Buying Western Classical Music

ajay124 · Aug 15, 2011

HYBRID SACD's which will provide heavy weight fireworks for auditioning a system. And a life long listening pleasure.

Great conductor, great orchestras, great composers, great recordings, great pricing. What more can one ask for?

ajay124 · Aug 15, 2011

Valery Gergiev conducting with a toothpick!

Ravel Bolro (Valery Gergiev, London Symphony Orchestra) - YouTube

ajay124 · Aug 17, 2011

For well over two decades I have paid obeisance to the holy trinity of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. I was absolutely certain that they were the three greatest creators of music in the Western world. Haydn and Schubert rounded of the big 5 for me. But in the last few years several other composers have gradually started moving up the 'ladder of my affection'. One by one Gustav Mahler knocked out my favorites, and at the moment he is comfortably numero uno. I can happily listen to him for 6-7 hours a day without feeling the need to play music by any other composer/musician. My current 'holy trinity' of music is Gustav Mahler. Sergei Prokofiev. Dmitri Shostokovich.

Composers need 'champions' in the form of great conductors,orchestras and musicians to survive. Mahler found a 'champion' in Bernstein. Since the sixties the number of recordings and performances of his symphonies has really taken of and there is no dearth of Mahler champions in the world today.

Technological and generational changes require new sets of musicians to keep breathing new life and energy into these eternal works. I would love to listen to Furtwangler, Toscannini, Bruno Walter and John Barbirolli, but I rarely do so because the recording quality of their times does not satisfy my high fidelity fetish. Most recordings being sold currently have been made by conductors and musicians who came into the limelight after 1950. Digital technology will ensure that their work does not suffer the degradation of time. But new generations will still demand a fresh interpretation of famous works. A constant churning is always taking place, in which some composers and musicians shine brighter while other luminaries of the past start 'dimming'.

Amazon is a big market place for music. I spend a lot of time window shopping for music in this market place. In my pre online shopping days, I assumed that the maximum number of recordings would be dedicated to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. It is quite likely that their music sells far more than that of any other composer. But I have been trying to locate alternate versions of famous works by these composers and I was surprised to learn that the choice available on Amazon is rather limited. For many of the well known works by these composers, there are maybe 4-5 good versions and good recordings available. But for Mahler's symphonies one is spoiled for choice. Leonard Bernstein, Rafael Kubelik, Klaus Tennstedt, John Barbirolli, Otto Klemperer, Guiseppe Sinopli, Bernard Haitink, George Solti, Kurt Masur, Carlo Maria Guilini, Claudio Abbado, Jascha Horenstein, Herbert Von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, George Szell, Kurt Sanderling, Riccardo Chailly, Simon Rattle, Valery Gergiev, Michael Tilson Thomas......

In 1902 Mahler wrote to his fianc Alma Schindler "My time will come". In the past few decades his prediction has finally come true.

ajay124 · Aug 17, 2011

In the earlier post I am not suggesting that the lustre of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart has diminished in any way. As long as people listen to classical music, their star in all probability will shine the brightest. But (at least for me) Mahler has joined them at the top. A Quartet of great composers instead of a Trio. Or rather a Quintet, with Joseph Haydn also being in the same league.

ajay124 · Aug 17, 2011

BBC Radio 3. Proms 2011.

BBC - Proms - 2011 Season Home

Check out Valery Gergiev and Mariinsky Theatre performing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

avidyarthy · Aug 17, 2011

@ ajay124 ....
"For David Oistrakh there is nothing to beat the 17 CD EMI box set".

Gave a listen to some of his works ... very very enticing. So, picked up the 17 CD box set ... @ 27 GBP delivered .. from Amazon UK.

Thanks

arnprasad · Aug 17, 2011

ajay124 said:
BBC Radio 3. Proms 2011.

BBC - Proms - 2011 Season Home

Check out Valery Gergiev and Mariinsky Theatre performing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

I was fortunate enough to be in london for 18 months during which I attended the 2005 proms including a concert by Ravi Shankar and daugher.

