Very, very specific moments in recordings that are the best

[grocklin]

Klemperer Missa Solemnis, mvt 4 Sanctus. Track 8. 2:36 Elizabeth Soderstrom "Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua". Amazing, no other recording comes through like this.

Annie Fischer Waldstein Sonata 1st mvt, 9:30-9:54. I listen to this climax almost right away in new sets and nobody does it as well as her. And the faster ones really lose a lot. (Yu Kosuge is pretty great here too).

Jacqueline du Pre Haydn Cello Concerto 1 3rd mvt, the climax 6:22-6:25. How's that for specific?

This stunning video of the (former) Rolston Quartet playing Haydn Op 77 #1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kKumCfHh-Y . To pick one moment, I'll pick the 1st violinist's added ornament at 18:54 in the 3rd movement, because I'd never heard that before!

Trumpet solo at 3:27-3:34 in Gergiev's 1991 Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, Track 19 Romeo's variation. OK you might hate this.

And for my worst moments in recordings I like:

Blomstedt's new recording of Beethoven's 9. 1st movement. Is something weird with the chord at at 1:28-1:29? Now I can't tell anymore but it's always sounded different to me than other recordings.

Rostropovich Bach Cello Suite 6 1st mvt, in the climax at 3:26 and 3:27 there are two short electronic tones in the background. And maybe a few softer tones a few seconds earlier. What the heck?

[Madiel]

That's like saying: I'm going to have the multiple fuck of my life and mark the timestamp of the best orgasm. 

(Sorry, gentlemen, couldn't resist.)

It's only like that if you caught the orgasm on video.

[Madiel]

And funny we should be talking about climaxes...

Rachmaninov, Etudes-Tableaux, op.39 number 1.

Ashkenazy ratchets up the tension for the big climax at 2:21 to 2:26 absolutely superbly. Though really the work starts back at 1:55, it's those 5 seconds where you absolutely know you're going to hit a crashing chord.

I'm not kidding. An orgasm is actually a pretty good analogy for what's going on. A very dramatic and loud one.

[staxomega]

I think I understand what Brian was going for. I've gone back to hear favorite moments from pieces, but this would not interrupt my listening to it on first play through. And I wouldn't take note of the exact timestamp for where it occurred but I'm sure I'd remember that moment I heard that performance again. One such recent example is a pianist playing the middle second of Chopin's Op. 37/1 that stopped me dead in my tracks as even one from my top three cycles was rather pedestrian in comparison; and that blind test is not shelved, just still working out logistics, hence not naming the pianist.

[amw]

The Cavatina of Beethoven's Op. 130 is basically a concert aria for solo violin and string trio, but performers rarely bring this out except for sometimes having the first violinist play a bit louder than the other three. One recording that completely averts this is the studio recording by the Belcea Quartet. They invariably play Op. 130 without the Grosse Fuge, and in this version, the Cavatina is the emotional and psychological core of the piece; and they want you to know it. Throughout the movement Corina Belcea (V1) and Axel Schacher (V2) make extra sure you can distinguish between them, through timbre and tone rather than volume (she is invariably breathy and vibrato-laden with slides between the notes, he sticks to conventional, beautiful "straight" violin tone).

It's a bit over the top, but then so are most concert arias, and it's the most effective performance of the movement I know of. The moment that always stands out to me is the second theme: https://youtu.be/G3loTkdzrnk?t=139. This gives a pretty good idea of what the entire cycle is like, but you also can't really listen to it every day.

[André]

- The entrance of the flute in the first movement of Brahms' second symphony with James Galway (Berliner Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado, DGG 1969 - NOT their later version). The coolest, most silvery flute tone I've ever heard there.

- The horn section of the Wiener Philharmoniker in the coda of Bruckner's 8th symphony under Karl Böhm (DGG). Practically all versions have the trombones and trumpets dominate the very full and complex textures here, but not the WP/Böhm. I own many versions of this work, including a few by the same conductor (Zurich, Cologne) and orchestra (Solti, Giulini, Karajan) and none achieve that perfect balance.

- The alto saxophone wailings in Hary Janos (Kodaly), the Battle against Napoleon movement with the RIAS Orchestra under Fricsay - the DGG stereo version, not the mono one. Here's what David Hurwitz wrote about this specific moment:

Fricsay finds characterful touches in the music that other versions only hint at–consider his hilarious spotlighting of the saxophone in the Battle and Defeat of Napleon. It's a conception that spoils you for any other; it really does. This performance (in stereo), Fricsay's last recording, is irreplaceable.

I don't agree with his reviews very often, but I'm 100% in agreement with this one, even if it's an engineering trick !

