My Essential Classical Albums.

[sphinxsix]

Some time ago @AnotherSpin asked if Beethoven isn't enough for me. I promised to answer this question here. Well.. he is and he isn't. When I started this thread I was pretty sure I will still listen to every genre that I like. And I do. OTOH 85% of my musical explorations and new discoveries are connected with classical music. I admit I didn't expect that. My classical library has exceeded 1000 albums and I'm afraid that if someone issued an essential classical music 'box' like this (this term doesn't make sense in case of music files does it) he couldn't count on a huge commercial success   The genre to me at that moment seems to be a bottomless well filled with gold  So much for AnotherSpin's question. Thanks for asking 

 

Been checking out Dvorak late symphonies recently - mainly performed by Kubelik/BPO, 9th - by Solti (I liked both) and just the fragments of the 7th by Ivan Fischer (sounded good to me and SQ seemed to be very good). What would be your recommendations in this regard, guys? 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[semente]

  

 

 

 

 

[semente]

One more... a bit marmite.

 

[Bob Stern]

Dvorak symphony 8: Szell, Cleveland, 1970.  I believe this was Szell's last recording of anything.  Relaxed and subtle, quite unlike Szell's usual rigid style.

 

If you're open to pieces other than symphonies, Dvorak's cello concerto is at least as popular as his 9th symphony.  An excellent modern perf is Moser on Pentatone.  A classic I love is Du Pre & Celibidache 1967, which is unusually soft and tender.

 

His most famous chamber pieces are the "American" string quartet, op 96, and the "Dumky" piano trio, op 90.

[semente]

This one is nice too:

 

[sphinxsix]

On 9/29/2019 at 12:56 AM, Bob Stern said:

Dvorak's cello concerto

 

On 9/29/2019 at 12:56 AM, Bob Stern said:

A classic I love is Du Pre & Celibidache 1967, which is unusually soft and tender.

I checked out this concerto earlier - Du Pre with Barrenboim, A.Weilerstein/Belohlavek and Tetzlaff/Storgards, will check out this one too.

 

On 9/29/2019 at 12:56 AM, Bob Stern said:

His most famous chamber pieces are the "American" string quartet, op 96, and the "Dumky" piano trio, op 90.

Any performances of these pieces recommendations ?

 

Thanks guys!

[Bob Stern]

For the "Dumky" trio, a good starting point is the Suk Trio (1983), but the sound is far from state of the art.  Faust/Queyras/Melnikov is very good in much better sound but isn’t as Czech or spontaneous.  Since the first 3 (of 6) movements are all slow, you might listen to the last 3 movements first, then go back to the beginning if you like the last 3.

[Musicophile]

I'm not such a big fan of Dvorak's symphonic oeuvre, but there are some gems in his chamber music, e.g the trios Bob just mentioned.

 

Here are my favorite versions, both quite recent:

 

 

[Bob Stern]

It's pretty confusing that these guys named themselves the Busch Trio.

[Musicophile]

3 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

It's pretty confusing that these guys named themselves the Busch Trio.

Well,  you could argue that 67 years after Adolf Busch's death the risk of confusion should be somewhat under control. 

 

They chose this name because Mathieu van Bellen actually plays the Guadagnini that previously belonged to Busch. 

[sphinxsix]

Thanks guys! I will need some time to check out your recommendations.

On 10/1/2019 at 11:05 AM, Musicophile said:

I'm not such a big fan of Dvorak's symphonic oeuvre

I'm not that surprised - while listening to his symphonies I had a reflection that his melodic 'sense' is IMO in some ways similar to Tchaikovsky's whom as far as I remember you don't like that much (not mentioning the fact that in Dvořák's case we also have some problems with his name's spelling ) . I just got to know that  the two actually knew and admired each other. 

BTW both aren't in my personal top five of composers. If I was asked to which single composer I listen to most often that would probably be Bach..

 

 

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

33 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Thanks guys! I will need some time to check out your recommendations.

I'm not that surprised - while listening to his symphonies I had a reflection that his melodic 'sense' is IMO in some ways similar to Tchaikovsky's whom as far as I remember you don't like that much (not mentioning the fact that in Dvořák's case we also have some problems with his name's spelling ) . I just got to know that  the two actually knew and admired each other. 