It was a magical experience - last minute standing tickets which are sold only on the day of the show costed only 4-5 pounds!! I must have attended some 6-7 concerts that season and something I will never forget...Royal Albert Hall at 5 pounds a piece!!!! within 30-50 feet of the performers...

the ones I still remember. from my London days including Prom ones
1) Ravi Shankar and daughter..not sure what they played...but it was fun
2) Beethoven's violin concerto by Zubin Mehta and Israeli Philharmonic
3) Griegs Piano Concerto
4) A mixture of bits including William Tell Overture and Korsakov's Scheherzade
5) Shashtakovic's symphiny number 5
6) Ravel's Bolero
7) Zakir Hussain and whatever remains of Shakti including Mclaughlin
8) Beethovens 5th and 9th Symphonys

My advice for those who are totally new to Western Classical - stick to the ones that are familiar ..found in ringtones, calling bells, car reversing sounds, games...etc And once you start liking them then you can shift to more heavy duty stuff.

My two cents....

ajay124 · Aug 17, 2011

arnprasad

You seem to have made good use of your time spent in London. You hit the right hotspots. Too many foreign tourists spend good money and time visiting places I would never dream of entering even for free. Madame Tussaud's for one. What is so great about ogling at wax figures of celebrities?

London has so much to offer. LSO at Barbican Centre. The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The National Gallery. The Tate Museum. The Royal observatory at Greenwich. The theater circuit in Piccadilly Circus. The half price shops at Leicester Square. Shops selling lovingly kept collections of vinyl and CD's at throwaway prices. I was not into hi fi when I visited London, but I am sure there is plenty of good used stuff available! Beer, food, rain

arnprasad · Aug 17, 2011

ajay124 said:
arnprasad

You seem to have made good use of your time spent in London. You hit the right hotspots. Too many foreign tourists spend good money and time visiting places I would never dream of entering even for free. Madame Tussaud's for one. What is so great about ogling at wax figures of celebrities?

London has so much to offer. LSO at Barbican Centre. The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The National Gallery. The Tate Museum. The Royal observatory at Greenwich. The theater circuit in Piccadilly Circus. The half price shops at Leicester Square. Shops selling lovingly kept collections of vinyl and CD's at throwaway prices. I was not into hi fi when I visited London, but I am sure there is plenty of good used stuff available! Beer, food, rain

Yeah...missing all that...never went to the Royal Opera as I am not a great opera fan..but plenty of concerts at the barbican and royal albert and sometimes the rehearsals at that church adjoining the trafalgar square - I remember the four seasons rehearsal where he was explaining what each line meant....again for free..magical!!

ylesmana · Aug 17, 2011

Few other composers that you may not hear or even know about but composed a very good symphonies works...

01. Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
02. William Herschel
03. Ignace Pleyel
04. William Boyce
05. Christian Cannabich
06. Franz Anton Hoffmeister

ajay124 · Aug 18, 2011

ylesmana said:
Few other composers that you may not hear or even know about but composed a very good symphonies works...

01. Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
02. William Herschel
03. Ignace Pleyel
04. William Boyce
05. Christian Cannabich
06. Franz Anton Hoffmeister

I have never before come across any of these composers. I searched for information on the net and it was interesting reading about them. Many CD's of their works are available at Amazon.

There are may be 60-70 composers with whom the general audience is familiar with. They gained prominence because they found 'champions' in the form of musicians, conductors, orchestras, recording studios and critics. But there are so many other composer whose works are seldom performed now. Some of them enjoyed a brief spring of popularity. Some may even have been more popular in their times than the major composers we are familiar with today. And some may have always languished in obscurity.

The major composers that I have come across in books or the internet or whose works I have heard are:

Baroque 1600-1750
Johann Sebastian Bach
George Frideric Handel
Antonio Vivaldi
Domenico Scarlatti
Claudio Monteverdi
Georg Telemann

Classical 1750-1825
Franz Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig Van Beethoven

Romantic 1825-1900
Franz Schubert
Franz Liszt
Felix Mendelssohn
Frederic Chopin
Johannes Brahms
Robert Schumann
Hector Berlioz
Richard Strauss
Johann Strauss Jr.
Mikhail Glinka
Modest Mussorgsky
Rimsky Korsakov
Alexander Borodin
Mili Balakirev
Cesar Cui
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Glazunov
Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky
Nikolai Myaskovsky
Max Bruch
Richard Wagner
Antonin Dvorak
Gioacchino Rossini
Georges Bizet
Anton Bruckner
Edward Greig
Edward Elgar
Cesar Franck
Camille Saint Saens
Gabriel Faure
Giacomo Puccini
Giuseppe Verdi
Gaetano Donizetti
Gustav Mahler

