# 4 best single CDs - composer of your choice



## Jaime77

Oh yet another variation on the recommendation theme  
I want to spend money again you see. I am looking thru my collection wondering what I an missing out on, what composer would do with an injection of music. I'd be very interested if some of you took the time to mention 4 CDs by one composer that you like - and not to include Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. Not cause I don't like them but because I have too much by them already !

It would really help if you could select 4 single CDs from your collection rather than getting into doubles. For folks with bigger collections this should be easy enough.

Thanks in Advance


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## Aramis

I think this will place me at the second place, just after Tapkaara, on the "I know what he will recommend/mention before reading this post" list  But if you want something less known, yet great, then you won't blame me :<>




























There are three covers, I couldn't find the fourth, which means that CD is not avaiable anywhere anyway.


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## Head_case

Some great recommendations. This is the 4th version ~ the only superlative modern rendition of the old Zarebski classic on a par with the Warsaw Quintet:










Right - no one make any more recommendations until Jamie buys one of these


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## muxamed

Hi Jamie

Here's a bit of the swedish national pride. One of these CDs is with Hugo Alfven as a conductor. It is also the first stereo recording ever made in Sweden (Alfven conducting "Midsommarvaka", _Midsummer's Vigil_) dating October 7 1954. Hope you can find these where you live.


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## Polednice

You should already have all of these - essential to even the most basic listener's collection - so go out and get them now if you don't 

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## Jaime77

oh nice ones and unfamiliar too  I don't even have any of the Brahms recordings. I have works, some of them, but not these versions. 

hmmm this involves consideration ...

if anyone else wants to confuse me with more then be my guest


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## World Violist

Mahler:









Symphony 1: Boulez/Chicago









Symphony 2: Boulez/Vienna









Symphony 6: Levine/Boston









Das Lied von der Erde: Reiner/Chicago (this is apparently out of print now, which makes me very sad...)


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## muxamed

An interesting recommendation for Mahler 6 recording World Violist . I haven't heard it but I will. I have a couple of different recordings of this symphony, Boulez, Barbirolli, Horenstein, Karajan and Eschenbach, but not this one. Thanks


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## World Violist

muxamed said:


> An interesting recommendation for Mahler 6 recording World Violist . I haven't heard it but I will. I have a couple of different recordings of this symphony, Boulez, Barbirolli, Horenstein, Karajan and Eschenbach, but not this one. Thanks


Yes, Levine's latest Mahler 6 is really energetic. I don't think I've ever heard the opening march done quite so wonderfully. It's a beautiful thing to hear string instruments really digging into the notes for once, especially in this age of being too careful!


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## StlukesguildOhio

You should already have all of these - essential to even the most basic listener's collection - so go out and get them now if you don't 

Essential? And I don't have a single one of them in spite of some 1300 or 1400 discs.


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## Sid James

The value of recommendations differ, depending on one's taste. Like I'm into mid to late C20th stuff, but not everyone around here is. But an excellent cd I'd recommend is on Naxos, the music of Astor Piazzolla played by the Versus Ensemble - including a collection of songs, tangos, and the Maria de Buenos Aires Suite. I think it's simply superb:

http://www.amazon.com/Piazzolla-Bue...=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1266896451&sr=1-6


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## StlukesguildOhio

I'll try to avoid taking the obvious route of promoting my personal favorite. Since I've been listening quite a bit recently to French music I'll suggest a few discs by Gabriel Faure... a composer that is certainly worthy of exploration:










This is his essential work... the _Requiem_... one of the most marvelous (and certainly better than Brahms). It also includes the _Pelléas et Mélisande_, incidental music and suite for orchestra and the _Pavane, for orchestra & chorus_... all lovely works.

Faure's chamber music is especially marvelous. I would look especially at these:



















His _Nocturnes_ for piano are among the most beautiful works in the piano repertoire... and certainly among this genre second only to Chopin's:










Adding a 5th for good measure I'd suggest that Faure was a master of the French "art song" or Mélodie and this is one of the finest performances of the same:


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## Guest

Well, as the "Notices" above reminds us, it's 2010, so

Otomo Yoshihide:









_Time Magic City._ A fantastic collaboration with the turntable duo Busratch (Katsura Mouri and Yamamoto Takahiro)









_Trace Cuts._ Another collaboration, this one with French composer eRikm and Canadian composer Martin Tetreault. (Collaborations--and composer/performers--have returned in the late 20th/early 21st centuries.)









_Turntable Solo._ The outrageous turntable solo (without LPs) mentioned in James McHard's _The Future of Modern Music._









_The Night Before the Death of the Sampling Virus._ 77 short cuts, to be played with the player on "random."


