke and said to me that i was right but immediately he boast about his chamber music to change a tactful delicate subject....
😁😊😊😊😊

schubert
7,386 posts
 
Seriously , the greatest 5th I have heard from the greatest Conductor of the last Century is this .

The sound is nothing to write home about , but the perfection of tempo and every detail brought in just as written
on the score blew me away as I followed it !
The musicians of the Halle did not like him , they truly loved him and it shows .

The Sibelius is uplifting  , what is better from music ?
.


https://youtu.be/-rnFyg_pWj0?t=14



I agree that Bruckner is better than Mahler .












century
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,051 posts
 
Very great choice.... Thanks for the link.... Barbirolli is the proof that some of the highest genius are not enough known.... Sibelius is a great poet like Mahler....

If Mahler is a poet, Bruckner is more a mystic and a projective geometer.... I love the 2 but Bruckner changed my life.... Mahler make it more beautiful....i am in love with all his lieder tough more even than with his marvellous movements in his symphonies... There is a unity of thinking in Bruckner 5 for me that override anything save Bach affine geometry....
schubert
7,386 posts
 
As you know , the hardest person to understand is yourself .

I like the Mahler lieder but his symphonies (except 1st) seem like a waste
of time to me , often like a dog chasing its tail .

I realize I most be wrong , so many others can’t be.

I recently listened to his 5th trying my best to like it . Even with one of
favorite bands , Orchestre symphonique de Montreal .

What seems to be beautiful to others seems nothing to me .
I’m of the straight -ahead Brahms is A + Mahler C- club,
even if I’m only one in it .

I suspect it is largely because I was a soldier for many years and
of my own doing was an Infantryman , aka aggressive  



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