New page, next Beethoven Symphony, No. 2



On CD from the Ozawa/German Masters Box

I feel like the 2nd is greatly underappreciated, and I like it better than the much more famous symphony that follows. I can't say I have a single favorite performance, but Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra are certainly one of my favs. They do a great job balancing the dance and drama aspects of the piece, esp. in the quicksilver opening movement.

Stravinsky's Opera/Oratorio Oedipus Rex was one of the first pieces he wrote in his "neo-classical" phase. I feel like neo-classical was a return to the order and elegance of the 18th century after the somewhat unruly way music evolved at the beginning of the 20th. Of course Stravinsky himself was a big part of that unruliness.



On CD.

I feel like Karel Ancerl, along with Leonard Bernstein, were the greatest Stravinsky conductors who ever lived in spite (or perhaps because) of recording a limited repertoire. Certainly Ancerl's Oedipus runs up the score on Stravinsky's own recordings.

Listening to this one at work  from Arthur Rubenstein on my new iPhone 16 Pro Max that I picked up last night.  I forgot my camera adapter at home….so I couldn’t use my Dragonfly.  The speakers on the new phone are  definitely better than my old one from 7 years ago.  

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Interesting. I'm a big fan of Brahms but never really warmed up to his concertos. Of all of them (2 piano, violin and double) I like the violin concerto the best. Everyone has recorded them (like everyone records the piano concertos) and you can make the case you should choose your recording by the orchestra part, not so much the soloist.



On CD.

But I like Arthur Grumiaux and orchestra, lead by Sir Coloin Davis is perfectly fine.

Brahms that I really like: Songs Without Words aka lieder arranged for cello and piano played by Mischa Maisky.



On CD for the DG/Maisky box.

How good is your midrange? Listen to this disc and if you aren't swept away by the abject beauty of the music you either A) don't like the cello B) need to take a hard look at your system or C) should consider consulting an endocrinologist. JMO/YMMV.

Carlo Maria Giulini's La Mer from the Warner Complete Debussy.



16/44 FLAC download

The "box" (virtual or physical) is a great way to up your Debussy game with both the greatest hits and a lot of B-sides that should be better known.

Erik Satie's Gymnopedies have become famous as the soundtrack for ennui in movies and TV, even if the composer himself is not that well known. But he wrote a bunch of other piano music, some of it mellow or even melancholic, some more up tempo but all of it sounds like Satie.



16/44 FLAC download.

I didn't know very much of it, but Anne Queffelec does a great job bringing Satie's unique sound world to life.

Like pretty much everything in the Mehta/LA Phil box Dvorak's 8th sounds great.



On CD.

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Liszt was huge: huge talent, huge personality and one of the true revolutionaries in the history of Western Art Music. But there were also a bunch of "lesser Liszts" who were also talented composers and performers, they just weren't Liszt. With that in mind, I give you Charles-Valentin Alkan.



16/44 FLAC download.

Thanks Lon. I've basically stopped buying SACDs, but that looks interesting.

Whenever I come back to Haydn's music after an absence I'm amazed how good it is. It is tuneful and elegant but also sophisticated and dramatic, although it wears the sophistication lightly.



16/44 FLAC downloads.

Quatuor Mosaïques play the Op. 64 quartets (and pretty much anything else they touch) so well and so beautifully they make me forget I dislike performances on "authentic instruments."

It wouldn't be Halloween without Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor.



On CD.

This is an early digital recording that was a common demo disc back in the day. Interestingly I've heard the organ at the First Congregational Church in LA (just a block or so from the MacArthur Park, FWIW) and it is an overwhelming experience. And hearing the CD on high dollar, high wattage stereos was also an impressively tactile experience. But listening to it on my Decware system (5 watts, single 6 1/2" driver stand mounted monitors) is an impressive musical experience. Anything it lacks in hydrodynamic punch it more than makes up for by bringing gorgeous tonal and musical details to life.

Mozart wrote some of the most beautiful music ever written. And nothing he wrote is more beautiful than his setting of the medieval hymn, Ave Verum Corpus, written shortly before his death.



16/44 FLAC download.

Soon after my discovery of downloadable music I binge bought half a dozen different versions of AVC, since they were like a buck each. I don't know that I can pick a favorite but Leonard Bernstein's is really good.