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## Jaime77

Wow some real interesting ones there... thanks everyone!

however...*st.lukes* has won ;-) I have gone the Faure route. It makes sense cause I love Ravel and Debussy and also love modal influence on harmonies. I only had the Requiem. I already just bought the Domus and the Violin Sonatas. The passion of the violin playing is something else. Only had a brief listen yet.

I will remember this thread for the next shoppin trip - try someone else's set 

thanks

Jaime


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## Guest

What happened to my other three images? They were there last night.

Hmmmm.

The system gave me trouble while I was posting, too. Anyone know anything about images? You copy the image location. You paste it into a post. You click the image icon. You do the little popup window thingy, and you're good to go, right?

(Wrong. Apparently.)


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## kingtim

some guy said:


> What happened to my other three images? They were there last night.
> 
> Hmmmm.
> 
> The system gave me trouble while I was posting, too. Anyone know anything about images? You copy the image location. You paste it into a post. You click the image icon. You do the little popup window thingy, and you're good to go, right?
> 
> (Wrong. Apparently.)


That's weird... it's supposed to work. Good luck with that one.

I don't know any singles, but I love Rockmaninoff... his Piano Concerto No. 3 is AMAZING!


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## Guest

Found this a bit too late. I have a few that don't look like they made the list. Of course, leaving Bach out complicates the issue, as I have been greatly interested in his music this last month. Nevertheless:

I am lazy about posting the pictures, so I'll just describe them.

Elgar - Cockaigne Overture, Cello Concerto, Sea Songs - du Pre, Barbirolli, Baker (EMI) - amazing CD - I am not the biggest Elgar fan, but the cello concerto is amazing, as are the Sea Songs

Alkan - Grande Sonate, etc. - Marc-Andre Hamelin (Hyperion) - amazing piano pieces, that I have sadly only recently discovered

Brahms - Ein deutsches Requiem - Klemperer (EMI) - I know Polednice recommended the newer Rattle recording of this one, and I haven't heard that recording to comment on it, but I am a huge fan of Fischer-Dieskau and Klemperer, so this one is a definite winner for me. I also enjoy Gardiner's newer recording, but Klemperer just always wins for me.

Which leads me to:
Mahler - Symphony No. 2 - Klemperer/Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (EMI) - There are so many different recordings of this wonderful symphony, and I have several others I greatly enjoy (including Rattle/Birmingham and the new Boulez/Vienna that World Violist recommended), but Klemperer wins again here. I found this recommendation online, and have very quickly moved it to preferred status for this recording.


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## kingtim

I think these selections are pretty great. Good work guys! You definitely gave me something to check out


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## Jeremy Marchant

You need to follow the advice of the witches to Macbeth in Shakespeare's play. Which, if in case it has slipped your mind, is to be "bloody, bold and resolute".

Never mind this Faure and Alkan stuff (apologies to those who feel slighted). You want to address the major composers of the latter part of C20. Unless you know what your contemporaries are writing, how can you argue you're present in the living music scene?

Even so, my first choice is of a dead composer.

(1) Stockhausen _Gruppen_. On BMC or the Stockhausen Verlag (it is one of the very few works Abbado seriously disappoints in). Indisputedly a masterpiece of the second half of the last century,

(2) Glass _Einstein on the beach_. Utterly removed from Stockhausen, this is Glass's _magnum opus _and, with Steve Reich's _Drumming_, represents the seed from which a vast wave of music from the 70s onwards has flown (much of it rubbish).

(3) Simpson symphonies 6 and 7 (on Hyperion). Once more totally different from the previous two works, these symphonies are the natural successors to Sibelius and Nielsen and, by extension, Beethoven himself.

Each of these are main trunks of a tree and there are multiple branches and sub-branches available to be explored


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Jaime77 said:


> Oh yet another variation on the recommendation theme
> I want to spend money again you see. I am looking thru my collection wondering what I an missing out on, what composer would do with an injection of music. I'd be very interested if some of you took the time to mention 4 CDs by one composer that you like - and not to include Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. Not cause I don't like them but because I have too much by them already !
> 
> It would really help if you could select 4 single CDs from your collection rather than getting into doubles. *For folks with bigger collections this should be easy enough.*
> 
> Thanks in Advance


For folks with bigger collections, this should be even harder, not easier! I would think folks with smaller collections would be easier.

I also find these types of recommendations a bit pointless because you end up with a tonne of recommendations, and then you are stuck with which ones to choose.

I would rather look at it the other way: select a particular work you want to listen/acquire on recording, then ask around which recorded version appears to be amongst the best, and why. Also, specifying single CD's are already prejudicing a huge number of larger works, especially vocal, such as operas.


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