# What music did you get for Christmas?



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

These wouldn't be defined as 'purchases', so I thought I'd make a new thread for music you received as gifts for the holidays.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

My friends wouldn't have a clue where to begin. They think I have everything ever recorded although nothing could be farther from the truth. I got a bottle of Glenmorangie instead.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Unfortunately my family was never able to think of appropriate gifts. Always been like they wouldn't know for whom they are buying them, so there was the most universal, boring and sexless things. Besides, this year there was no gifts at all. Woe, woe!


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## Mozartgirl92 (Dec 13, 2009)

I got a cd with Haydn´s cello concertos for christmas, so I´m happy.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Dvorak - Cello Concerto and Symphony No 8

Copland - Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Fanfare for the Common Man and El Salon Mexico

Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending, Tallis , Greensleeves and others

I also got this:










Which in turn persuaded me to buy this:


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## Joaf (Oct 22, 2009)

Aramis said:


> Unfortunately my family was never able to think of appropriate gifts. Always been like they wouldn't know for whom they are buying them, so there was the most universal, boring and sexless things. Besides, this year there was no gifts at all. Woe, woe!


I'm surrounded by terrible gift-givers too. I didn't get any music. I did get a portable fan, though.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

I got a check to be used on eclassical. So I suppose that doesn't particularly count. But whatever. It's the thought that counts.


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## phosphonate (Dec 8, 2009)

I was given a gift certificate for Amazon.com, which I want to use for some CDs.

I'm looking for Claudio Abbado Mahler recordings.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

Seeing as I am single, I don't have a wife or girlfriend to tell me I shouldn't buy so many cds. So I just buy every time I can.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Nice festive idea for a thread. Here are the musical gifts I was given this Christmas:










This is entirely fabulous. I had high hopes of it, largely because of the impact Immerseel's Beethoven symphonies had made on me, and I wasn't disappointed. The performance of the flute and harp concerto is so good, so moving, and the period instruments sound so 'present' in the room, that it felt a bit like being visited by Mozart himself when I played it on Christmas Day. The presentation is lovely too - not the usual plastic case, but a three-page foldout cover with a booklet inserted into the centre panel.










Lively performances of the last 4 symphonies. I'd prefer period instruments, but this at least is period-aware performance, and with a chamber orchestra. I'm not very experienced in this area, but these seem far more 'alive' than Pinnock's versions, which _do_ use period instruments, which demonstrates that the issue isn't by any means a simple matter of using the right tools for the job. Again, the package is a pleasure to handle - a three-fold opening card cover with an attractive booklet inserted.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Weston said:


> I got a bottle of Glenmorangie instead.


Lucky chap! Many years ago on a cold, wet, and windy afternoon, I called at the Glenmorangie distillery. Wet and cold, I was greeted instantly by an old lady who asked 'Would ye care for a dram?' So I sat and drank free samples of Glenmorangie in the warm until I was glowing, and since then Glenmorangie has always been among my favourite 2 or 3 malts.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Simply superb


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## andruini (Apr 14, 2009)

Well, my family doesn't have any idea about what I have and don't have (or like or don't like) so they all gave me money to go buy stuff for myself, which to me is awesome, because that way I can get more value for their money, and thus, great gifts! Yay!

So today I went and bought myself:


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

andruini said:


> So today I went and bought myself:


A John Adams piece I'm not familiar with - is it good?


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## andruini (Apr 14, 2009)

bassClef said:


> A John Adams piece I'm not familiar with - is it good?


It's really really good.. I haven't heard the other piece on the CD, it's called Guide to Strange Places.. We'll see how that one bodes for me..


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

Nothing for CHristmas (I don't celebrate it) but I did buy myself a new CD of Robert Ward's Symphony #1 and some orchestral works as well as a CD of Edward Collins Symphony and Piano concerto #3.

Great stuff!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> This is entirely fabulous. I had high hopes of it, largely because of the impact Immerseel's Beethoven symphonies had made on me, and I wasn't disappointed. The performance of the flute and harp concerto is so good, so moving, and the period instruments sound so 'present' in the room, that it felt a bit like being visited by Mozart himself when I played it on Christmas Day.


That flute and harp concerto is what got me more tolerant of Mozart. It's a sublime piece. I'd love to hear it on period instruments someday. I wish he had written more for that combination of timbres. I will make a note to Google this album when I get home from work today.


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## SamGuss (Apr 14, 2008)

Not music but...


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Weston said:


> That flute and harp concerto is what got me more tolerant of Mozart. It's a sublime piece. I'd love to hear it on period instruments someday. I wish he had written more for that combination of timbres. I will make a note to Google this album when I get home from work today.


There are quite generous (90 second) samples to be heard at the Zigzag website here:

Immerseel Mozart CD

I find their site rather temperamental (for some reason the music plays for me only when I visit it with Internet Explorer AND Firefox at the same time!), but if you can get it to work there's a lot to listen to.

The _Gramophone_ reviewer said of this CD: "They just know how to play this music and sound as if they are doing so for their own pleasure. If you buy only one Mozart CD, let it be this one. This is a Mozart disc to gladden your heart and enrich your soul." [quoted on the website]

He's not exaggerating.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

I didn't get any cd's this Christmas. Instead I got a 9 dvd boxset of Harold Lloyd movies.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

jhar26 said:


>


There are times when I feel like him.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

I also got an iTunes giftcard, with which I made the following purchases:

Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra (Fritz Reiner & Chicago SO)
Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto and Rachmaninov's 2nd (Van Cliburn, Kondrashin)
Berlioz - Symphony fantastique (Michael Tilson Thomas & San Francisco SO)


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Ravellian said:


> Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra (Fritz Reiner & Chicago SO)


Hey, I got that CD about a week and a half ago. It's really fantastic!


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

jhar26 said:


> I didn't get any cd's this Christmas. Instead I got a 9 dvd boxset of Harold Lloyd movies.


Nice, I <3 Harold Lloyd! .


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I got a cookbook, oven gloves and a book about Italian food. You can tell where everyone thinks my place is and it's not next to the stereo system speakers.


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