My Essential Classical Albums.

[sphinxsix]

4 hours ago, Teresa said:

I like all kinds of music including rock, blues, jazz, bluegrass, and world

Me too, maybe except from country (with very few exceptions). Thanks for your recommendations, Teresa (you mention some compositions I haven't even heard of which is great), I will check them out.

 

BTW can someone recommend some Eastern (Orthodox Church, Middle Eastern, Arabic too) or Eastern influenced music, especially early one? Thanks in advance!

 

 

[accwai]

On 5/1/2017 at 7:12 AM, sphinxsix said:

BTW can someone recommend some Eastern (Orthodox Church, Middle Eastern, Arabic too) or Eastern influenced music, especially early one? Thanks in advance!

 

Something like these?

• Cantiques de l'Orient Soeur Marie Keyrouz
• Al Andalus - Musique Arabo-Andalouse Atrium Musicae de Madrid, Gregorio Paniagua
• Splendour of Al-Andalus Calamus. With anything from MA Recordings, top notch sound quality is a given. This one is also available as gold CD. Anything selected to be released as gold CD must be exceptional, even by the usual MA standard.
• Mozarabic Chant Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès
• Jordi Savall has a large series of recordings of this type: Orient-Occident, Istanbul, etc etc

Don't know how essentially any of the above would be in the normal collection though.

[sphinxsix]

@accwai Thank you. The samples sound intriguing, especially: Mozarabic Chant Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès (all Pérès recordings I've checked out are just impressing!). I will explore all of these albums. As for Jordi Savall like I said before I have some of his recordings - both Orient-Occident 1&2 and 'Armenian Spirit' are great IMO.

 

[christopher3393]

On 5/2/2017 at 7:23 AM, accwai said:

Splendour of Al-Andalus Calamus

 

I'd like to recommend Begona Olavide's other work as well: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begoña_Olavide

Albums link: https://www.begonaolavide.com/albumes/  Most can be purchased as downloads from the site.

There are tracks on these albims that I would consider classic ---well known, still performed with some frequency--- not sure about "essential".

 

Al-Son

Mudejar, Begoña Olavide

 

 

http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/al-son-mudejar-begona-olavide/0884385443986

 

Touches in time

Begoña Olavide

 

 

 

 

[sphinxsix]

@christopher3393 Thanks a lot too. Sounds interesting! Will check her out too.

 

 

[sphinxsix]

Albums of the evening (excerpts) :

 

 

 

 

Which led me to microtonal music (well, I know some musicians using microtones eg jazz-fusion guitarist David Fiuczynski) and this composer:

 

 

I'm glad I am still able to suprise myself every now and then..

Am I the only one who thinks that 'Preludio a Colón' sounds great.?

 

[sphinxsix]

On 8.05.2017 at 1:16 AM, sphinxsix said:

Which led me to microtonal music

Unfortunately I didn't find a lot of interesting microtonal music (someone can recommend something.?).

But I decided to explore Karlheinz Stockhausen a little. Some of his stuff (eg Stimmung, Mantra, Gruppen) is very interesting. I ended up watching this (beware - lots of analog noise )

 

 

BTW I haven't decided yet which version of Machaut's mass to choose. Five performances I checked out in detail are so different one from another.. I didn't know the early music interpretation formula is so 'open'..

 

 

[christopher3393]

2 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

BTW I haven't decided yet which version of Machaut's mass to choose. Five performances I checked out in detail are so different one from another.. I didn't know the early music interpretation formula is so 'open'.

 

Wow. That's some serious listening! As I understand it, there is still much about 14th century performance practice that we just don't know and that still is open to debate and different approaches. Just to make things a little more complicated, here's another performance:

 

Azahar

La Tempête, Simon-Pierre Bestion

 

 

https://www.outhere-music.com/en/albums/azahar-alpha-261

 

This one's growing on me slowly. The juxtaposition with Stravinsky's Mass, which was influenced by Machaut, is interesting as well. It's also available in hi-res.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Alpha/ALPHA261

 

 

[sphinxsix]

33 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

This one's growing on me slowly.

My first impressions (samples) are very good.

 

34 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

Stravinsky's Mass, which was influenced by Machaut

Didn't know about it. Never heard his mass. Thanks!

[AnotherSpin]

11 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

Unfortunately I didn't find a lot of interesting microtonal music (someone can recommend something.?).

But I decided to explore Karlheinz Stockhausen a little. Some of his stuff (eg Stimmung, Mantra, Gruppen) is very interesting. I ended up watching this (beware - lots of analog noise )

 

Helicopter String Quartet is a part taken from Stockhausen's huge seven opera cycle Licht. I was trying to listen some of these opera, this is very impressive mass of work, but takes certain effort and time to digest.