Karl Bohm was both an enthusiastic supporter of National Socialism and one of the great Mozart Conductors of the 20th century. His (overly) complete Mozart Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic is one of the highlights of the  Deutsche Grammophon catalog.



24/96 FLAC download.

I have the whole thing on vinyl, but the hirez download of the "famous" symphonies sounds better (gasp!). I've been enjoying the Great g minor, K. 550.

There are (at least) a couple of ways of looking at Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, and they are not mutually exclusive. One is that it is the ultimate in academic exercises: at set of preludes and fugues written in every major and minor key, twice, based almost as much on math as music. The other is that it is the ultimate interpretive tabula rasa and the performer is able to unleash her or his musical imagination almost unfettered. My desert island WTC (also the my first post in this thread) is Fredrich Gulda who goes all in on mathematical precision with results that I think are amazing, maybe because I'm a "math guy." But there are many other, very convincing, interpretations out there from Glen Gould to Andreas Schiff to Sviatoslav Richter just to name a few. And now I add Angela Hewitt to the short list of truly great Well Tempereds, YMMV.



16/44 FLAC download

I've been swept away by her turn of the century version of the 48. Played with a light touch and almost boundless lyricism it is glorious.

Sadly it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  Just recently acquired a dozen free classical/opera vinyl albums and another chunk of classical CD’s while trick or treating with my daughter.  Several were from the Deutsche Grammaphon  label.  

So while I was at work, I decided to stream this favorite that’s took its album art cover from Van Gough’s Starry Night.  

I've had this on cds for about twenty years, and my father even longer--spent many an hour listening to these together, fantastic material and performances.

It's still hard for me to listen to a lot of classical music that we listened to together. . .my father was the most amazing person I've ever known, and we had become so so close.  But I have been listening to some we didn't listen to a lot together, and isolating some box sets to sell off. . . so soon I'll tackle some Beethoven, our most favorite material to share, especially the solo, duo, trio, quartet and smaller ensemble pieces. (Neither of us were as into symphonies, though his favorite symphonies were Beethoven's and Mozart's).

One more Liszt. I've posted this recording before, but if you care about Liszt, or piano playing you really should hear it.



DSD rip from SACD.

Listening to Georges Cziffra play Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies is like a day at the circus: you'll laugh, you'll cry and you're never entirely sure what just happened. He is both an authentic fire-breathing piano virtuoso, of a kind they don't make any more and an authentic Hungarian Romani, born to play Liszt's gypsy music. This isn't piano playing for every day, but once and a while nothing else will do.

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I'm not much of an opera guy, and what I am leans more to the Teutonic than the Italianate. But there are some bits of La Boheme that are too hauntingly, unforgettably beautiful to ignore. The scene where Mimi and Rodolfo meet is what love should always sound like. And then there is the final aria in Act I, O soave fanciulla used to devastating effect in my favorite episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.



On CD.

I don't know a lot of La Bohemes, but if there is one out there better than Beecham, Bjorling and de los Angeles it must be very good indeed.

Another album from my trick or treating connection….this one I really enjoyed.  I am a big Rachmaninov fan, so this LP was no surprise that kept me engaged.  Very clean pressing and overall a great album….definitely a keeper!

Rachmaninov's symphonies and concertos are great. But I actually prefer is smaller scale stuff, like the Preludes.



16/44 FLAC download.

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I should have been more clear.  I do enjoy the work of Strauss….esp. Don Quixote, Metamorphosen, and the Violin Concerto in D Minor.  My opinion was definitely more of the performance as opposed to the music itself.  I just wasn’t moved by Bohm….it lacked passion.

I'm glad you can enjoy some of the music you shared with your dad, Lon. I haven't made it to the 9th yet, but have listened to the 2nd. And it is scintillating. Agree the piano sound is fantastic.



16/44 FLAC download.

Hardcore classical: The Schoenberg Wind Quintet.



On CD from the Philadelphia Wind Quintet box.

This is one of Schoenberg's first true 12 tone works, as opposed to his earlier stuff that was atonal but not strictly serial. It is out there, sounding more random than unpleasant, and I'm not sure I'm going to put in the work necessary to come to grips with it. But I will give it (at least) one more listen.

Murray Perahia's Bach recordings never disappoint.



16/44 FLAC download.