The Greatest Recording Ever Made: 6th Poll

Started by SurprisedByBeauty, May 04, 2018, 11:47:10 PM

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Which of these recordings would you consider a potentially a candidate for "The Greatest Recording Ever Made"?

Bach Goldberg Variations, Glenn Gould, Columbia
Beethoven, Violin Concerto, Kreisler/Blech EMI
Brahms Piano Concertos, Gilels/Jochum, DG
Mozart, Don Giovanni, Giulini, EMI
Buxtehude complete organ works, Harald Vogel, MDG
Ravel, Daphnis & Chloe, Monteux, Decca
Schoenberg: Pierre Boulez, Gurrelieder, Columbia
Hummel/Piano Concertos 2&3 Hough, Chandos
Bach, Mass in B Minor, Gardiner, Archiv
Mozart, Requiem, Boehm, DG
DSCH, Sy.5, Bernstein (Tokyo), Sony
Rachmaninov Vespers, Sweschnikow (EuroDisc)

SurprisedByBeauty

I'm taking recordings from a variety of composers off the "Nomination" list and let them get at each other to see which ones you might think could be considered having TGREM-status.
Some records with inconclusive voting records may re-appear.

You have three votes.  But you need not use all three, if you think that there aren't three to merit inclusion.

Thanks for participating in this (perhaps silly) game. ("Research study", I like to call it.)

Draško

Kreisler and Sveshnikov for me from this lot.

btw, why use German transcription and licence release? Sveshnikov (Melodiya) seems more logical. 

Mandryka

i think most people agree that the Gould is not only the greatest recording in the list, but also the most iconic classical music recording ever made.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Draško on May 05, 2018, 02:30:39 AM
Kreisler and Sveshnikov for me from this lot.

btw, why use German transcription and licensed release? Sveshnikov (Melodiya) seems more logical.

you'll have to ask the person who nominated it; I didn't, in this case, change anything -- since I'm not familiar with the recording.



Quote from: Mandryka on May 05, 2018, 04:55:44 AM
i think most people agree that the Gould is not only the greatest recording in the list, but also the most iconic classical music recording ever made.

I think you are probably right. But this exercise is precisely done in order to put such assumptions to the test.

Marc

Quote from: Draško on May 05, 2018, 02:30:39 AM
Kreisler and Sveshnikov for me from this lot.

btw, why use German transcription and licence release? Sveshnikov (Melodiya) seems more logical.

I nominated it, and your suggestion is fine by me.
Of course, the vinyl release was by Melodiya, but, IIRC, EuroDisc was the 'winner' of the compact disc race. I'm not 100% sure of that, though.

Let's change it into: Melodiya/EuroDisc. ;)

Mandryka

#5
Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on May 05, 2018, 07:23:02 AM



I think you are probably right. But this exercise is precisely done in order to put such assumptions to the test.

I don't see that it's questionable. I mean I know that some people don't like the performance, but that seems neither here nor there given the sheer weight of acclaim. I mean, I think Jens's idea of greatness is half baked, the only element of it which I can make sense of is acclaim.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Mandryka on May 05, 2018, 09:18:11 AM
I don't see that it's questionable. I mean I know that some people don't like the performance, but that seems neither here nor there given the sheer weight of acclaim. I mean, I think Jens's idea of greatness is half baked, the only element of it which I can make sense of is acclaim.

I think the reason you can't make sense of my idea of greatness, or deem it half-baked, is that I don't wish to propose whatever MY idea of greatness is... I wish to get at the heart of what greatness in this rather narrow context means. And to whom. And why. And if consensus can be found, all the same.

SurprisedByBeauty

Meanwhile, while facing stiff competition of course, I'm surprised how Giulini's Don Giovanni is not faring very well. Not sure it's more surprising or less than Toscanini's NYP LvB 7th finding no response in the Fourth Poll (another notable victim after Casalas' Bach?). Perhaps Giulini was never really so much great as simply a STAPLE when nothing much better was around? And at the right time, in good sound and stereo...

Marc

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on May 06, 2018, 11:01:44 AM
Meanwhile, while facing stiff competition of course, I'm surprised how Giulini's Don Giovanni is not faring very well. Not sure it's more surprising or less than Toscanini's NYP LvB 7th finding no response in the Fourth Poll (another notable victim after Casalas' Bach?). Perhaps Giulini was never really so much great as simply a STAPLE when nothing much better was around? And at the right time, in good sound and stereo...

It's a great recording, and I truly love it, but, in most cases, many recordings from the past are utterly hyped.

Gould's Goldbergs is a MUST-HAVE.
No, it isn't.

