List of great period instrument recordings

[calyptorhynchus]

Does anyone have a list of great period instrument recordings of classical or early Romantic works?

[Gurn Blanston]

https://www.wissensdrang.com/picds1.htm

Here is a list of every period instrument recording ever made.  It was updated on July 1st and will be regularly.  It's ordered by composer name alphabetically arranged,  so the Romantics are in there.  Enjoy it, I sure have!     

[Todd]

Here is a list of every period instrument recording ever made.

Really?  I do not see even one entry for Cristóbal de Morales or El Canto de la Sibila, and those are the first two things I looked for.

[Jo498]

Does anyone have a list of great period instrument recordings of classical or early Romantic works?

We have at least two threads for early romantic and Beethoven on period instruments, and probably also for classical. Otherwise you'd have to look through Mozart and Haydn threads...
But it's obviously a huge field, maybe you could narrow it down to  some composers, sets of works you are particularly interested in?

[classicalgeek]

The Beethoven Symphonies with Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and John Eliot Gardiner have long been my preferred version of those works.

[Gurn Blanston]

Really?  I do not see even one entry for Cristóbal de Morales or El Canto de la Sibila, and those are the first two things I looked for.

I've been using it for 15 years or so,  even though he updates it regularly, as recently as last week in fact,  the sheer volume of recordings has apparently overwhelmed him.  I've found a couple hundred cds in that list that I never heard of anywhere else.  Including 2 just this morning!  👌 if some aren't there now,  they will be unless he dies first.   

🤠😎

[Jo498]

I am not entirely convinced the original instruments are necessary or a bonus for early 19th century music, but for Haydn and Mozart I usually try to have recordings both on modern and "original" instruments.
In particular, I often don't like the sound of period fortepianos very much (I usually like the sound of historic brass/woodwind despite some roughness).

Some recordings I'd recommend:

CPE Bach
6 harpsichord concertos with Staier, BIS has all the solo keyboard and all the concertos which is too much for me, but the ones I have heard seem good, worth trying. Also the two or three mixed discs with symphonies and concerti with Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin

Haydn
keyboard sonatas: Schornsheim (complete), Staier (selection), Hill (1 disc w/ harpsichord),
piano trios: Trio 1790 (cpo, both as box and single volumes), Van Swieten Trio (Brilliant), Cohen/Höbarth/Coin (harmonia mundi)
symphonies: all recorded by Harnoncourt/Concentus Musicus (about 4 discs on Teldec and the Paris set on harmonia mundi), Sturm & Drang set with Pinnock, London and Paris sets with Brüggen (also Sturm and Drang but maybe not as priority), all you can find with Solomons/L'estro armonico (small ensemble, only a few on CD), 91+92 w/ Jacobs
String quartets: opp. 9, 17, 50 with Festetics (they recorded all from op.9 up), opp.20, 64, 76, 77 with Mosaiques (I prefer them to Festetics if there is a choice), op.33 with Apponyi Qt., 3 anthology discs with Schuppanzigh qt.

I'll skip the vocal music as it's been too long, I listened to any of it with real attention.

Boccherini
2 discs with quintets (string, also guitar) with Europa galante

Mozart
I'll skip the solo keyboard
piano concertos: the handful recorded by Staier/Koeln, Bilson/Gardiner (cplte)
violin concertos + sinf concertante: Zehetmair/Brüggen
horn concertos: Baumann/Harnoncourt
clarinet/oboe concertos: Pay/Piquet/Hogwood or the disc with Harnoncourt (incl. Flute/harp)
Early symphonies: Harnoncourt, also all the serenades he recorded (not all and not all on old instruments)
wind serenades: Zefiro (Astrée)
symph 39-41 Immerseel, 40+41 Minkowski
violin sonatas: Podger/Cooper
string trio: Archibudelli
string quintets: Hausmusik (last 4)
clarinet quintet: Meyer/Mosaiques or Neidich/Archibudelli
piano quartets: Van Oort etc. Brilliant/Columns

Don Giovanni: Gardiner
Cosi: Jacobs
Abduction: Harnoncourt (but it's been ages I listened to these opera recordings)

Sacred music: Harnoncourt or Neumann


Kraus
Symphonies: Concerto Koeln (capriccio)

Also Concerto Koeln's diverse classical symphonies by Rosetti, Vanhal etc.


