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Paul Hindemith's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, Rejected by Its Dedicatee, Gets Its Belated US Premiere By Georgia Rowe Contra Costa Times [California] - 8 October 2005 San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Herbert Blomstedt (conductor) Leon Fleisher (piano) 5 October 2005 - Davies Symphony Hall, San ...

Long-Buried Left-Hand Piano Concerto by Paul Hindemith Gets Its Premiere at Last By Richard Scheinin San Jose Mercury News - 5 October 2005 Now that he's 77, pianist Leon Fleisher might be expected to do a slow fade-out, enjoying the twilight of his career. Instead, he's on the road, making headline...

Right now, Charm, I'm listening to Bruckner, too. 3rd Symphony, Jochum, Dresden.

I haven't heard any of Chailly's Mahler. However, I did recently acquire his set. Stay tuned. I do think everybody's #1 Mahler recording ought to be Klemperer's Second. Not only is it one of the great, all time Mahler recordings, especially in the outer movements, but at more than 79 minutes of musi...

The Mahler First is very accessible, and I would suggest the Boulez, CSO recording as the best. However, I think the most accessible, and more typically Mahlerian in its reliance on familiar, folk-like melodies, is the Fourth Symphony. Szell, Cleveland and Bernstein DGG with a boy soprano are the be...

Here's another one-- If, for some reason, thee cannot or will not obey the First Commandment, at least do so in silence, so that others who have may enjoy the concert. I remember one occasion when I attended a Chicago Symphony concert where Giulini conducted the Brahms First Symphony and did what I ...

Best overall complete set--Tennstdt, though, when completed, the Boulez may well replace it in my affections. Now, for the individual symphonies-- 1-Boulez, Chicago Symphony. Before that came out, my fave was the Levine LSO recording. 2-The two greatest conductors here, I think, are Bernstein (eithe...

I hate to admit this about myself, but I first got interested in classical music because of its snob appeal. The first record I bought was the Cliburn recording of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto shortly after its first release on LP. I have since come to feel it is a serious competitior for wo...

You folks are ignoring what I think is the elephant in the room. I betcha 8 bits that they are doing all the Beethoven symphones in one season so they can put out a box of CDs. No matter how many people record them, a box of ole Ludwig's symphonies still stands to be a money maker. I have 14 complet...

Every year, the Chicago symphony puts out a 2 CD set which is material from concert tapes never before made available to the public. They are available for a contribution of $50 to the orchestra. Right now I am listening to a Beethoven Emperor Concerto from Nov. 24, 1966 with Jean Martinon and Emil ...

No, Nielsen was Danish. Why just Norwegians? I would like to recommend three composers, none Norwegian. One is Wilhelm Stenhammar. I suggest starting with the string quartets. Secondly is a German composer named Norbert Burgmuller (1810-36). Schumann considered his premature death almost as great a ...

Right now I am listening to Simon Rattle's Beethoven Pastorale Symphony. Today I have already listened to Claudio Abbado's Beethoven 5 & 6, and most of Rattle's 5th. About halfway through the last movement, however, the CD started to skip. So I put it in my Nitty Gritty CD cleaning machine and gave ...

I also heard Giulini live on a number of occasions in Chicago. My favorite recording of his is Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition with the CSO, but I have to say that a live performance of it I heard him do was even better than the recording. For me, the touchstone on the piece is The Ballad of ...

This week, I am listening to Beethoven symphonies. I have two new sets, bringing my total of complete sets to 14. They are the Abbado and Rattle sets. I am going through each symphony and listening to the two performances back to back. I have already listend to the first two symphonies in each set. ...

I don't know why I didn't mention Hofstadter. The book in question was written as his response to the anti-intellectualism of the McCarthy movement. He was a brilliant historian. I loved his book The American Political Tradition, which provides biographical essays on a select number of American poli...

Read Aaron Copland's HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC. Also, any book by David Ewen is good. There is an Australian soprano/commedienne named Anna Russell who has 3 albums out, including one twofer. Her 21 minute routine on Wagner's Ring Cycle is a classic--it is very funny, and very accurate. She earns a liv...

Shostakovich--Symphony # 15, esp the last movement which very quietly reprises some of the playful music of the first movement over a funeral dirge. The whole symphony is a meditation on a man's whole life and death. Also, his String Quartet #15. Oh, the 8th Symphony is very sad, too. Richard Straus...

The Beethoven Symphonies played by Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic will be available for free download beginning June 6 @ www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

I have not heard Chailly's set, but I do own and have listened to both Bernstein's, the Abbado, Sinopoli, Solti, and Tennstedt as well as individual recordings by many who have not recorded complete cycles. To me, the best, most consistent cycle is likely to be one which has yet to be completed--Pie...

Of course, anti-intellectualism is to be found everywhere. But only in America have anti-intellectuals politically organized to demand, and get, places at the tables where public policy is made. BTW, someone made a snide comment about William Jennings Bryan. And certainly, in the context of the side...

Still, the net effect of this will almost certainly be that recording companies will be even less likely than they are now to record adventuresome repertoire. I fear that Dr. Sawkins has shot himself and his professional colleagues in the foot with this one.

I want to thank all of you for the recommendations. I intend to check into at least two of them. I buy most of my CDs from www.arkivmusic.com However. it ships only to US and Canadian addresses. I recommended this in a discussion on the subject in Fanfare magazine recently (through the Letters colum...