Favorite Decade of Recorded Classical Music

[Bogey]

This may be a bit easier...or not.

[Ken B]

This may be a bit easier...or not.

Fear Klemperer's Bach! Tremble in fear!

[Bogey]

Fear Klemperer's Bach! Tremble in fear!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYSG8AQO3tw

[DavidW]

Performance wise or composing wise?  I think the former given the other threads, but I wanted to be clear.

The 00s because it saw the explosion of period style performances, and the adaption of HIP techniques by the more traditional artists.  The 80s and 90s saw a tremendous diversification in performing styles, unlike the previous decades culminating in where we are now.  You might see a romanticized approach, modern, classical, idiosyncratic, HIP etc not only from different recordings but sometimes with the same performers.  I really feel that we are in a second golden age.

[Gurn Blanston]

You can't ask that!        

2000 - 2009. I don't like old recordings, and the period instrument was still finding its feet despite all the fine recordings made in the '80's & '90's. In ten years, I'll probably say "2011 - 2020".  I may not like many living composers, but I go for living performers in a big way.

[Bogey]

Performance wise or composing wise?  I think the former given the other threads, but I wanted to be clear.

The 00s because it saw the explosion of period style performances, and the adaption of HIP techniques by the more traditional artists.  The 90s and 00s saw a tremendous diversification in performing styles, unlike the previous decades.  You might see a romanticized approach, modern, classical, idiosyncratic, HIP etc not only from different recordings but sometimes with the same performers.  I really feel that we are in a second golden age.

Both.  Someone says you can have the complete catalog form any decade and you are looking for quality, not quanity.

[DavidW]

You can't ask that!        

2000 - 2009. I don't like old recordings, and the period instrument was still finding its feet despite all the fine recordings made in the '80's & '90's. In ten years, I'll probably say "2011 - 2020".  I may not like many living composers, but I go for living performers in a big way.

Great minds think alike!

[Gurn Blanston]

Performance wise or composing wise?  I think the former given the other threads, but I wanted to be clear.

The 00s because it saw the explosion of period style performances, and the adaption of HIP techniques by the more traditional artists.  The 80s and 90s saw a tremendous diversification in performing styles, unlike the previous decades culminating in where we are now.  You might see a romanticized approach, modern, classical, idiosyncratic, HIP etc not only from different recordings but sometimes with the same performers.  I really feel that we are in a second golden age.

Davide! We cross-posted yet said the same thing (you, more eloquently, of course, but you're a professor). Now I know why I like you.

[Bogey]

You can't ask that!        

2000 - 2009. I don't like old recordings, and the period instrument was still finding its feet despite all the fine recordings made in the '80's & '90's. In ten years, I'll probably say "2011 - 2020".  I may not like many living composers, but I go for living performers in a big way.

I wonder how many 9th's you would have on the shelf?

[Gurn Blanston]

I wonder how many 9th's you would have on the shelf?

Well, all the ones made from 2011 to 2020... 

[Bogey]

Well, all the ones made from 2011 to 2020... 

I thought so. 

[amw]

Contemporary music - 1965-1974 roughly
Standard repertoire - last 10 years

[RJR]

The Fifties. No doubt about it.

[Brian]

Standard repertoire - last 10 years

I'm actually inclined to agree with this one. Performing standards are higher than ever, recorded sound is too, and the "there are no great artists anymore" myth is a myth.

[Mirror Image]

The 60s seems to have been a fantastic decade for recorded music what with so much Modern music getting recorded and conductors like Bernstein, HvK, etc. completely in their element.

[Sergeant Rock]

The 60s seems to have been a fantastic decade for recorded music what with so much Modern music getting recorded and conductors like Bernstein, HvK, etc. completely in their element.

   MI and I agreeing on something. Surely the apocalypse is nigh 

The 60s, the time of Szell, Klemperer, Bernstein, Barbirolli (all those dead guys  )...Karajan's Ring!


Sarge

[jochanaan]

For me, it's the 1950s.  The LP had just been invented, stereo sound was developing, and we still had some great masters such as Toscanini, Bruno Walter among conductors; Jascha Heifetz and Zino Francescatti among violinists, and Rudolf Serkin and Artur Rubinstein among pianists.  Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra were at the top of their game, issuing records left, right and center, and toward the end of the decade Leonard Bernstein breathed new life into the New York Philharmonic, while I Musici and the Chamber Orchestra of Basel were beginning to record early music.

[Jo498]

Because I generally prefer newer (HIP) recordings of music before (and sometimes including) Haydn and Mozart, I cannot go with the 50s/60s. I cannot go for the "noughties" either because I doubt that I'd want my Beethoven piano sonatas or Brahms, Mahler and Bruckner symphonies from that time. Admittedly, I am not even sure whether I have heard more than an odd recording of orchestral standard repertoire from the last 10 years.
So I'd probably go for the '90s, or even the 80s. Lots of stuff was recorded in the combination of the "CD boom" and the maturing of the original instruments movement.
I am not such an opera buff, otherwise I'd probably go for the 50s or 60s.

[The new erato]

The 80ies? Lots of technically bad, first generation digital recordings.

[Jo498]

Yes, that's the problem with the 80s. Therefore I'd probably go with the 90s. But in the 80s you both catch the HIP people in their first prime (say Mozart and/or Haydn by Harnoncourt, Hogwood, Pinnock, Gardiner's and Pinnock's Handel, MAKs Telemann) and the "autumn" of a bunch of great conductors/instrumentalists like Karajan, Giulini, Solti, almost all of Bernstein's DG recordings.

Just curious, I wonder which recordings from 00-14 would be recommended for

Beethoven piano sonatas
Mozart piano concertos
Brahms symphonies
Bruckner symphonies
Mahler symphonies

Wagner operas? o.k., this last one is probably bad for any time after the early 60s and merely acceptable for the 70s (Boulez)
But with the 80s I could get Bernstein's Mahler (+ maybe some Tennstedt, Solti, Abbado), Bruckner from Giulini, Karajan and Wand, Brahms from Giulini, Bernstein, Wand, Karajan, Mozart concertos with Schiff/Vegh or Zacharias, Beethoven sonatas with Gilels...