BTW both aren't in my personal top five of composers. If I was asked to which single composer I listen to most often that would probably be Bach..

 

 

 

 

 

Dvorak was very much influenced by Brahms, as colleague and friend too. Yes, one can hear characteristic slavic melodies in Dvorak's opuses, and it may resemble Tchaikovsky. But, in fact, Tchaikovsky has not much in common with Brahms and even may be considered as an opposite. Eduard Hanslick, famous music critic of the time and friend of Brahms famously dismissed Tchaikovsky music calling it "stinking". Interestingly enough, Tchaikovsky has an interest for music of Wagner, another opposite of Brahms, and even was present on premiere opening of Wagner's theatre in Bayreuth.

 

Nevertheless, one thing is common for both Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, both need to be listened in recordings by native performers.

[sphinxsix]

4 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

Nevertheless, one thing is common for both Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, both need to be listened in recordings by native performers.

So what are your Dvorak favorite performances?

[AnotherSpin]

1 hour ago, sphinxsix said:

So what are your Dvorak favorite performances?

 

Chamber works on Supraphon with such artists as Pavel Haas Quartet are very good, but, I am not listening Dvorak often.

[Musicophile]

I don’t dislike Dvorak, it’s just that there is more exciting stuff out there. 
 

Two more Dvorak works I actually like:

 

 

Brahms was a bit jealous of this work by the way. And to be fair, his double concerto is no match. 
 

Weilerstein is an excellent alternative, with a local orchestra. 
 

Not very well known but worth discovering:

 

[Jud]

29 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

I don’t dislike Dvorak, it’s just that there is more exciting stuff out there. 
 

Two more Dvorak works I actually like:

 

 

Brahms was a bit jealous of this work by the way. And to be fair, his double concerto is no match. 
 

Weilerstein is an excellent alternative, with a local orchestra. 
 

Not very well known but worth discovering:

 

Hard to go wrong with Isserlis, and I love a lot of what Weilerstein does as well.

[Musicophile]

And while we’re on the solo concertos, the violin and piano concertos are much less know than the cello “hit”. 
 

Mutter has done a good version of the violin concerto that’s worth checking out. 
 

 

i have yet to find a version of the piano concerto that blows me away. 
 

I typically go back to Schiff with Dohnanyi, mainly because it was my first recording of this work. 
 

And I forgot another excellent version of the Cello concerto:

[Daccord]

I really like Dvorak's trios and string quartets. This thread got me curious, so I sorted my Dvorak collection by number of plays. If you group all the performances of the trios together they came out on top, but the album that has the most plays is this:

 

[AnotherSpin]

2 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

i have yet to find a version of the piano concerto that blows me away. 
 

 

Did you hear Richter/Kleiber recording? I had it on LP long time ago, and it was quite impressive, if I remember it well.

[Musicophile]

16 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Did you hear Richter/Kleiber recording? I had it on LP long time ago, and it was quite impressive, if I remember it well.

Nope, didn’t even know it existed. That’s a pretty impressive combo so I’ll need to check it out. 

Qobuz has it nicely enough. 
 

 

The only other version I go to occasionally is Aimard/Harnoncourt. 
 

[Musicophile]

And finally, the only symphony I listen to is the New World, but only very occasionally. 
 

The first recording I bought was Maris Jansons with the Oslo Philharmonic, not such a bad choice. 
 

But today I just love Fritz Reiner’s drama:

 

[AnotherSpin]

27 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

And finally, the only symphony I listen to is the New World, but only very occasionally. 
 

The first recording I bought was Maris Jansons with the Oslo Philharmonic, not such a bad choice. 
 

But today I just love Fritz Reiner’s drama:

 

 

This is my problem with Dvorak, I listened to cello concerto and New World symphony too many times in the past.

[Musicophile]

8 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

This is my problem with Dvorak, I listened to cello concerto and New World symphony too many times in the past.

Same here 

[rvb]

I always listen to Ravel, can not get enough of it.

 

Montero: Piano Concerto No. 1 "Latin" - Ravel: Piano Concerto in G / Montero, Prieto, Orchestra of the Americas

 

[semente]

11 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

This is my problem with Dvorak, I listened to cello concerto and New World symphony too many times in the past.

 

It's nice "beginners'" music. 😁

 

I currently much prefer the 8th.