Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Classical Music Recommendations

For Beethoven's 7th, Deutsche Grammaphon has an SACD of #s 5 and 7 conducted by Carlos Kleiber. The sound quality is quite good, but I'm not particularly sold on the interpretations. I've got the complete symphonies conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt w/ the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and while the recording quality is nothing special and the performances themselves aren't as precise, I really like the overall interpretations.

This Telarc recording has Barber's Adagio on it, as well as a great recording of Faure's Pavane for a Dead Princess and a couple Satie Gymnopedies. Truth be told I find the Satie and Faure more interesting performances, but it's up to the usual stellar Telarc recording quality.

I don't know if you're familiar with Rachmaninoff's piano concerti, but I'd suggest checking out #2 and 3, both of which have absolutely gorgeous second movements. Telarc has an SACD of #3 with Lang Lang playing with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic that's quite nice. Brahms' 2 concerti are also quite good.

We have similar tastes. I have the Kleiber SACD and have the same impression of it.

I also have the complete Harnoncourt Beethoven symphonies and really enjoy them.

I'll look into the others. Thanks.

I have the Deutsche Grammaphon one on CD. Guess I'll have to look into a different version.

Craig, was that the performance of Carmina Burana at the Bowl on Tuesday night that you heard?

Chamber music compositions for just about every possible combination of instruments exist, including cello and piano(general category "cello sonata"). There are a whole bunch and I'll suggest these French compositions as an excellent collection at a bargain price.

The Tchaikovsky collection on 7 discs that we discussed in the past which includes all the symphonies and some other works is still outstanding.

The Schippers Barber collection is my top recommendation for the Adagio for Strings and the other items.

As far as the Beethoven 7th, in my view you already have the best one in the Kleiber performance with the 5th.

It sure was! It was outstanding!

fyi...this is a GREAT source for classical music beginners to get an idea of what they like. It has short clips from 100 different pieces of classical music and comes with a short description of each. It's really terrific. And at $0.49 why shouldn't you buy it?

Yeah, Craig; I see that you agree with "C.Rogers" of L.A. as to its usefulness(of course there's also $2.98 for shipping). What I thought was interesting was the guy who wanted $29 instead of 49 cents. I heard that he was a Monster Cable employee, which is where he learned how to charge for audio items.

I too have renewed an interest in Classical since now actually having speakers that let you hear the music as intended. I've been keeping a spreadsheet of "stunning recordings" from this board for a while now. I thought this tab of the classical genre might prove useful. I already added a few from this thread so some are repetitious.

Basically my criteria to make it to this list was that it had to be recommended as acoustically superior recording and that there was enough information (usually the Title & Conductor or an actual link) so that I could be sure I would find the correct version. If I couldn't narrow it down from a bunch of variations, it might not have made the list. My apologize if someones suggestion didn't make it to my sheet, I wasn't religious about it, I just added a few whenever I thought of it, while reading the board.

I have purchased 12 from this list so far and thoroughly enjoy each one of them. So if that is an indication of the odds, you can't go wrong with anything here.

This board strips out extra tabs & spaces when I copy it, so please excuse the formatting. I tried to get the HTML links to survive a mass copy as well. No luck and too lazy to try again. If it's missing the conductor, it was probably a Link and can be found with a forum search to get the exact one, or just ask and I'll check for you.

SUBMITTER TITLE
JohnK "Water Music" of the Impressionists - Carol Rosenberger
Mark Johnson Alexander Nevsky
Mojo Bach and Canadian Brass: Sacred Brass
Efalardeau Bach's Brandenburg concertos (with Goebel or Dantone
Efalardeau Bach's cantata (from Teldec with Harnoncourt or Leonhardt)
Efalardeau Bach's solo cello suites (Harnoncourt, Casal)
JohnK Barber collection (Schippers)
JohnK Beethoven - Nine Symphonies
JohnK Beethoven Symphony No. 9(Wand)
Efalardeau Beethoven's string quartet from the middle period (7-11) (Italiano)
JohnK Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique(Munch)
Efalardeau Borodin's Symphonies 2&3 (Barenboim)
JohnK Brahms Hungarian Dances(Bogar)
Efalardeau Brahms quintet for piano (Grumiaux)
Efalardeau Concerti by Vivaldi
Efalardeau Dukas's Symphony (La Peri and L'apprenti sorcier)
JohnK Dvorak Slavonic Dances(Kubelik)
JohnK Dvorak: Cello Concerto: (Pierre Fournier )
Efalardeau El Amor Brujo (Manual de Falla (ideally the 1915 version))
Efalardeau French suites by Bach (ideally with Gustav Leonhardt or Tom Koopman)
JohnK Holst Planets(Mehta)
Efalardeau La Mer and other orchestral work by Debussy
JohnK Latin American collection(buy from Amazon seller)
Efalardeau Mozart's Requiem (Harnoncourt)
JohnK Orff Carmina Burana(Muti)
JohnK Prokofiev Cinderella(Ashkenazy)
JohnK Rachmaninoff Symphonies, etc. (Ashkenazy)
JohnK Ravel Daphnis et Chloe(Dutoit)
JohnK Ravel: Orchestral Works (Martinon)
JohnK Respighi Roman Festivals(Batiz)
JohnK Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade (Batiz)
Efalardeau Schubert's Die Schone Mullerin or Die Winterise (lieders)
Efalardeau Schubert's Impromptus for piano or his Moments Musicaux
Efalardeau Schumman's Symphonies no 3&4 (Harnoncourt)
Efalardeau Shostakovitch symphonies
JohnK Smetana Ma Vlast(Berglund)
JohnK Stravinsky Rite of Spring(Ozawa)
JohnK Symphonic Dances
JohnK Tchaikovsky Swan Lake(Lanchbery)
JohnK Tchaikovsky Symphonies, etc.(Muti)
Mojo The Quicksilva Collection: Volume 2 ivaldi, Purcell, Handell
JohnK Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 2(Bakels)
JohnK Vocalise
Efalardeau Zoltan Kodaly's sonata pour solo cello opus

My two additions:

Janine Jansen's recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is incredible, IMHO. It's my very favorite recording of the 4S and probably my favorite 'classical' album in my collection. http://www.amazon.com/Vivaldi-Four-Seaso...16150642&sr=1-5

The genius of Mozart combined with her talent, expressed through that Stradivarius, via SACD, over my M80's..."it's like buttah".

As a runner up, I enjoy Sharon Bezaly's Mozart Flute Concertos; Rondo; Andante. Not quite as emotional as the first, but it's a pretty amazing recording as well. http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Concertos-A...16150488&sr=1-4

You mean the genius of Vivaldi?