- The raging timpani at the start of Brahms' first PC with Gilels, Jochum and the BP (DGG again !!). It's not a question of decibels, more like a conception of what role the timpani part plays in the orchestral introduction. Jochum, the BP player and/or the engineers make it sound like a hurricane, a wall of sound that occupies the whole physical space. Quite different from many other recordings where the timps can be precisely located. They were clearly not afraid to overload the tape (it is slightly blurred in those first few seconds but, man ! Is it ever exciting: darkly tragic yet powerfully propulsive like no other.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Bruckner, Symphony #9, Walter/Columbia

First movement, about 23:20, in the coda. There's a sort of grace note in the low brass, which I've never heard in any other recording (not sure if it's even in the score). Possibly Walter added it himself. Less than a second, but it gives a powerful "pumping" effect, connecting the parts of the coda where there's usually a slight rest.

[relm1]

Bruckner, Symphony #9, Walter/Columbia

First movement, about 23:20, in the coda. There's a sort of grace note in the low brass, which I've never heard in any other recording (not sure if it's even in the score). Possibly Walter added it himself. Less than a second, but it gives a powerful "pumping" effect, connecting the parts of the coda where there's usually a slight rest.

It was a little hard for me to hear what you were talking about but you're right, there is a little hickup in the trombones right at 23:20.  It might also be that Walter used a different score since there are so many editions of Bruckner's symphonies.  For example, the trombones playing a 16th note before the downbeat at 23:13 is not in Novak but sounds great.  That 16th note is in the horns and here, they are NOT playing it.  So he might be using a different performance edition.  I was thinking it might be a mistake since the trombones are in unison and octaves, maybe one of them didn't hit the same rhythm as the other, but it really sounds deliberate. 

https://youtu.be/5FG1mvwxDf4?t=1380

[André]

It was a little hard for me to hear what you were talking about but you're right, there is a little hickup in the trombones right at 23:20.  It might also be that Walter used a different score since there are so many editions of Bruckner's symphonies.  For example, the trombones playing a 16th note before the downbeat at 23:13 is not in Novak but sounds great.  That 16th note is in the horns and here, they are NOT playing it.  So he might be using a different performance edition.  I was thinking it might be a mistake since the trombones are in unison and octaves, maybe one of them didn't hit the same rhythm as the other, but it really sounds deliberate. 

https://youtu.be/5FG1mvwxDf4?t=1380

Interesting point. Walter conducts the Orel version. ABruckner.com states that «  Critical edition by Orel (1932). Nowak (1951) just corrects some few very minor typographical errors in the Orel edition« . Could the 'trombones hiccup' in Walter's recording due to one such « minor typographical error » in his Orel score ?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

  For example, the trombones playing a 16th note before the downbeat at 23:13 is not in Novak but sounds great. 

Yeah, the effect I'm referring to is precisely at 23:12-13 of the video you posted. In all other recordings I've heard, there's a slight pause, like taking a breath before the final push. I prefer Walter's more propulsive approach.

[amw]

For example, the trombones playing a 16th note before the downbeat at 23:13 is not in Novak but sounds great.  That 16th note is in the horns and here, they are NOT playing it.

Those are the horns, just playing cuivré (air forced thru the instrument via lip pressure). You can hear the trombones in the background, and the timbral difference is more audible on the horns' sustained D4. I assume conductors usually just either choose not to highlight the horns there, or don't do a good enough job at keeping the other brass players in line. The stagger effect at 23:20 is the moment when the horns and bass trombone are supposed to play the 16th pickup in unison, and is potentially an accident, or potentially an interpretive choice to make clear that the bass trombone's pickup is the end of its statement of the rhythmic motif and the horns' pickup is the beginning of theirs.



The bass trombone does double the horns in the Löwe edition but the orchestration is also very different and you'd know immediately if Walter was playing that one:

[bluto32]

This moment springs to mind:

Bruckner 8, NDR/Wand, 1987 in Lubeck Cathedral
1st movement, the build-up at 14:13 - 14:20 just before the "doom" music.
The harmony of the Wagner tubas can be clearly heard in this recording, and the cathedral acoustics send shivers down my spine.
https://youtu.be/tw9HnXIV_V8?t=844

[geralmar]

I wish I weren't musically illiterate so that I have to explain the moment viscerally; but there is a passage beginning at 7:35 in "5a. Im Tempo des Scherzos" in the Zubin Mehta/Vienna Philharmonic recording of Mahler's second symphony (YouTube) that I always "see" as as a single blinding ray of sunlight piercing roiling black storm clouds.