The 100 Best Classical Recordings....Another List.........

[stenka razin]

From the Telegraph, U.K. january 7th 2013:

What do you think? Plenty of omissions, including Karajan......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/musi ... dings.html


Regards,
Mel

[RebLem]

This has some real delights, and is considerably less offensive than most such lists. I was particularly delighted to see that they listed the Sawallisch cycle of all the Schubert sacred works, which seems to me highly underappreciated repertoire.

But Barenboim's Ring cycle, Uchida's Beethoven PCs 3 & 4, Rattle's Rite, Beecham's London Symphonies, and Sanderling's Brahms symphonies as well as the jingoistic advice to Buy British seem seriously out of place.

[josé echenique]

As ever there are questionable choices. La Cenerentola with Bartoli? Hey, there´s one with Teresa Berganza and Claudio Abbado that Bartoli herself has described as the best there is.
And we get, as ever with the Gramophone, the usual doses of British performers: Haydn´ s Op. 76 with The Lindsays (what about the Quatuor Mosaïques?), The Brandenburg Concertos with the English Concert? There are dozens of better, more interesting and more refined recordings, though of course most of them are not with British performers: Concerto Italiano, I Barocchisti, Il Giardino Armonico, La Petite Bande, etc.

[slofstra]

As ever there are questionable choices. La Cenerentola with Bartoli? Hey, there´s one with Teresa Berganza and Claudio Abbado that Bartoli herself has described as the best there is.
And we get, as ever with the Gramophone, the usual doses of British performers: Haydn´ s Op. 76 with The Lindsays (what about the Quatuor Mosaïques?), The Brandenburg Concertos with the English Concert? There are dozens of better, more interesting and more refined recordings, though of course most of them are not with British performers: Concerto Italiano, I Barocchisti, Il Giardino Armonico, La Petite Bande, etc.

I'm not sure if you're implying that this list was compiled by Gramophone, but it does appear to have been compiled by the Daily Telegraph.

[slofstra]

At first blush, this looks like a much better list than the NPR list posted a couple of months ago. Unlike that other list, the major pieces in the repertoire are all accounted for. And there is a wide range of performers, labels and a blend of historical and current recordings. Biases are stated at the end of the list, and that alone should provide fertile ground for discussion. Note that von Karajan is someone these critics would like you to mostly ignore.
This is just a very brief post while at work. The only really bad choice that jumped out at me is the Mengelberg Matthew Passion, and while I'm pleased to see a nod to Dutch performance history, that is not where I would recommend anyone to begin with the Passion. In fact, Gardiner would be a much better starting point, but at least this selection puts the lie to any accusations of a completely British bias. (I'm assuming that the Naxos Historical recording is the same recording that I have on Philips, but I'm unable to verify that at present.)

[josé echenique]

As ever there are questionable choices. La Cenerentola with Bartoli? Hey, there´s one with Teresa Berganza and Claudio Abbado that Bartoli herself has described as the best there is.
And we get, as ever with the Gramophone, the usual doses of British performers: Haydn´ s Op. 76 with The Lindsays (what about the Quatuor Mosaïques?), The Brandenburg Concertos with the English Concert? There are dozens of better, more interesting and more refined recordings, though of course most of them are not with British performers: Concerto Italiano, I Barocchisti, Il Giardino Armonico, La Petite Bande, etc.

I'm not sure if you're implying that this list was compiled by Gramophone, but it does appear to have been compiled by the Daily Telegraph.

No, I just meant that the Gramophone does the same thing: shamelessly favors English performers.


MUST BUY: 1 Bach Mass in B Minor (Andrew Parrott, Taverner Consort and Players) Virgin Veritas £9.78, RRP £9.99
The issue of authenticity in classical music is a viper’s nest. Parrott’s 1985 recording came out at the height of the pitched battles between romantic traditionalists and the vanguard period performers. Mere mention of the words 'period instruments’ would and did lead to spats; when Rattle brought the issue up on the phone to Karajan, the maestro hung up. Bravery was necessary then to record a performance of the Bach B Minor with an unheard of four-man choir who doubled as soloists. It worked, however. And how.

3 Handel Messiah Pinnock (The English Concert and Choir) Archiv £9.78, RRP £9.99
This has been a critics’ favourite for nearly two decades for the spirited way the choral get-togethers explode into life. The soloists – Auger, von Otter, Chance and Tomlinson – are consistently fine.
4 Mozart Requiem (John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists) Philips £9.78, RRP £9.99

This is a powerfully expressed performance, in which period authenticity is not allowed to dim argument or tone. In fact, the added tremulousness afforded the smaller ensemble is bracing, bolstering the fear at the heart of this work.

Though the Pinnock Messiah and Gardiner´s Mozart Requiem are excellent recordings, they may not be essential buys, but the Parrott B Minor Mass is just ridiculous, there are at least 2 dozen better recordings.

[John F]

Every time I see a list like this, I wonder, what's the point? Why is the list thought work making, and why just now? That said, if it encourages people to buy good classical recordings, I guess I'm for it.

Some of the picks seem odd, which may be another way of saying I disagree. Neither of Karajan's "Falstaff" recordings would be near the top of my list for that opera, and the choice of Barenboim's Ring cycle is downright eccentric. But that's how it is with such lists.

[mikealdren]

Surprising how many of the performances I have and how many I disagree with and I'm British!

Mike

[maestrob]

Oh well, this is just a list of personal favorites: I can do that too. I'm puzzled by Barenboim's Ring, for example, when we have Solti and the 1955 Testament Stereo Ring to choose from: Dorati's Haydn would be high on my list but he's not mentioned, neither are Paray's recordings of French music with Detroit, or Munch's La Mer. I could go on, but you get the idea.

There is a definite British bias to the list, and no mention of Solti's Brahms or Schumann, or Ormandy's Shostakovich or Prokofiev.

There is much here to be admired, but not enough international depth.

[Ken]

Kovacevich for the ever popular Grieg/Schumann Concerto coupling? Gould's '81 recording of the Goldbergs? Absolutely no William Walton on the list of "20th Century English" records? The author has... Interesting taste.

At least the inclusion of Wilhelm Kempf's Brahms and Kocsis's Bartok recordings rescues the "Piano Solo" list.

[barney]

I haven't read the list yet, but one thing I can say categorically right now: not enough Rattle!

[maestrob]

Kovacevich for the ever popular Grieg/Schumann Concerto coupling? Gould's '81 recording of the Goldbergs? Absolutely no William Walton on the list of "20th Century English" records? The author has... Interesting taste.

At least the inclusion of Wilhelm Kempf's Brahms and Kocsis's Bartok recordings rescues the "Piano Solo" list.

I agree. I can't imagine a list of Best Recordings without at least one Walton recording, either Belshazzar or the First Symphony.

[erato]

Sanderlings Brahms cycle actually is seriously good, and undeservedly overlooked.

[scififan]

Lists of this type are usually fun to read and can even be useful. One can't really take them too seriously. I was surprised to see Solomon picked for his Mozart which is good--but surely not in the same class as his astonishing Hammerklavier--perhaps the best ever put on record--which didn't make the list. I was glad that the Busch Quartet were given their due and Mravinsky's Tchaikovsky. But no Wilhelm Kempff!?