Favorite Decade of Recorded Classical Music

[Brian]

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

Beethoven piano sonatas Andrea Lucchesini, Francois-Frederic Guy, Penelope Crawford (HIP), Ronald Brautigam (HIP), James Brawn. Some people would also recommend Mari Kodama or Peter Takacs
Mozart piano concertos
Brahms symphonies Pittsburgh/Janowski (all four but esp. #2-3). Budapest/Fischer (#1) is strongly divisive; I love it. Some people would recommend Berlin/Rattle
Bruckner symphonies SWR/Skrowaczewski, DSO Berlin/Nagano (#3, #6), SWR/Cambreling (#6), LPO/Skrowaczewski (#7), Berlin/Rattle (#9 completed)
Mahler symphonies Pittsburgh/Honeck (among the greatest Mahler recordings of all time), SWR/Gielen, Concertgebouw/Jansons (#1), Warsaw/Wit (#8), Budapest/Fischer (#1, #4, #6)

Not all of those are great enough to stand alongside the classics of past decades, but Lucchesini, Crawford, Nagano, and any disc involving Honeck are.

And you didn't ask for it, but here is my frankly amazing list of great Beethoven symphony recordings from the last 14 years.
BPO/Abbado ("red"), Leipzig/Chailly, Anima Eterna/Immerseel, SWR/Norrington, SWR/Skrowaczewski, Scottish CO/Mackerras (#1-8), Bremen/P. Jarvi (#1-7), Swedish CO/Dausgaard (#1-3, #7-8), LPO/Haitink (#4, 7, 8 ), Helsingborg/Manze (#3). Some people would recommend Minnesota/Vanska

Plus other great core repertoire recordings from 00-14 that I'm aware of, like Gatti's Tchaikovsky; Honeck's Tchaikovsky, R. Strauss, and J. Strauss; Wit's chor-chestral Brahms, Schumann, and Janacek; Chailly's Schumann (orch. Mahler); Queyras's Bach cello suites; Moravec's Chopin from 2000; Cafe Zimmermann's Bach concertos and overtures; Savall's Water Music; and albums by the Pavel Haas Quartet, Nelson Freire, Isabelle Faust, Julia Fischer, the Pacifica Quartet, Herbert Schuch, Yevgeny Sudbin, the Alexander String Quartet, Alexandre Tharaud, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Pierre Boulez, Arcadi Volodos... anyway I need to go to work.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

I'm esp. sensitive to Sarge's and Jochanaan's love for the 60's and 50's, respectively and respectfully.  So many artists therein who practically define classical music, for me.  Of course, nostalgia plays a role and I think it's a "clear and present danger." One should ever be suspicious of that sentiment.  Most of those artists would resent the intrusion of it into an audience's response to their recordings.  If one can listen to and enjoy their work w/o mourning or grieving for a meretricious golden age, or a vague "something lost," and I do, or at least try, than fine!  So I believe there's a lot in Gurn's approach.  I once asked my mum what her favorite decade was to live in (fully expecting her, in fact, to pick the 50's or 60's) and she surprised me by saying : "Whatever the one you're in - that's the way it's supposed to be."  There's an important life-enhancing element of embracing the present - it's healthier - and I think it goes for classical music listening as well.  Mum sez, so it must be so.

[Jay F]

Not all of those are great enough to stand alongside the classics of past decades, but Lucchesini, Crawford, Nagano, and any disc involving Honeck are.

Thank you, Brian. I just ordered all of Honeck's Mahler. I already like his Brahms Symphonies, which I hadn't really liked until I heard his renditions.

[Brian]

Thank you, Brian. I just ordered all of Honeck's Mahler. I already like his Brahms Symphonies, which I hadn't really liked until I heard his renditions.

Hope you enjoy it like I do! The French horns alone are worth it, to me.

