Most spiritual performances

[Carlos von Kleiber]

Which performances can be ranked among a list beginning with the following one:

Claudio Arrau playing the slow movement of Op. 106.

?


Thank you.

[George]

Richter playing Schubert

Celibidache playing Bruckner (EMI)

[Mandryka]

Grinberg's Beethoven Op 111
Scherchen's Handel Concerti Grossi Op 6
Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing Liszt Legends
Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing Rachmaninov Symphony 2
Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing the threnodies from Liszt Aneees
Mengelberg's live Beethoven 6
Scherchen's Matthew Passion
Mengelberg's Matthew Passion
Mengelberg's Bach cantatas
Mengelberg's Brahms Violin Concerto
Mengelberg Brahms 1
Kondrashin Brahms 1
Kondrashin Brahms 4
Anything sung by Erb
Felix Prohaska Bach cantatas with Stich-Randall
Schreier/Richter Winterreise
Furtwangler's Beethoven 3
The bit with the cellos and basses  at the start of the second movement of Pfitzner's Beethoven 3
Furtwangler's Beethoven 4
Furtwangler's Brahms 1
Furtwangler's Brahms 2
Furtwangler's Brahms 4
Furtwangler's Tristan (the one with the missing Act 1)
Furtwangler's Metamorphosen
Furtwangler's Gran Partita
Furtwangler's Bruckner 5
Furtwangler's Bruckner 7
Furtwangler's Bruckner 9
Furtwangler's Beethoven 9
Furtwangler playing the Grosse Fuge
Albert Coates playing the Jupiter Symphony
Busch/Serkin Brahms sonata 1; F minor Quartet
The last 40 minutes of Furtwangler's Matthew Passion
Richter's Christmas Oratorio
Richter's St John Passion
Knappertsbusch's Parsifal with Vickers
Furtwangler's Schubert 9
Furtwangler's Schubert 8
Jurgen Jurgen's Monteverdi Vespers
István Kertész's Rossini Petite Messse Solonnelle
Reinbart von Leeuw's Via Crucis
Mengelberg live Schubert 9
Janos Starker's Bach C minor cello suite
Casals prelude to Cello Suites 5 and 6
Miklos Perenyi's entire suite 2
Gielen's  Missa Solemnis
Tocanini's Missa Solemnis with Kipnis
The live Horenstien Missa Solemnis on symphonyshare
Probably the Silvestri Missa Solemnis but I have never heard it -- someone please upload
Sofronitsky's Schumann Fantasie
Sofronitsky's Liszt Sonata
Sofronitsky's Beethoven sonatas (all of them)
Sofronitsky's Dante Sonata
Sofronitsky's Prokofiev 7
Sofronitsky playing Liszt Petrarchan sonnets
Sofromitsky playing Schubert/Liszt
Sofronitsky playing the Chopin Barcarolle
Sofronitsky playing Chopin Waltzes and Nocturnes
Segovia playing the Bach Chaconne
Rodarmer playing the Goldbergs
Tureck playing the Goldbergs and Partitas on Great Pianists
Michelangeli playing Chopin mazurka Op 33/4 from Bregenz in the 1980s
Michalangeli playing Chopin --  live from Prato
The largo from Chopin sonata 3 by Rosenthal
Cortot playing Schumann's Etudes (1950s) and Davidsbundlertanze
Cortot playing Chopin Walzes, nocturnes, sonatas, preludes, etudes and everything else
Yudina playing Beethoven Op 111
Edwin Fischer playing the last half of Bk 2 of WTC on Pearl
Edwin Fischer playing Beethoven Op 110
The two seconds of transition between the 2nd and 3rd movement of Edwin Fischer's studio 10.3
Casals live cello suite 3
Yudina playing Brahms
Abbado's DVD of the German Requiem
Scherchen playing Haydn 88
Steven Osborne playing Messaien's 20 Regards
Levy playing the big  Liszt sonata
Peter Pears singing the Britten Serenade
Arrau playing Schumann Etudes in Prague
Arrau/Haitink Beethoven PC4
Ney/Boehm Beethoven PC5, final movement only
Fischer/Furtwangler Brahms PC2
Arrau playing the Liszt Ballade 2 on his 80th birthday
Arrau playing Op 111 on the VAI DVD
The young Souzay singing Nacht und Traume
Hunt Lieberson singing Mahler songs at the Wigmore Hall
Hunt Lieberson singing Bach cantatas
Hubermann playing the slow movement of the Beethoven Concerto
Feuermann plaing the Ghost sonata and the Haydn Concerto
Busch Bros playing the Bach double Violin Concerto
Szigetti playing the Bach chaconne
Pogorelich playing Rachmaninov Moments Musicaux
Pogorelich plaing Ravel Valses
Schnabel in the largo of Mozart PC 27
Schnabel's Brahms Intermeszzi
The last five minutes of the second movement of the studio version of Gould's Mozart PC24
Gould playing Beethoven bagatelles
Gould playing Brahms
Schnabel playing Beethoven bagatelles
Gould playing Beethoven C minor Variations
Gould playing Mozart K475
Gould playing Beethoven/Liszt Beethoven 6
Gould playing Bach Partita 6
Ingmar Bergman's film of Magic Flute
Syberberg's Parsifal
Schorr singing Wotan in Walkure
Solti's Gotterdammerung
Richter playing the final prelude and Fugue from Bk 1 of WTC
Lenonhardt's first recording of AoF
Edgar Krapp playing the first three choral preludes from CU3
Walcha playing Bach's English Suites
Bruno Walter playing the Mozart Funeral March thing
Hotter/Moore Winterreise
Hotter BAch cantatas
Kipnis Brahms serious songs
Cherkassky playing the Godowsky/Albeniz Tango
Sanchez playing Albeniz's invocation from Iberia
Michel Rudy playing the Siegfried Idyll
When the anti aircraft guns fire in Landowska's Scarlatti
The last scarlatti sonata that Ergorov plays on his CD
Pogorelich playing Haydn sonata 19
Fiorentino playing the 4th partita



Enough. Time for a drink.

