Recommend three recordings from your own collection

[Mark]

These don't have to be from a specific genre or musical period, or even be your own top three personal favourites. Just discs that you love enough to want to encourage others here to explore. You don't have to give reasons, but if you want to champion your three choices, by all means do so.

Here are my three:

[Bogey]

Cool idea for a thread mark.  Three that are probably not on everyone's "A" list, but have quickly become favorites of mine soon after their purchases:

[BachQ]

How does this differ from "Recommend three recordings" ?

Put differently, have you ever recommended a recording that is not already part of your own collection?

[Maciek]

The other two are already in my wish list. This one I was holding for a while in my (virtual) hands while browsing in one of the internet stores earlier today. Maybe I should go back.

[Tancata]

1) Bach - St Matthew Passion / Paul McCreesh/ Archiv

knight has talked very eloquently about this recording before. It's OVPP, two "choirs" of four singers, with Mark Padmore a stunning evangelist. For me, it was the one that made me stop looking for other interpretations of this wonderful music - although a good choral version is nice on occasion (maybe Herreweghe). A brave and landmark recording.

2) Purcell - Dido and Aeneas / Emmanuelle Haim / Virgin

A fresh, colourful and lively interpretation, with a richer, more populated continuo than is usual in HIP productions. This was one of those recordings that I couldn't stop listening to when I first got it - literally, for about a week. Significantly better than the other recordings I have heard (a HIP Jacobs one, and an old Janet Baker one), emphasizing the dance elements of the opera via some inventive "improvised" jams (the sort of improvisation that was carefully written down first). Susan Graham is very good as Dido, and slimy, quavering Ian Bostridge was born to sing Aeneas  .

3) Handel - Messiah / Dunedin Consort / Linn Records

In some ways, this is a very uninspired choice since I'm sure most people are sick to death of this music. However, this recording will give you a quite different and much more compelling Messiah than the bloated warhorse you get each Christmas. 12 singers for the choruses, from which the remarkable soloists - rich-voiced but not showy - are drawn. A lean HIP band to bring out the true character of the music. Also, it's based on the first version (Dublin) so there are some differences in the score, including an aria you don't get elsewhere and some arias sung in different registers.

[Bonehelm]

1. Yundi Li: Chopin Scherzi and Impromtus

Absolutely beautiful playing. Tone is incredibly rich and strong and crisp and clean and refined and....ok you get the idea. Phrasing is elastic and emotional...with excellent tempi/dynamics control. There's just this thing about Yundi's phrasing in long passages...it sounds so clean, connected but never rushed or broken.  Just the way it's supposed to be played. Highlight: The scherzo no.2. Couple members on GMG have claimed that this version of the piece is the best they've ever heard. The power and majesty of the Steinway pianos are really brought out and sent into audience's heart.

2. Karajan: 1963 LvB Symphonien cycle 1-9

This box set is so......wait..what? Why do I have to explain this recording? 

3. Abbado: 2003 Mahler "Resurrection" symphony with LFO

Abbado is an outstanding Mahler conductor and of course he has great control over a huge orchestra. Especially this one...the Lucerne Festival Orchestra comprises of all hand-picked musicians from the major European orchestras, such as BPO, VPO etc. This is a top-notch performance...love the organ too, but the majestic chorus in the finale movement is absolutely the highest point of the entire recording. Just watch/hear how Abbado does it! After listening to it on my PC I almost forgot I was not at the live concert, clapping and giving a standing ovation in awe.

[not edward]

Three "flying under the radar" recordings in my collection:



Zender may be about the most underrated Mahler conductor, and the 7th symphony (a composer-conductor's symphony if ever there was) suits him perfectly in its shadows and sunlight. The orchestra isn't the equal of the great world orchestras, but plays the whole work with the sense of wonder that is essential for it to make sense.



Probably most Beethoven-lovers will throw up their hands, aghast, when I mention my veneration of this "young man's Hammerklavier". It's one of those recordings I can't quite explain why I like it so: somehow Guy's view of the last two movements seems to click with me. (I really don't think much of the coupled op. 109, though.)



I guess offering Aimard in Ligeti is the obvious thing to do, yet there's something about the sheer elan of Frederik Ullen's performances that makes me, if anything, prefer him over the French pianist in the first two books of etudes. Honours are more even in the rest of the performances, though Ullen also offers some previously unrecorded stuff as a bonus.

[FideLeo]

1) Bach - St Matthew Passion / Paul McCreesh/ Archiv

knight has talked very eloquently about this recording before. It's OVPP, two "choirs" of four singers, with Mark Padmore a stunning evangelist. For me, it was the one that made me stop looking for other interpretations of this wonderful music - although a good choral version is nice on occasion (maybe Herreweghe). A brave and landmark recording.