[Jo498]

    Beethoven piano sonatas Andrea Lucchesini, Francois-Frederic Guy, Penelope Crawford (HIP), Ronald Brautigam (HIP), James Brawn. Some people would also recommend Mari Kodama or Peter Takacs

I have the Lucchesini and about 5 discs of Brautigam's. To my recollection they are good, but far from replacing older favorites (same holds for Schiff of which I have two discs, he may be more interesting (but also more irritating) than either). Of the other ones you mention I have never even heard of Crawford and Brawn.

    Bruckner symphonies SWR/Skrowaczewski, DSO Berlin/Nagano (#3, #6), SWR/Cambreling (#6), LPO/Skrowaczewski (#7), Berlin/Rattle (#9 completed)
    Mahler symphonies Pittsburgh/Honeck (among the greatest Mahler recordings of all time), SWR/Gielen, Concertgebouw/Jansons (#1), Warsaw/Wit (#8), Budapest/Fischer (#1, #4, #6)

Not all of those are great enough to stand alongside the classics of past decades, but Lucchesini, Crawford, Nagano, and any disc involving Honeck are.

The Skrowaczewski/Saarbrücken Bruckner on Arte Nova was recorded in the 90ties, also most of Gielen's Mahler (the 4th and 7th actually in the 80s!) But some of them were only (re)issued after 2000.

As there seemed to be another Beethoven cycle every year (most of which I have not heard, I am quite saturated with this repertoire) I did not mention these pieces. And I readily admit that I can not and will not follow the umpteenth recording of stuff I already have plenty of recordings of, so there is some bias towards the (older) recordings I already own.
With Honeck I only have the disc with Szymanowski/Britten accompanying Zimmermann. This is very good, but I cannot compare it to others as they are the only ones of this music I have. I don't much care for Strauss and also have enough Mahler, I am afraid, so I have to wait for more interesting repertoire. Which of his Mahler would you particularly recommend?

I certainly agree that there are plenty of very good recent recordings of chamber music and HIP/older music. Although oftentimes earlier HIP efforts are still the best or among the best.

[Pat B]

Moravec's Chopin from 2000

Seconded, whether you're referring to the Prague recital (mostly non-Chopin) on Hänssler or his 2002 studio disc on Vox.

[Sergeant Rock]

I have enough Mahler, I am afraid, so I have to wait for more interesting repertoire. Which of his Mahler would you particularly recommend?

I have more than enough Mahler too but Honeck's Mahler is something special, 1 and 4 particularly (1 was a blind comparison finalist).

Sarge

[Todd]

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

Beethoven piano sonatas - I'll second Lucchesini and FFG, and add Takacs and Kikuchi
Mozart piano concertos - Zacharias on MDG, Anderszewski
Mahler symphonies - I'll third Honeck, Hengelbrock's 1st

[Brian]

Seconded, whether you're referring to the Prague recital (mostly non-Chopin) on Hänssler or his 2002 studio disc on Vox.

Oh, thanks, I didn't look at the date on the Vox disc but that was what I meant.

[Ken B]

Seconded, whether you're referring to the Prague recital (mostly non-Chopin) on Hänssler or his 2002 studio disc on Vox.

Vox was still recording in 2002?

[Pat B]

Vox was still recording in 2002?

[asin]B00009PY4F[/asin]

Off-hand, I can't think of any others.

I also don't know if the 2002 Vox had anything to do with the old Vox other than owning their rights, but that's true of a lot of labels these days.

[Cosi bel do]

I think I'd go with the 60s :
- stereo became the true standard and accessible to everyone, with the whole repertoire needing to be recorded again !
- the golden age of the most glorious sounding recordings by Karajan/Berliner, Bernstein/NYP, Szell/Cleveland...
- thanks to LPs, the most exciting period for recorded operas, again everything was a premiere back then...
- the big recording debut of most HIP pioneers (after the first, primitive recordings made by Vanguard in the 50s) : Das Alte Werk was launched in 1958 and Wolf Erichson then created Seon in 1969 : THIS is the golden age of the baroque revival !

Of course, to access all that you would have needed to be quite wealthy, or a critic...