[sphinxsix]

12 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

but takes certain effort and time to digest.

It definitely does! I skipped it (this time)..

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

26 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

It definitely does! I skipped it (this time)..

 

 

 

I am listening opera for decades, and while Verdi, Mozart and Wagner give me more than I could dig in this life Stockhausen steals some attention as well.

[sphinxsix]

This thread and your recommendations have already cost me some money the single artist who's cost me most being Marcel Peres - I've bought 4 Ensemble Organum CDs (great music IMO!): Chant Cistercien , Mozarabic Chant , Le Chant des Templiers and Chant de L'Eglise de Rome. As for Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame (I mentioned my problems with choosing one performance before) - after checking 6 versions and quite a lot of consideration I decided to get what I would call a safe and balanced (I'm not that often after 'safe' and 'balanced'!) preformance by Ensemble Gilles Binchois / Dominique Vellard. And it's just a part of my spendings. I have to admit I haven't checked out all the names and recordings that's been recommended here yet but I will progressively do it.

I really appreciate your contribution guys!

 

Piano is an instrument that I always liked. But in recent years I've been after its sound even more than before. So one more question for you guys - could you name your 'desert island' solo piano classical recordings.? And if it's to general for somebody - ok, please concentrate on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninov

(but I'd really like to discover some names and compositions that I'm not familiar with too).

As usually - performance is what matters most but SQ is important too.

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

 

 

[Musicophile]

Here's a start, all recent releases with good to excellent SQ; and obviously outstanding playing.

 

 

 

 

 

The Trifofov includes orchestral and solo piano works. The solo piano pieces, the Chopin and Corelli variations are both outstanding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[accwai]

3 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

[...] could you name your 'desert island' solo piano classical recordings.? [...] Bach, [...]

 

The following is said to be Gyorgi Ligeti's desert island album:

 

Johann Sebastian Bach: ‎The Art Of Fugue, BWV 1080

Evgeni Koroliov

 

 

In general, a lot of my favorite Baroque keyboard works do not translate well to piano. But interestingly, Art of Fugue was not written for specific instrument. That might be way piano rendition works so well.

[Musicophile]

If you're ok to expand beyond the composers you mentioned, here are some more, again outstanding playing and typically good to excellent recording quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note that you didn't state whether you like fortepiano. If so, I could add Andreas Staier's Diabelli variations, Ronald Brautigam's Beethoven sonata cycle, and Kristian Bezuidenhout's Mozart. 

 

[AnotherSpin]

8 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

So one more question for you guys - could you name your 'desert island' solo piano classical recordings.? And if it's to general for somebody - ok, please concentrate on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninov

 

Well, those are too many fine recordings even if we focus on solo from these four names only. I will try to select a few.

 

1. Bach - DWK from Schiff, El Bacha or Zhu Xiao-Mei; Goldbergs - Tharaud, Dinnerstein, Ito Ema, Denk, Rana; Die Kunst Der Fuge - Aimard, Bahrami; English Suites - Anderszewski; Partitas - Perahia, Fray.

 

2. Beethoven - complete sonatas sets from Brendel (black box most), Brautigam, Buchbinder, Guilda, Korstick; Separate sonatas from Lupu, Pires, Giltburg, Perahia.

 

3. Mozart - sonatas sets from Uchida, Haebler, Bezuidenhout, Brautigam, separate - Brendel, Leygraf, Perlemuter, 

 

4. Rachmaninov - I am not listening for his solo music often, but I really love his 3d Concerto. Recording with Martha Argerich is very dear to me. From others version of this concerto I would name those from Bronfman, Gavrilov, Andsnes.

 

[Musicophile]

4 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Well, those are too many fine recordings even if we focus on solo from these four names only. I will try to select a few.

 

1. Bach - DWK from Schiff, El Bacha or Zhu Xiao-Mei; Goldbergs - Tharaud, Dinnerstein, Ito Ema, Denk, Rana; Die Kunst Der Fuge - Aimard, Bahrami; English Suites - Anderszewski; Partitas - Perahia, Fray.

 

2. Beethoven - complete sonatas sets from Brendel (black box most), Brautigam, Buchbinder, Guilda, Korstick; Separate sonatas from Lupu, Pires, Giltburg, Perahia.