Beethoven
piano sonatas, probably Brautigam (I have 5 discs or so but usually prefer to listen to modern piano)
cello sonatas: Karttunen/Hakkila (Finlandia/Apex, three cheapo discs)
Trios: Castle trio (it's complete but op.70 will be hard to find as only on Smithsonian Institute CD, the remainder is on two Virgin twofers, one with a Schubert coupling)
quartets op.18 Turner quartet (probably impossible to find) Smithsonian quartet
string trios: Archibudelli
septet + string quintet: Hausmusik
violin concerto: Zehetmair/Brüggen
symphonies: take your pick, many to choose from by now
Missa solemnis: Gardiner/Archiv

Weber
Clarinet quintet + other and clarinet+piano pieces with Neidich (Sony vivarte)

Schubert (usually prefer modern instruments, therefore skip piano sonatas etc. although I have a bunch of fortepiano recordings)
Octet: Archibudelli/Mozzafiato (my favorite, I prefer the colorful winds)
Rosamunde quartet D 804: Festetics or Mosaiques
string quintet: Archibudelli
trout quintet: Demus/Coll. Aureum or Immerseel, Bylsma etc (w/ Arpeggione on 'cello)
piano trios: La gaia scienza
symphonies 5+8 Spering (op.111), 8+9 Weil (Sony)
Winterreise, Müllerin, three or so more anthology discs (Schiller, Goethe, Mayrhofer): Pregardien/Staier (mostly harmonia mundi, one on Teldec?)
song anthology: Ameling/Demus (harmonia mundi)

Mendelssohn
Octet: Archibudelli
string symphonies: Concerto Köln

Schumann
Symphonies etc: Gardiner/Archiv

[LKB]

I don't actually know if this could be called a " great " recording, but it's the recording that enabled me to appreciate HIP in general:

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Magnificat-Jauchzet-allen-Landen/dp/B0000040W4/ref=asc_df_B0000040W4/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312116718918&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13422030401575283473&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031914&hvtargid=pla-528168171028&psc=1

[DavidW]

Does anyone have a list of great period instrument recordings of classical or early Romantic works?

I think that period style performances are big enough now that there is no concise list.  Mix that with some radically different approaches out there and there are really no representative recordings.

[calyptorhynchus]

Thanks for your input everyone. I prefer PI for classical and early Romantic works and have quite a few disks, but I just wanted to have picked people's brains for those occasions when I might think, 'time to see if there's a good PI of Mozart's Piano Trios', or whatever.

The site that Gurn provided is very interesting because I was looking through it and I thought: 'there must be more lute music than this!' But then I realised that PI means PI, so lute music played on a modern-built lute doesn't count (even though there isn't really such a thing as a modern lute!). (Does it count if you play a piece written in 1690 on a Baroque lute built in 1720?).

Definitions, definitions!

But thanks for the info everyone, it will aid in the depletion of my bank balance for years into the future.

[Jo498]

I don't know about lutes and of course many bowed string instruments are really old.
But almost all "original" wind instruments are modern copies of historical models and so are many/most keyboard instruments. That's what PI usually means, i.e. lute copies would be included.
And organs might be technically 300+ years old but they have often been overhauled, changed, or re-built or restituted to a more original condition, so they are also not unchanged.

[aukhawk]

I would cite the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique from Les Siècles conducted by François-Xavier Roth.  I much prefer this to the older but ground-breaking recording by Norrington.
In fact I really like everything I've heard from Les Siècles and Roth (some of it rather later in period though - their very fine recent 'period' Mahler 1 a case in point).