I have the SACD of his 1958 recording of Beethoven Pastoral Symphony and it is one of my favorites in my whole collection. The only other recording I own by him is Mahler Symphony No. 2, also from 1958, and it is also excellent and my go-to disc for that symphony. It is a Japanese CD reissue from 2015 on one disc of almost 80 minutes.
Now playing CD1 - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6 from the following box from my Beethoven collection for a second listen ...
Bruno Walter is right up there with Wilhelm Furtwangler and Herbert von Karajan IMO. What I have found amazing is how he whipped the Columbia Symphony Orchestra to put out some world-class performances on these Beethoven Symphonies. Furtwangler and Karajan had the BPO at their disposal but these Beethoven Symphonies by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra under Bruno Walter are very competitive ...
This box is like my Gunter Wand's box. The box itself is the size of an LP and its interior has four quadrants of CD's ...
Last night while watching baseball I listened to the entire complete Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky. My first time hearing the complete ballet, it was 2 hours and 35 minutes long! I have the SACD on Chandos conducted by Jarvi which sounds very nice. I think I still prefer the complete Nutcracker which is much more manageable at a mere 84 minutes.
Now playing, from CD 23: Ludwig van Beethoven – Quartet for Strings No.8 in E minor Op.59/2 "Razumovsky" — Paolo Borciani (violin), Elisa Pegreffi (violin), Piero Farulli (viola), Franco Rossi (cello) – Quartetto Italiano (Philips / Decca Music)
Just found out a new website devoted to Shura Cherkassky - Shura Cherkassky | Pianist | a tribute to the pianist
I don't worry about the freeway a mile from my house, street noise, power mowers, furnace, air conditioner, etc. because I know if I listen to my stereo more than 45 minutes my wife will barge in and loudly berate me for "ignoring " her. My fondest fantasy is to reach the end of a Mahler symphony without a shouting match.
Happy to dig in my collection and find such an autographed gem that I had forgotten it happened in Athens a decade ago:
Here's a question for the braintrust in this thread: I'm sure it's been asked here before, but maybe I'm being an idiot with the search function as I'm not seeing anything rise the surface immediately, but what would folks recommend for a decent "starter collection" of Classical music? I have some random records that I've accumulated through collections and half a dozen or so random CDs (not worth cataloging at the moment), but realize the impulse to explore Classical (broadly defined) has been growing for some time. What are the cornerstone recordings of a good Classical music collection? (And apologies if this has been discussed ad nauseum in the past)
Ciccolini plays Erik Satie. After exploring a few these were the most striking performances I've heard. Leeuw is also good but a bit slow.
I'm not a Satie fan, but if I had to choose I'd probably pick Reinbert de Leeuw's version. He is one of the leading figures in the Dutch classical world, and more advanced music is his speciality. By the way, his surname is De Leeuw, which literally means "the Lion"
I have not looked at the scores, going from memory De Leeuw's pieces were quite a bit slower than any others I had listened to (including some 78 transfers of one musician that knew Satie, his name is slipping my mind) though he captures the spirit of the music very well which is why I continue to listen to his. Silly mistake on my part truncating his sir name
I adore Satie and have tried many different pianists, including Ciccolini. My favorite used to be Roge, but once I heard Thibaudet's Satie, it became my favorite. Which of Leeuw's Satie recordings have you heard? His later recordings, from 1992 and 1995, while still slower than most, work much better for me than his 1977 recordings. For example, his Gymnopedie is 6:06 on the 1977 and 4:50 on the 1992 recording. It seems the pianist had a change of heart over the years. (Thibaudet's is 3:39 and Ciccolini's is 3:08) The 1992 and 1995 Leeuw recordings are in this box:
It would have been the 1977. I will certainly explore Thibaudet, the 5 disc has been on my wish list for a while. I'll see if I can look them up, I heard them years ago on Youtube.
First off, welcome to the thread! Second, a decent starter collection is going to be different for each person, based on their taste. If the random records you have bought have not spurned you onto buying more from a given composer, then I suggest checking out composers you haven't tried yet. Perhaps if you told us some works/performances you have enjoyed and some you did not enjoy, it would help us to make useful suggestions.
