Your Favourite Purchases & Musical Discoveries of 2023

[DavidW]

Let it begin!

[DavidW]

For me:

Best purchase: the complete Prazak collection, it turns out that they have the Midas touch with most of what they record, and not just their Beethoven.


Best streaming: slow roll out of the Hyperion catalog tops it for me. 


Best discovery: Weinberg

[foxandpeng]

Best streaming: slow roll out of the Hyperion catalog tops it for me.


Best discovery: Weinberg

I could mostly sign up to the changes at Hyperion as being pretty huge, but I would probably go with Myaskovsky as this year's discovery. My Spotify EOY certainly suggests that I've listened more to him than anyone. If not Myaskovsky, Simpson's SQs have finally meaningfully hit my radar.

[steve ridgway]

The bargain download Boulez box from Supraphonline, most of which was new to me (and I haven't even got half way through yet) .

[Daverz]

All of these were streamed, mostly from Qobuz.  A few things here are from late 2022.

Weill: Symphonies - Gruber

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 - Payare

Bacewicz Symphonic music on CPO (2 volumes so far) and Chandos.

Lutoslawski orchestra works - Collon on Ondine

Kodaly: Harry Janos Suite & Symphony - Falletta on Naxos

Rautavaara & Martinu: Third piano concertos

Robert Kahn: Piano Trio No. 4 (Chamber music - Hohenstaufen Ensemble)

Arthur Lourie: Funeral Games in Honor of Chronos for three flutes, piano, and cymbals (Chamber and instrumental music vol. 1 on Toccata Classics)

Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 - Dmitri Liss

Compositrices on Bru Zane

Farrenc: Symphonies - Equilby

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 - Cleveland Orchestra, Welser-Most

Loewe: Symphonies on CPO

Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony.  It was a good year for Dawson's symphony.

There were tons of interesting reissue boxes this year.  I'll just show some of the individual discs I've been able to get to so far.

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 4 (revision) from the Ormandy stereo box, 1958-1963

Haydn: Complete String Quartets - Dekany and Fine Arts Quartets on Vox.

 
Ancerl recordings on Philips & DG.  You probably don't need this if you have the previous Eloquence issue of the Philips recordings (the Vienna Symphony stuff) and the individual DG issues (Dvorak Requiem and Shostakovich Symphony No. 10).  I do like some of the VSO stuff, like the lovely Nutcracker excerpts.

Sony Chavez box.  This one was a very pleasant surprise. The most interesting discs are the Violin Concerto with Szeryng and the Symphonies in very good performances and stereo sound.

William Steinberg & the Pittsburgh Symphony: Command Classics recordings on DG

[71 dB]

This year I bought two boxes of J.S.Bach recommended by David Hurwitz: The 15 CD Paillard box on Erato and the 5 CD Passion Herreweghe box on Harmonia Mundi. The only other classical music CD purchase was the Haydn Sturm und Drang Symphony CD (Nos. 44, 45 & 49) on Naxos.

I didn't "discover" much anything this year in respect of classical music. My main focus has been elsewhere: Tangerine Dream, New Age and Sunshine Pop of late 60's/early 70's. On that front Mama Cass Elliot and The Carpenters have been major discoveries. 

That said, 2023 helped me to get mentally in a better place after several dark years and I have been able to enjoy all kind of music including classical music. Instead of exploring new classical music I have revisited my classical music CD collection and listened to CDs I haven't played for years! I think I have enough classical music. If anything, upgrading to better recordings is what interests me. That's why I have started watching David Hurwitz's Youtube videos. He seems to give good boxset recommendations.

[Florestan]

OTOMH

 

[ritter]

2023 was for me the year of the (long overdue) discovery of some 20th century Spanish composers, main among them:

Julián Orbón


The mixing by Orbón of the "new" with the "old" is very attractive to me. Very "Spanish" music, but with Coplandesque, "populist" influences (at least in his early works, which I find slightly less attractive) and with a"tropical" touch (Orbón settled in Cuba and be ame a prominent cultural figure on the island).

Fernando Remacha

A very interesting voice of the Spanish "silver age", the generation following Falla. His early music is quite fascinating. His work from after the Civil War is unfortunately much less interesting.

Conrado del Campo

Some excellent SQs, as are hard to find in the Spanish musical tradition. Am looking forward to getting the newly released CD with SQs 6 and 7bis, also released by the Juan March Foundation (but played by the Cuarteto Gerhard). Hat tip to @Todd .

As for reissues, a box I was really looking forward to, and that didn't disappoint: Robert Craft's complete Columbia recordings.

[Maestro267]

It largely seems to have been a chamber music year for me. The big highlights being Brahms' complete chamber music (12CD) and Dvorak's almost-complete chamber music (18CD total, in two boxes), all on Brilliant.

As far as orchestral works go, the complete symphonies of William Schuman and Isang Yun, along with the completion of my Vagn Holmboe cycle and the rest of the Peter Maxwell Davies symphonies that Naxos reissued about a decade ago.

[vers la flamme]

I got really into Allan Pettersson this year, especially the Christian Lindberg/Norrköping SO recordings.

[DavidW]

@Daverz most of these I missed even on the curated Qobuz/Idagio pages (really all except the Martinu/Rautavaara PCs).  I will be checking some of these recordings out!

[Todd]

2023 was a banner year for quality purchases: I had a 100% hit rate.  Credit goes to streaming of course.  Of the titles I spent money on, the best of the best, and the best of a comparatively small number of purchases are:

A purchase of the century:




Other most satisfactory purchases:

[Daverz]

@Daverz most of these I missed even on the curated Qobuz/Idagio pages (really all except the Martinu/Rautavaara PCs).  I will be checking some of these recordings out!

It's disappointing how much Qobuz leaves out on their "Discovery" pages.  If you relied on them to be apprised of interesting new releases, you'd miss out on a lot of great stuff, so scouring other sources is still necessary.

Another addition:

Most obscure Romantic symphonic "discoveries" go in one ear and out the other, but these works are a lot of fun.

[AnotherSpin]

I got really into Allan Pettersson this year, especially the Christian Lindberg/Norrköping SO recordings.

Great discovery for me too. I've been listening all Pettersson/Lindberg recordings, many for several times. 9th is an absolute favourite, but I like everything.

Only streaming, no need to purchase.

[vandermolen]

Definitely Thomas de Hartmann's Piano Concerto.
Also the new Chandos recording of Weinberg's 12th Symphony brought this work alive for me:

[vers la flamme]

Great discovery for me too. I've been listening all Pettersson/Lindberg recordings, many for several times. 9th is an absolute favourite, but I like everything.

Only streaming, no need to purchase.

The 9th is one I need to spend more time with.

[DavidW]

Great discovery for me too. I've been listening all Pettersson/Lindberg recordings, many for several times. 9th is an absolute favourite, but I like everything.

Only streaming, no need to purchase.

I initially disliked the 9th but by spending more time with it, it is now one of my favorites.

[AnotherSpin]

I initially disliked the 9th but by spending more time with it, it is now one of my favorites.

The fact that I highlighted No.9 doesn't mean I only like it. Almost all of Pettersson's symphonies are of great interest, and I think there will be more than one discovery waiting for me in the future.

[DavidW]

The fact that I highlighted No.9 doesn't mean I only like it.

I never said otherwise!

[prémont]

My favorite purchases of 2023 have been all Peter Waldner's keyboard recordings incl. his organ recordings.