The complete WTC usually takes up four CD's. I have about 20 versions between piano and harpsichord but only the version by Ashkenazy takes up fewer than 4 CD's, which I found to be odd ...
Big time! I was also fortunate to see him perform live several times! Once got his autograph after a concert and he was a kind gentleman. His interpretation of the Brahms No. 1 is still my absolute favourite.
Wow, the one bundle is a great deal if you want the music, 10 SACDs for $20. Christmas selection box »
It's a no-brainer if you don't already have Haitink's Beethoven cycle with the LSO, in my opinion. Note the complete Sibelius and Nielsen boxes on SACD with a blu-ray audio in the box as well, on sale for GBP 12 & 20, respectively.
I'm not biting just because I don't need another Beethoven cycle, plus I'm not a fan of The Messiah or Berlioz. I already have the Nielsen and Sibelius cycles. It's interesting that they have the Sibelius in two versions. I haven't he downloads of the symphonies only. I might bite on the Mahler even though I have Nos. 1, 6 and 7 already. It would make a second unopened Mahler box though. I got the Geilson recently for $15.
A bit problematic for me, because generally I don't play "albums" much, and in fact I've quite deliberately organized my "server" in a way that breaks up couplings. (For those newly-joined insomniacs whom I haven't yet directed to my thoughts on the subject of couplings, here's reposting of a link to an article I wrote in part on that subject: File Not Found ») Moreover, works of less than 10 minutes' duration--and many, many of the choicest piano works fall into that category--on 78s were generally issued as singles, only occasionally being collected into albums late in the 78 era. So I tend to think more in terms of "favorite performance of such and such a piece" than "favorite album by so-and-so." That's knocked out a number of recordings that might otherwise be in the list below; for example, Earl Wild's Brahms recital disc on Ivory Classics might well be there if the question were "what are ten of your favorite piano performances," because that's the one that cracked open the third sonata for me. (What I like most about it, oddly enough, isn't the power and thunder and shock and awe, but the exquisite quiet that Wild conjures in the slow mvt.) Unfortunately, the hodgepodge of Ballades, Intermezzi, and such and the performance of the Paganini Vars. coupled with it are nice enough but don't do all that much for me, at least in comparison to others that I've heard. As an "album," then, disqualified, but it contains a favorite recording. And so, in no particular order, here's the best I can do. I don't necessarily think of these as favorite "albums," but in most cases they are recordings to which I'm most likely to turn when I want to hear a particular piece. Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition. Sviatoslav Richter (Columbia; the Sofia recital, LP). Ever since I first heard this amazing public performance, I've considered it the one to beat. No one I've heard ever has, although Awadagin Pratt managed to give it a good run for its money when I heard him at the Kennedy Center years ago. Alas, his recording is nowhere near as good. Reger: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Telemann. Maurizio Zanini (Nuova Era, CD). Zanini, I was alarmed to discover just now, is nearly as old as I am and seems to have shifted his focus to conducting. I guess I'll need to do some cognitive readjustment, as I think of hims as a "young pianist" because that's what he was, at least relatively, when he recorded this disc in 1995. It's billed as a "first world complete recording," or words to that effect; what that means, in practice, is that Zanini takes all the repeats, unlike Jorge Bolet, the only other pianist who was available on record for this work at the time. Even had Zanini taken the cuts, I'd still like him better (and I like him better than those I've heard since). He gives a sense of subtle internal structure to this mighty work that I've not heard from anyone else. Chopin: Piano Sonata no. 3 in B Minor, op. 58. Percy Grainger (Columbia, 78 RPM). I'll probably draw more than one squawk of protest saying this, but in my opinion Chopin's sonatas are not especially strong works, and of the three the best is not the popular no. 2 but rather no. 3. Grainger is the pianist who makes me forget all that--he did for me in this work what Wild did for the Brahms 3d sta., a similarly ugly duckling. Beethoven: Piano Sonata no. 17 in D Minor, op. 31 no. 2 ("Tempest"). Walter Gieseking (Columbia, 78 RPM). Love at first hearing--oh, I guess pushing 40 years ago now, and the torrid affair continues to this day. Never mind Gieseking cuts the last mvt. repeat for reasons of disk space, no one, to my ear, has ever so captured a perfect balance of beautiful tone, fiery intensity, and exquisite tenderness in this, perhaps my favorite of Beethoven's sonatas. Definitely on my "records I'd never want to be without" list. Beethoven: Piano Sonata no. 17 in D Minor, op. 31 no. 2 ("Tempest"), Andante Favori. Ernst von Dohnanyi (Remington, LP). This one figured in the first "blind comparison" thread at which I tried my hand several years ago, where if memory serves it proved somewhat controversial. It certainly is a very different conception from Gieseking's, reflecting instead an extremely 19th century view of the piece. For starters, you can throw any notions of steady tempos right out the window. Unlike most of the other records on this list, not one to which I return terribly often, but one that I greatly (if perversely) enjoy every time that I do, just for