Not to mention a truly loud organ continuo in most rectitative sections - a church organ has been used instead of a chamber one.  This has also been the most operatic version of this music I have heard - the "choral" parts remind me of those few in Rene Jacobs' Handel Giulio Cesare.  Not that I think there is anything wrong with that; indeed I think most modern "choir" versions of SMP probably sound more "religious" than how Bach would have performed in the age of High Baroque.  Imagine a performance that was criticised for being "too operatic" by those in Leipzig who obviously had heard Italian operas elsewhere (i.e. first hand in Dresden or Hamburg).

3) Handel - Messiah / Dunedin Consort / Linn Records

In some ways, this is a very uninspired choice since I'm sure most people are sick to death of this music. However, this recording will give you a quite different and much more compelling Messiah than the bloated warhorse you get each Christmas. 12 singers for the choruses, from which the remarkable soloists - rich-voiced but not showy - are drawn. A lean HIP band to bring out the true character of the music. Also, it's based on the first version (Dublin) so there are some differences in the score, including an aria you don't get elsewhere and some arias sung in different registers.

I find the solo contributions refreshing because they sound excited with the music, indeed most names are new to me and none has a star status like Andreas Scholl or Anne-Sofie Otter.  Often this translates into less than very polished or refined singing (I have read some very negative reviews which attacked this) but makes most musical sense considering that Handel tried to keep his Dublin performances modest by hiring local voices and choir.  So Butt's interpretative choices seem suitably modest to me, without any compromise in the "virtuous" department also, to quote some contemporary criteria for characterisation. 

[George]

Annie Fischer - Beethoven, The Sonatas

Barenboim - Beethoven, The Symphonies

Vegh Qt (stereo) - Beethoven, The String Quartets

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Probably most Beethoven-lovers will throw up their hands, aghast, when I mention my veneration of this "young man's Hammerklavier". It's one of those recordings I can't quite explain why I like it so: somehow Guy's view of the last two movements seems to click with me. (I really don't think much of the coupled op. 109, though.)

I think that's a fabulous choice, Edward!

Guy is a superb talent! As far as his Beethoven I haven't yet dipped into his solo sonatas but his complete cello sonatas w/ Gastinel is top tier.


In keeping with the Guy theme, my three...


Brahms cello sonatas:




Prokofiev 6th and 8th piano sonatas:




Beethoven cello sonatas:

[Bogey]

Vegh Qt (stereo) - Beethoven, The String Quartets

Great call!

[George]

Great call!

0:)

[Florestan]

All of the above are superb renditions, both in performance and recording, of extraordinary beautiful music.

And a bonus in the same league:

[Harry]

These three!

[Harry]

One more as ordered by Mark.

[Bunny]

Three "flying under the radar" recordings in my collection:



Zender may be about the most underrated Mahler conductor, and the 7th symphony (a composer-conductor's symphony if ever there was) suits him perfectly in its shadows and sunlight. The orchestra isn't the equal of the great world orchestras, but plays the whole work with the sense of wonder that is essential for it to make sense.

I have all three of Zender's Mahler recordings.  The 7th is the best of the lot, but the 6th and 9th are far from negligable.  His 6th is not as emotional or dramatic as I like, it's a very cool look, almost a bird's eye view of the symphony or Mahler in a fugue state.  The 9th, however, is excellent.  It also is less dramatic and heart wrenching than say, karel Ancerl's wonderful recording but it works wonderfully as a poetic death song.  It's more of a heart breaker.

[val]

BEETHOVEN: the 32 piano Sonatas by Friedrich Gulda

SCHUBERT: 2nd piano Trio; Fantasia for violin, by Adolf and Hermann Busch, Serkin

WAGNER: Parsifal, by Mödl, Windgassen, Weber and Knappertsbusch

[Bunny]

Mahler's 6th - Eiji Oué & the Osaka PO (Fontec)
Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro -- Rene Jacobs et al.
Balaguera - La Votz Deus Anjos --  Music of the Gasconne Pyrenees. 

[marvinbrown]

  What? hardly any romantic era opera recordings aside from Val's Parsifal???  Let me see if I can fix this situation:

  While many debate what is meant by definitive (quintessential, absolutely perfect) recording or if there is such a thing, the following candidate clearly fits the bill (definitive). This recording has the ideal cast, the ideal conductor, the ideal everything......hard to find fault with this one:

 

  My other two would be:

  Verdi -Aida (Karajan, Renata Tibaldi)

  Puccini- Tosca (again Karajan and Leontyne Price) 

  marvin
 

[M forever]

You don't have to give reasons

Which makes sense, because you apparently had no reason to start this thread. Bored?