Casal's Cello Suites is a MUST-HAVE.
No, it isn't.

Giulini's Don Gio is a MUST-HAVE.
No, it isn't.

Unless... one is interested in the development of performance from the early 20th century on (when the 'recorded area' somehow began).
But if Gould, Casals or Giulini are not one's personal taste, then they are most certainly not a MUST-HAVE.

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Marc on May 07, 2018, 11:37:19 PM
It's a great recording, and I truly love it, but, in most cases, many recordings from the past are utterly hyped.

Gould's Goldbergs is a MUST-HAVE.
No, it isn't.

Casal's Cello Suites is a MUST-HAVE.
No, it isn't.

Giulini's Don Gio is a MUST-HAVE.
No, it isn't.

Unless... one is interested in the development of performance from the early 20th century on (when the 'recorded area' somehow began).
But if Gould, Casals or Giulini are not one's personal taste, then they are most certainly not a MUST-HAVE.

I agree. The embarrassment of riches and all the choices we have, by now, have made "must have" a much more malleable concept. Anyone could be happy with a number of recordings, even if they were the only ones of that repertoire... and they wouldn't have to be a specific one but any one of ten, five, twenty. Although sometimes interpretations attain iconic status in and of themselves -- not Giulini, for simply delivering the best-available-at-the-time, probably... but Gould certainly. He's become a cultural marker... a point of reference. Perhaps also an aspect in determining TGREM status.

Marc

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on May 08, 2018, 12:05:19 AM
I agree. The embarrassment of riches and all the choices we have, by now, have made "must have" a much more malleable concept. Anyone could be happy with a number of recordings, even if they were the only ones of that repertoire... and they wouldn't have to be a specific one but any one of ten, five, twenty. Although sometimes interpretations attain iconic status in and of themselves -- not Giulini, for simply delivering the best-available-at-the-time, probably... but Gould certainly. He's become a cultural marker... a point of reference. Perhaps also an aspect in determining TGREM status.

Yes, Gould's recording has been made iconic, and his person(ality) has been made iconic, too, no doubt about that. I wouldn't be surprised if many listeners even thought/think that Gould actually composed the Goldbergs himself.

Nevertheless if you would ask other people which recording of the early 1950s truly deserved the 'iconic' status, then probably a lot would mention Leonhardt's recording for Vanguard. But, as they say, that's all personal.

aukhawk

Music lovers do seem to get a bit over-enthusiastic, with 'great' being a particularly over-used word.
Whether it is the music itself, or the performance, or the recording/production, or any combination of those - so many times the word 'great' is used when we really mean 'very good'.

ComposerOfAvantGarde

There are heaps of recordings which I think are great, and many that put me in a great mood. It's always great to listen to what we like, but it's also great to listen to things we don't know based on recommendations of what other people have a great time listening to.


I have only discovered that 'great' is such a weird word. Where else does 'ea' make an 'ay' sound in the English we use today?

Mandryka

Quote from: jessop on May 08, 2018, 03:51:34 PM
There are heaps of recordings which I think are great, and many that put me in a great mood. It's always great to listen to what we like, but it's also great to listen to things we don't know based on recommendations of what other people have a great time listening to.


I have only discovered that 'great' is such a weird word. Where else does 'ea' make an 'ay' sound in the English we use today?

Yea! I'm going to eat a great steak. Hope it doesn't break my teeth.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Mandryka on May 08, 2018, 08:38:59 PM
QuoteAlthough sometimes interpretations attain iconic status in and of themselves...
Can you spell out what you mean by this?

I fear I'll just be opening another can of worms that you mightn't like.

What I meant, I suppose, is the distinction between an interpretation per se, rather than "a" (particularly good) recording of a specific piece of music becoming famous.

I.e. Gould's GVs is very distinctly an interpretation and has become or at least stayed famous because of it. Few would say it's the "best" GVs. But it's certainly iconic.
Other recordings may have attained their status by making us think of it as the "best" recording (then available) of a particular work.
There was a whole media-industry at work in establishing Toscanini as such a conductor... who didn't so much interpret (as the old-fashioned other Europeans would, at the time), but who unearthed the true genius of Beethoven. Who got rid of interpretation in favor of truth. Now we know that a lot of that was nonsense, be it Sam Chotzinoff's making or Toscanini's fanboys in the press, but there still is that strain left in classical music: The hunt for the most authentic, the truest, the 'best' realization of a particular composition.
None of that can be said about Gould's GVs; where a particularly personal interpretation is so much part of it. Or Furtwaengler's recordings, I suppose. Or anything Cortot recorded. Or Tzimon Barto or Pogorelich.