[NorthNYMark]

I love many recent recordings, but if forced to choose just one decade of recorded performances, it would probably be the '60s, at least regarding the standard repertoire, for that combination of classic performances and warm, tubey, golden-age sonics already mentioned by others.  Actually, if we could shift the decade to 1958 to 1968, that would probably be my first choice, as the later '60s started bringing in a colder, more solid state recording aesthetic (though I would hate to lose those interesting Boulez performances of the modernist repertoire from that period).

[Jay F]

I don't have a favorite decade, per se. I didn't start listening to classical music until 1986, when CD exploded. I wasn't really paying attention to when things had originally been recorded. Everything I bought in that decade is "'80s music" to me. Probably 75% of my existing collection (700ish CDs) was bought between '86 and '92.

[Ken B]

I think I'd go with the 60s :
- stereo became the true standard and accessible to everyone, with the whole repertoire needing to be recorded again !
- the golden age of the most glorious sounding recordings by Karajan/Berliner, Bernstein/NYP, Szell/Cleveland...
- thanks to LPs, the most exciting period for recorded operas, again everything was a premiere back then...
- the big recording debut of most HIP pioneers (after the first, primitive recordings made by Vanguard in the 50s) : Das Alte Werk was launched in 1958 and Wolf Erichson then created Seon in 1969 : THIS is the golden age of the baroque revival !

Of course, to access all that you would have needed to be quite wealthy, or a critic...

Or classical music director of a radio station, as I was for two stations in the late 70s. So I got to listen to vastly more music than most people did back then.

[amw]

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

Depends on who you ask. From running down the most recent releases at Presto Classical (I have not heard most of these recordings but they do seem to come with various glowing reviews from different sources), some notable post-2000 recordings have included
- Beethoven sonatas: in addition to the already-named Lucchesini, Brautigam, Guy, Takacs, Crawford and Lubimov, also on the map are András Schiff, Paul Lewis, Richard Goode, Igor Levit, Michael Korstick, Angela Hewitt, Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, Steven Osborne, Garrick Ohlsson, Andreas Haefliger, Dina Ugorskaja, etc, etc. I'm more likely to ascribe a strong preference for the 20th century in Beethoven sonatas to sentiment, but that's not completely true (must be said that most of my favourites predate 2000 as well—I'm not immune).
- Mozart concertos: Viviana Sofronitsky, Christian Zacharias (MDG), Brautigam (again), Hewitt (again), Vassily Primakov, Alexandre Tharaud, Martha Argerich, Kristian Bezuidenhout... probably more I don't know about.
- Brahms symphonies: Riccardo Chailly & the Gewandhausorchester, Vladimir Jurowski & the LPO, Andrew Manze & the Helsingborg, Marek Janowski & the Pittsburgh, Christoph von Dohnányi & the Philharmonia, Bernard Haitink & the LSO, John Eliot Gardiner & the ORR, Thomas Dausgaard & the SCO, Christian Thielemann & the Staatskapelle, and more.
- Bruckner symphonies: Mario Venzago & various orchestras, Jaap van Zweden & Netherlands Radio Phil, Dennis Russell Davies & the Bruckner-Orchester Linz, Yannick Nezet-Séguin and the Orchestre Metropolitain, Simone Young & the Hamburgers, Marek Janowski & the OSR and so forth
- Mahler symphonies: Valery Gergiev & the LSO, David Zinman & the Tonhalle, Iván Fischer & the Budapest, Mariss Jansons & the Concertgebouw, Jonathan Nott & the Bamberg, Claudio Abbado & the Lucerne Festival, Gustavo Dudamel & whoever, Paavo Järvi & the Frankfurters, etc. I think someone estimated the number of Mahler cycles on record at 400. Or maybe that's an underestimate. And I'm guessing a quarter of those, at least, have been released in the last 15 years. You're bound to find something you like.

[Daverz]

don't like old recordings

The wedding is OFF!   

[bogdan101]

30's for quality, 60's for quantity.

[Mirror Image]

   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

Great minds...