[Roberto]

Furtwangler's Schubert 8

I admire Furtwängler but for me Mengelberg's Schubert 8 much better.
I would add Mengelberg's Brahms 3. The orchestral playing far from perfect (it is a wartime live recording) but the performance is far the best for me.

[Mandryka]

I admire Furtwängler but for me Mengelberg's Schubert 8 much better.
I would add Mengelberg's Brahms 3. The orchestral playing far from perfect (it is a wartime live recording) but the performance is far the best for me.

HAHA

Yes -- it's so long since I heard the Mengelberg Brahms 3. Same for the Mengelberg Schubert 8. I will dig them out today 

[Herman]

Interesting you mention Arrau's Prague 'Symphonic Etudes' rather than the ditto Preludes.

I should give the former a spin, sometime. I only get that record out for the Preludes.

[Mandryka]

Interesting you mention Arrau's Prague 'Symphonic Etudes' rather than the ditto Preludes.

I should give the former a spin, sometime. I only get that record out for the Preludes.

Glad you noticed 

I played them last week and I thought that they presented a very one sided view of the piece -- a spiritual view 

But this is all meaningless anyway -- the logical positivists showed  that years ago.

[Brian]

Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing Rachmaninov Symphony 2

Wha? Who transcribed it?

[Mandryka]

Wha? Who transcribed it?

Oops my mistake. I should have said 2nd Piano Concerto. He made his own transcription for piano alone of the second movement. On a music and arts CD.

[Verena]

Glad you noticed 

I played them last week and I thought that they presented a very one sided view of the piece -- a spiritual view 

But this is all meaningless anyway -- the logical positivists showed  that years ago.

... but only if one buys the logical positivist definition of meaning  in the first place 

[George]

Oops my mistake. I should have said 2nd Piano Concerto. He made his own transcription for piano alone of the second movement. On a music and arts CD.

You sure you had that drink after you made the list? 

[Kontrapunctus]

Emil Gilels playing Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor. It's an encore on his Carnegie Hall recital LP.

[eyeresist]

... but only if one buys the logical positivist definition of meaning  in the first place 

Can anyone define "spiritual"? It's always seemed a meaningless term to me.

[Bulldog]

Can anyone define "spiritual"? It's always seemed a meaningless term to me.

I think of it as one's soul rising toward enlightenment.

[Verena]

Can anyone define "spiritual"? It's always seemed a meaningless term to me.

I don't think one necessarily has to be able to define a term for it to have meaning. In fact, in many cases it seems impossible or psychologically unrealistic (we don't need to know hard and fast definitions in order to be able to apply terms correctly). Often, we rather learn to apply terms correctly on the basis of being exposed to prototypical examples, without ending up with something like a definition (I think). And I do feel that one can have "spiritual" experiences. Just my two cents based on my certainly limited reading of philosophy of language and my own professional and personal experience.

[Mandryka]

I think this word is used for a lot of mumbo jumbo. Why not call a spade a spade? A modest frisson of adrenaline.

[Verena]

I think this word is used for a lot of mumbo jumbo. Why not call a spade a spade? A modest frisson of adrenaline.

I completely agree with your first statement. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
... But at other times, it might not be ..

[Atriod]

Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing Liszt Legends
Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing Rachmaninov Symphony 2
Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing the threnodies from Liszt Aneees

Someone got ahold of the Japan Nyiregyhazi archive and they've slowly been releasing these dates in better sound than what we'd heard on bootlegs. Just waiting on Vallee d'Obermann.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Glad you noticed 

I played them last week and I thought that they presented a very one sided view of the piece -- a spiritual view 

But this is all meaningless anyway -- the logical positivists showed  that years ago.

[AnotherSpin]

[..]
The bit with the cellos and basses  at the start of the second movement of Pfitzner's Beethoven 3
[..]
Probably the Silvestri Missa Solemnis but I have never heard it -- someone please upload
[..]
The two seconds of transition between the 2nd and 3rd movement of Edwin Fischer's studio 10.3
[..]

First I didn't understand how 2 seconds or a bit or a never heard performance could be spiritual?

The answer came a little later. It doesn't matter how many bits or seconds it takes to know you are. That you were not born and will never die, that you are beyond time and space, that you and now are synonymous. You mean your self, not music you hear at the moment. Or even one not heard, it doesn't matter --spirituality is you.

What is very compelling is that there are very few things on the list that belong to the 20th century. Mahler songs, Rachmaninoff transcriptions, Prokofiev. Nothing in the list which is atonal, dissected, reduced, distorted or perverted. Nothing from the alluring games of the mind, the opposite of the spiritual.