 

3. Mozart - sonatas sets from Uchida, Haebler, Bezuidenhout, Brautigam, separate - Brendel, Leygraf, Perlemuter, 

 

4. Rachmaninov - I am not listening for his solo music often, but I really love his 3d Concerto. Recording with Martha Argerich is very dear to me. From others version of this concerto I would name those from Bronfman, Gavrilov, Andsnes.

 

+1 on all of the above. Excellent selection.

 

One more very good Rachmaninov solo album springs to mind, that is very much worth having.

 

 

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67700

 

 

[sphinxsix]

Thanks a lot guys! I have 7 or 8 of the above mentioned recordings. The remaining ones are going to be the subject of my exploration soon.

Someone else willing to recommend his 'desert island' solo piano recordings.?

 

 

 

[burnspbesq]

There are a few things that everyone should have in their collections:

 

Brandenburgs. St. Martin in the Fields is perfectly fine, but my preferred recording is the Munich Bach Orchestra, conducted by Karl Richter, originally released on Archiv in around 1970.

 

Beethoven symphonies. I have three sets: BPO/von Karajan from the 1960s, Minnesota Orchestra/Vanska, and Manchester Camerata/Boyd. I probably listen to Minny most often. Would love to have a good period-instruments set.

 

Carmen. I have the Horne/McCracken/Bernstein from the mid-1970s on vinyl, but I rarely listen to it these days. The Live from the Met DVD with Garanca and Alagna is superb, and Elina Garanca is without doubt the sexiest Carmen ever.

 

The Rite of Spring and the Firebird. I have and always thoroughly enjoy the SFS/Tilson Thomas recordings on RCA.

 

Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. The BPO/von Karajan recording introduced me to this music, and I still think it's my favorite, although I won't argue very much with those who prefer the Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer. That it's paired with Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is gravy.

 

I could go on like this for days. Maybe someday I will.

[burnspbesq]

Desert island piano recordings.

 

No WTK selection from me; I prefer to hear it on harpsichord.

 

Paul Lewis' Beethoven sonatas.

 

Kovacevic' Diabelli Variations.

 

Ingrid Fitter Chopin Etudes.

 

Bavouzet's complete Debussy

 

Anne-Marie McDermott Prokofiev Sonatas.

 

Levit's "The People United."

 

Last but surely not least, Marc-Andre Hamelin's 'In a State of Jazz." Worth it for the Gulda alone, but there's so much more.

 

(and of course some Keith Jarrett. If I can only have one, I'll take "Rio.")

[Musicophile]

1 hour ago, burnspbesq said:

Desert island piano recordings.

 

No WTK selection from me; I prefer to hear it on harpsichord.

 

Paul Lewis' Beethoven sonatas.

 

Kovacevic' Diabelli Variations.

 

Ingrid Fitter Chopin Etudes.

 

Bavouzet's complete Debussy

 

Anne-Marie McDermott Prokofiev Sonatas.

 

Levit's "The People United."

 

Last but surely not least, Marc-Andre Hamelin's 'In a State of Jazz." Worth it for the Gulda alone, but there's so much more.

 

(and of course some Keith Jarrett. If I can only have one, I'll take "Rio.")

Plus one, though I would replace Ingrid by Pollini, in spite of the 1970s shoebox DG sound.

[AnotherSpin]

3 hours ago, burnspbesq said:

(and of course some Keith Jarrett. If I can only have one, I'll take "Rio.")

 

This would be difficult choice. Virtually everything Jarrett recorded is very close to me. Well, if the choice would be necessary, it will be either Paris/London - Testament, or A Multitude of Angels. I also love Staircase. Köln I know by heart...)

[sphinxsix]

A question about one of the most inventive, according to many, piano players ever - your favorite Glenn Gould performances, guys.? (except from Bach as I have quite lots of Gould's Bach).

BTW I was quite suprised noone listed GG recordings among his favorite piano albums. A coincidence?

Is he passé.? Or maybe it's just that noone here likes Gould.?

 

[AnotherSpin]

1 hour ago, sphinxsix said:

A question about one of the most inventive, according to many, piano players ever - your favorite Glenn Gould performances, guys.? (except from Bach as I have quite lots of Gould's Bach).

BTW I was quite suprised noone listed GG recordings among his favorite piano albums. A coincidence?

Is he passé.? Or maybe it's just that noone here likes Gould.?

 

 

I like Gould, and didn't mention his albums just because we were focused mostly on new recordings, isn't it?) I only named some old recordings from the artists who are not popping out in memory immediately.

 

I like Gould's Haydn, and Mozart and Beethoven too, even thou some people think his readings of those are quite bizarre. In fact, I am very comfortable with almost every his recording with rare exceptions.