the alien nature of it. Chopin: Nocturnes through op. 32 no. 2. Peter Schmalfuss (ZYX, CD). I've had far more pleasure out of this cheap little disc than from lots of records that cost me many times as much. Schmalfuss, who was something of a Chopin specialist, had a knack for projecting the beauty Chopin wrote into these delicate pieces in very plainspoken performances. A sentimental favorite, too: back when my daughter was an infant, this disc was a frequent choice for background when I gave her her last bottle before bed. I only wish the bargain basement label had seen fit to release a second disc with the rest of the nocturnes; I can't imagine he didn't record them. Bach: Toccatas in C Minor, BWV 911, and D, BWV 912. Artur Schnabel (Victor, 78 RPM). Every time I'm out driving and hear current popular go-to Bach specialist Angela Hewitt playing one of these works courtesy of our local NPR FM affiliate, I want to rush home and put on Schnabel as a reminder that Bach on the piano need not be flat, dull, and dutiful. Schnabel didn't record much Bach, but on the evidence of this album of 10" records that's our great loss; he had just as much command in the Cantor's keyboard music as he did in that of Beethoven or Schubert or Mozart. Beethoven: Piano Sonatas no. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, op. 14 no. 2 ("Moonlight"), no. 21 in C op. 53 ("Waldstein"), and no. 26 in E-Flat op. 81a ("Les Adieux"). Guiomar Novaes (Vox, LP). I bought the record from our campus store, where I found it in one of those bargain bins of LPs that college bookstores used to set out, during my first week as a freshman in college. My compelling reason for buying that particular record: never heard of this pianist with the strange name (and who would in time come to be a favorite), but it was the sole record coupling the "Moonlight" and "Les Adieux" sonatas, and I wanted both. I still enjoy those accounts, but the "Waldstein" is the one that has kept this record at the front of my queue; the other two I don't play nearly as often as I once did. I find particularly exciting the way she builds up to the big climax in the third mvt. I eventually latched onto a CD reissue on the Allegretto label, but as I recall things it dried out the piano tone heard on LP, in my experience a common failing of early CDs drawn from analogue masters. For those who haven't read my thoughts about them already, I wrote a review of these last two and three similar issues on the same label for TNT-Audio, and you can see it here: [TNT-Audio Vintage column] On an Overgrown Pathé » Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy; Beethoven: Piano Sonata no. 29 in B-Flat, op. 106 ("Hammerklavier"), Variations WoO 71. Friedrich Wuhrer (Melo Classics, CD from previously unissued tapes made for b'cast in 1952 and 1954). I actually thought briefly of just listing the last ten Schubert sonatas, naming Wuhrer, and calling it a day. Instead, this excellent account of the Wanderer Fantasy can stand in for Wuhrer's Schubert generally. The Beethoven pieces find him on his best interpretive behavior, not always the case with that composer, and his account of the sonata's slow mvt. is particularly telling. For anyone interested, this disc is on sale for 25% off regular list at the company's Web site. Beethoven: Piano Sonatas no. 8 in C Minor, op. 13 ("Pathetique") and no. 24 in F-Sharp, op. 78; Mozart: Piano Sonata no. 12 in F, K. 332; Handel: Chaconne; Schubert: Impromptus 1, 2, 4 from D. 935; Bartok: Hungarian Peasant Songs. Annie Fischer (Melo Classics, CD from previously unissued tapes made for b'cast in 1957 and 1959). Too late for this one, I'm afraid; the Melo site shows it as sold out.
Fair enough. It's one of the top modern cycles though, in the opinion of myself and a fair number of others, and they include the Triple Concerto for the bargain. The Mahler is definitely a good deal as well - the 8th is really good and the others are solid, if not all first choices. It's a bit funny to contrast $30 for a analog recording on audiophile SACD compared to a box of 10 SACDs for less in modern recordings with a top orchestra.
I got the following CD box a few months ago and really enjoyed it. I do have a number of Weissenberg's recordings in my LP collection ...
First listen to "Gilles - Requiem" performed by La Chapelle Royale led by Philippe Herreweghe on Harmonia Mundi France. Featuring Agnes Mellon, Howard Crook, Herve Lamy and Peter Kooy
Does this CD collection sound nice? Have you listened to all? Does it contain the Brahms Piano Concerto No 1 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Riccardo Muti?
Now playing the following CD, featuring the fabulous Emma from my JS Bach collection, my favorite at this time every year in celebration of Advent ...
The SQ is excellent, as was the performance ... It includes the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Giulini and the LSO. It also includes the Tchaikovsky and Rachmainoff Piano Concertos with Karajan ... So far, I have only gone through the box once.
Now: Leoš Janáček: String Quartets 1-2; Erwin Schulhoff: String Quartet 1 - Talich Quartet - Calliope This is the only version I have and I'd like to hear another one.
That's actually my very favorite interpretation (Giulini and LSO) but I have been 'on the hunt' for the Muti/Philadelphia for a long time now. I friend of mine had the LP and played it for me once. I have never been able to find it on CD. Weissenberg's Rachmaninoff is great as is Tchaikovsky's No. 1.
I have owned the following Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto on LP for many years but it is very nice that it is in the EMI icon box ...