Modern1900-
Igor Stravinsky
Dmitri Shostokovich
Sergei Prokofiev
Aram Khachaturian
Sergei Rachmaninov
Claude Debussy
Maurice Ravel
Bela Bartok
Jean Sibelius
Arnold Schoenberg
Anton Webern
Alban Berg
Olivier Messiaen
Edgar Varese
Leos Janacek
Gyorgy Ligeti
Boris Smetana
Bohuslav Martinu
Paul Hindemith
Eric Satie
Carl Neilsen
Eliot Carter
George Gershwin
Aaron Copland
John Cage
Pierre Boulez
Luciano Berio
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Frederic Delius
Charles Ives
Benjamin Britten
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Samuel Barber
Michael Tippet
Heitor Villa Lobos
Isaac Albeniz
Darius Milhaud
Carl Orff
Francis Poulenc
Alfred Schnittke

ylesmana · Aug 18, 2011

Well, those composers that you are published are very famous and few of them are very well known for ordinary people for instance : Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Vivaldi, Bach.

I gave few more that you have not heard about it

01. Rimsky Korsakov
02. Moszkowski

These composers are well known for Spanish music. You should listen to the album Espana and the conductor is Ataulfo Argenta.

ajay124 · Aug 18, 2011

avidyarthy said:
@ ajay124 ....
"For David Oistrakh there is nothing to beat the 17 CD EMI box set".

Gave a listen to some of his works ... very very enticing. So, picked up the 17 CD box set ... @ 27 GBP delivered .. from Amazon UK.

Thanks

I received my set yesterday and since then the sound of Oistrakh's violin has been filling the house, and a couple of neighbouring houses

Sound is acceptable considering that most of the recordings are very old. But the music is absolutely divine. I am looking forward to comparing David Oistrakh and Jascha Heifetz in order to decide who was the greatest. Or perhaps the best way out would be to jointly award them the crown of the greatest violin virtuosos of the twentieth century. Or perhaps that would be unfair to the other great violinists like Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Arthur Grumiaux, Anne Sophie Mutter, Ida Haendel....

ajay124 · Aug 19, 2011

I am familiar with cigarette packs carrying a statutory warning. But a CD that comes with a warning? That's a new one.

Sibelius - Symphony No 2. Romance: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Jean Sibelius, Neeme Jrvi: Amazon.co.uk: Music

The CD of Symphony No. 2 by Sibelius, performed by Neeme Jarvi and the Gothenburg Orchestra, released by BIS, comes with a warning:

"Contrary to established practice this recording retains the staggering dynamics of the ORIGINAL performance. This may damage your loudspeakers, but given first-rate playback equipment you are guaranteed a truly remarkable musical and audio experience. Good luck!"

Anyone bold enough to put his speakers in the line of fire? I would like to buy not only this symphony but the entire box set. In SACD. But the price is a bit of a dampener at the moment.

Amazon.com: Sibelius: The Symphonies [Hybrid SACD]: Jean Sibelius, Neeme Jrvi, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra: Music

An interesting article on Sibelius:

Classical Notes - Classical Classics - Sibelius: Symphony # 2, By Peter Gutmann

Finlandia - Jean Sibelius (Lahti Symphony Orhcestra & Ari Rasilainen) - YouTube

ylesmana · Aug 19, 2011

You may like to hear overtures from following composers:

01. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
02. Giussepe Verdi
03. Mozart
04. Beethoven
05. Wagner
06. Tchaikovsky
07. Strauss family
08. Weber
09. Berlioz
10. Schubert

ajay124 · Aug 20, 2011

Reposting from another thread on another forum

Last year my 5 year old daughter came back from school humming golmal, golmal, ggggggolmal. I was horrified. We don't watch mainstream films. We don't have a television in the house. And I would be happy if she stays away from this stuff. For the moment my diktat works. But she is rebellious, and I have no illusions about how long I will be able to exert my authority. A couple of years at the most. At home she has plenty of opportunity to listen to music and HI FI. Last year she had asked Santa to give her a fire engine for Christmas. This year she has demanded a CD player, pre amp and power amp! She does not want papa to be the only one playing with these shiny toys!

Her music preferences too are changing. When I am listening to music at night, she loves dancing/prancing to symphonies, violin concertos, piano sonatas, what ever happens to be playing. I noticed that she follows the music quite comfortably, but does not have the discipline to control her moves. From leisurely swirling ballet like movements, she suddenly breaks into a frenzied rain dance. A few months ago she developed an affection for rock music. Alan Parson's Prime Time became her favourite number. Recently she has started paying attention to a few catchy classical movements. Currently her favourite is the hypnotic, spectacular "Danse Macabre" by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens. She insists that I play it for her everyday!

