Forums - Classical Music Thread

CAJames Seasoned Member Offline "I've run every red light on memory lane." Posts: 3275	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1300 - 05/31/26 at 14:50:45 Mendelssohn's great F minor quartet. The Talich Quartet plays it almost perfectly, like most everything they play. 16/44 FLAC download
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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1301 - 06/01/26 at 19:37:10

Beethoven's Sixth, aka The Pastoral. Carlo Maria Giulini doesn't get much love as a Beethoven conductor, but that is a big mistake IMO because he has made some excellent recordings. Like Beethoven's Sixth recorded in 1980 analog sound in Los Angeles. On brand for CMG, the tempo is slowish, but with plenty of movement and danceability. And the LA winds and low strings sound fabulous, which is just what you want in the piece.

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CAJames Seasoned Member Offline "I've run every red light on memory lane." Posts: 3275	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1302 - 06/03/26 at 15:00:54 Bach wrote about 17 hours of organ music, that has survived, and most of it is not "preludes and fugues." I was listening to some more obscure chorales and fantasias, which is where Johann Sebastian really lets his hair down and gets crazy. 16/44 FLAC download
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CAJames Seasoned Member Offline "I've run every red light on memory lane." Posts: 3275	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1303 - 06/04/26 at 22:17:00 Isaac Albéniz is well known for his España, and much less well known for his Suite española. Which is too bad because it is full of the same Spanish infused melody, harmony and rhythm. Martin Jones has recorded just about everything, and pretty well.
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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1304 - 06/05/26 at 15:26:47

Hector Villa-Lobos is best known (perhaps only known at all today) for his Bachianas Brasileiras and Chôros that are an intoxicating cocktail of modern classical music and Brazilian folk music. But he wrote a lot of "serious" classical music as well. He wrote a bunch of symphonies and string quartets, as well as piano music. And it is certainly worth a listen.

16/44 FLAC download.

Marc-André Hamelin plays wonderfully, but if I'm honest I'll spend more time listening to the Brazilian stuff.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1305 - 06/07/26 at 16:35:16

Nicholas Harnoncourt got his start making some of the most ridiculous sounding recordings ever committed to magnetic tape early in the "historically informed performance" movement. YMMV. But at some point he grew up and it turns out he is actually an interesting and talented musician when he started making "historically informed" recordings of the classical at romantic repertoire with modern symphony orchestras. One of the first was his Schubert Symphony cycle with the Royal Concertgebouw, and it is excellent.

On CD

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1306 - 06/09/26 at 15:35:58

I love the way Jean-Efflam Bavouzet plays Debussy, but I'm still figuring out his Beethoven. At this point I'd say I respect his ideas more than I actually like it, but it is hard to articulate why. The tempos are all perfectly reasonable and he plays off the profound vs the humorous elements in a way that is... interesting but perhaps not entirely convincing. Yet I keep coming back to listen.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1307 - 06/10/26 at 20:19:02

Classical music has been recorded for about 100 years, so it is pretty hard to call any recording of something as popular as Haydn's Nelson Mass "definitive" just because there are so many of them worth hearing. But Leonard Bernstein's New York recording is so good you can make a case that it is in fact definitive.

On CD

I'd say the same thing about pretty much everything in the Sony/CBS/Columbia box.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1308 - 06/11/26 at 19:55:12

I can understand (but not agree) why Sibelius' 4th symphony is one of his least loved. It doesn't have the winning tunes and heroic brass writing that make the 2nd, 5th or 7th so popular. But the more I listen to it the more I appreciate it's understated sophistication and harmonic invention. And if you're going to listen to any Sibelius symphony Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony are a great choice.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1309 - 06/12/26 at 21:30:38

Eliahu Inbal's Mahler cycle with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony on Denon was the "audiophile" Mahler cycle during the go-go 80s when it seemed like everyone was recording Mahler. It was reissued for cheap by Brilliant Classics years ago but it still sounds great.

On CD.

The First Symphony is both and audio and orchestra demonstration disc.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1310 - 06/13/26 at 22:38:58

Michael Gielen is known as a specialist in modern music so you might think Schoenberg's Gurralieder is right up his ally. But Gurralieder is in fact a late romantic mashup of Wagner, Strauss and Mahler written for a huge orchestra soloists and multiple choruses. Regardless, Gielen handles it all with great aplomb, and the performance is spectacular.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1311 - 06/15/26 at 17:06:19

More Michael Gielen, this time Beethoven. His turn of the century recordings are with a modern symphony orchestra, but with a "historically informed" interpretation. Which usually means "fast" and these performances are certainly quick. But they are also intensely rhythmical, in a way I've never heard before. I was listening to The Eroica, which is not a favorite, and the finale gave me goosebumps. That has never happened before.

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CAJames Seasoned Member Offline "I've run every red light on memory lane." Posts: 3275	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1312 - 06/16/26 at 15:14:25 One of the best recordings I've heard in a long time: Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburg Symphony in a luminous performance of the Bruckner 7. 16/44 FLAC download The Reference Recording is indeed reference quality.
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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1313 - 06/18/26 at 21:10:45

Istvan Kertesz's performance of Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle is 60 years old, but it is hard to justify another recording because this one is just about perfect. Between Walter Berry, Christa Ludwig and the Decca engineers everything just works. Magnificently. And the opera itself would be an excellent entry in the "modern music for people who don't think they like modern music" sweepstakes, even though it is well over a hundred years old.

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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1314 - 06/19/26 at 20:35:09

All the popular Haydn symphonies have nicknames, except one. No. 88 slides in between the Paris and London symphonies written at the end of Haydn's career. It is one of the most frequently performed and recorded of the 104 but never got named.

On CD

Like all of Leonard Bernstein's New York Haydn this is a reference recording.

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CAJames Seasoned Member Offline "I've run every red light on memory lane." Posts: 3275	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1315 - Yesterday at 18:51:32 First classical listen in a while and I went with Mozart's Piano Concertos 16 and 19. Uchida and Tate add the perfect dash of romantic drama to Mozart's classical elegance. On CD.
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CAJames Seasoned Member Offline "I've run every red light on memory lane." Posts: 3275	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1316 - Today at 15:05:49 The Pittsburgh Symphony with Manfred Honeck were made to play Bruckner's 4th Symphony and Reference Recordings was made to record it. I've only listened to this once, but I've already put it on the short list of the greatest recordings of anything ever. 16/44 FLAC download
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Donnie Seasoned Member Online Why does it hurt when I pee? Posts: 2536 Central Illinois.	Re: Classical Music Thread Reply #1317 - Today at 16:53:29 You talked me into it, I'll give it a shot.
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Re: Classical Music Thread
Reply #1318 - Today at 18:53:20

Ditto…I just saved it to Qobuz. I’ve been completely consumed in the World Cup Soccer games. Having played when I was in my teens….I totally put everything aside during the tournament. Thank God it’s only once every 4 years!!

As a sidebar… I have to say that watching World Cup Soccer through my Decware system really sounds great!

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