The subject matter of this tone poem by Saint-Saens is 'deadly' but the music is electrifying. Meant to be played at 2 o clock volumes!

Camille Saint-Sans - Danse Macabre - YouTube

ajay124 · Aug 21, 2011

Ice skating and catchy classical tracks go hand in hand. Growing up as a child in Simla, I had the privilege of spending my winter vacations, ice skating in the local ice skating rink. The morning sessions used to be from 8-10 and the evening session from 5.30-7.30. Idyllic and beautiful times.

I was never good enough to skate to the Strauss Waltzes belting out of an ancient record player. I spent the waltz sessions in the in-house coffee house, dousing hunger pangs. Vigourous physical activity was part of every child's life in Simla in those days. So much walking to be done. I used to be perpetually hungry.

Danse Macabre on ice

2009 0205 4CC SP Yu-Na Kim (danse macabre) - YouTube

Brian Orser "Danse Macabre" 1988 - YouTube

ajay124 · Aug 21, 2011

The Russian troika of Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich drove into Western Europe in the late fifties. Over the next few decades they toured widely in the west, playing with many major orchestra's and musicians. They are considered among the finest practitioners of the piano, violin and cello respectively for the entire century.

Those of you who may have had the patience, and the stamina, to follow this thread since I began it ( I hope there are at least a few

) may have noticed that earlier I used to focus mostly on composers, but in recent times my posts have primarily focused on the people who performed this music in the second half of the twentieth century. I have gained a lot of knowledge while posting, and reading up for this thread. I have a much better feel and knowledge of western classical music than when I began it.

Amazon has truly opened the gates to western classical music. Almost everything I have thought of buying is available. Sometimes it is expensive. Sometimes amazingly cheap. If one is willing to wait patiently then most prices eventually come down.

I got the Oistrakh set only a few days ago and I have not really got down to listening to it. The Jascha Heifetz set is absolutely amazing. Recently I had bought a 14 CD set of Sviatoslav Richter, released by EMI as part of their Icon series. Today I have been listening to it continuously since late afternoon. Currently the 7th CD is playing. I would love to keep playing through the night and listen to all 14 Cd's at one go. But I don't think I have the stamina to go beyond Number 10 today. The music is absolutely amazing.

Over the past six months I have heard recordings by virtually the top 20 pianists of the 20th century. I have liked some of them and been indifferent to a few. But I have no doubt that Sviatoslav Richter is head and shoulders above most of them. Quite simply he is the best! The piano works in this set are famous compositions of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Handel,Brahms, Bartok, Prokofiev etc. which most pianists play.

All the recordings from this set which I have heard till now would rank among the finest versions of these works. Currently I am listening to Richter playing Handel's keyboard suites. I have heard various versions in the past two decades without really falling in love with these compositions. Richter demolishes every memory I have of this music. And builds a divine monument to this glorious, immensely likeable music of George Frideric Handel.

This is truly one set anybody who has the slightest interest in classical music should buy. It is ridiculously cheap. Sound quality is very good. And the music is magnificient. Individually many of these CD's would be 5-10 pounds each.

Sviatoslav Richter - Icon: Sviatoslav Richter: Amazon.co.uk: Music

avidyarthy · Aug 21, 2011

David Oistrakh is amazing ..... mersmerizing violin 'play'. Have been able to 'hear' 4 CDs out of the 17 odd in the pack. The only stumbling block has been my wifey who has been complaining of a mild headache and throwing tantrums off and on throughout the day today.... with me chipping in with teasers as "bandar kya jaaney adrak ka swaad"....

BTW, excellent service received from amazon.co.uk. My first purchase from them. The pack landed at my doorsteps in 7 days flat. Excess payment made to postman ... Rs.5/ ... for God knows what ... the amount 'to be paid' was stamped on the parcel.

ajay124 · Aug 22, 2011

avidyarthi

I am glad that you liked the David Oistrakh set. When you have the inclination, buy the Jascha Heifetz and Sviatoslav Richter sets. You seem to have begun a long affair with western classical music. I am sure your wife will also start liking it after a while

Sviatoslav Richter - Mozart piano concerto no.5 (1st movt) - YouTube

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 - Sviatoslav Richter 2/3 - YouTube

Buying Western Classical Music

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