# Understanding different recordings



## sexton1022 (Nov 19, 2018)

I've always loved classical music but it hasn't been until this past year that I've really started to try and branch out from Mozart and Handel and understand what I'm listening to. I'm reading a great book called The Language of the Spirit by Jan Swafford. I've been googling pieces that he talks about as I read along so I can hear it. But as I read through the posts on this forum, you guys talk about how some recordings may be truer (?) than others, etc and that had never occurred to me before.
So does anyone know of a resource that would help me understand the actual recordings that are available? How would I know which recordings are accurate interpretations? Or am I reading too much into these posts and not understanding what you guys are saying? :lol:
Thanks for your help as I understand this has the potential of being a really stupid question!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

What recording is right for you depends on personal taste. One of the biggest issues today is the concept of HIP (historically informed performance). This is about trying to gain as much information about performance practices during the time period of the composition and using authentic instruments and trying to be as accurate as possible in terms of the composers intentions. The HIP movement on the whole has been quite successful and has resulted in a lot of amazing recordings, but its not always to everyone's taste. Some people prefer a more old school or free wheeling approach to their music. Some people love conductors like Karajan who had a certain refined approach he applied to most of the music he conducted, and some people can't stand his recordings suggesting he should vary his approach more based on the composers. There is not really a right or wrong way to go here, it is about what you enjoy listening to. There are resources you can get like Gramophone and Penguin guides to gain more information. Personally I would just read through many of the threads on this forum related to recordings/conductors and then listen to a bunch of different conductors/orchestras on youtube or a streaming service like Spotify and then you will start to gain a better understanding of your own preferences.

Not all listeners even worry that much about hearing tons of different interpretations, its up to you. Some listeners like to listen to many different interpretations by a handful of composers and some choose rather to focus more on hearing a lot of different music by many different composers leaving less time to focus on hearing multiple versions of the same works. There is more music available today than one can listen to in a life time.


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## sexton1022 (Nov 19, 2018)

Thank you! That makes sense. (And I was definitely wondering about the references to HIP; was afraid to ask!)


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

'Gramophone Magazine' is as good a guide to recorded classical music as any. It's informative and has a great archive going back to 1923.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If you want to understand a bit about the process try 'Putting the record Straight' by John Culshaw.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Speaking for myself, Gramophone is a terribly overrated rag, which has a very noticeable bias towards British performers. Even Penguin guides are pro-Britain all too often. Online ratings and reviews are also heavily biased and you have to be careful what you're researching. http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm has a enormous data base of reviews going back a long time, is British based but I really find it informative. https://www.classicstoday.com/ is American based and often 180 degrees apart from the former, and the editor, David Hurwitz, in general loathes HIP that goes too far.

There aren't a lot of current books reviewing cds and helping the neophyte, but one that is quite good because every composer is reviewed by a different person is this:







It's getting old, but still very, very useful and there's little that I find to argue with. With this, one of the last Penguin Guides, and online reviews (including Amazon) you'll find more information than you can imagine.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I have the Third Ear guide. I've referred to it time and time again. It's long out of print and no longer updated, but still useful for recordings made up to about 2000. Searching old threads at this site has also been invaluable for me. Of course you get dozens of opinions, but at least you can familiarize yourself with performers, orchestras, and labels.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Some performers had direct exposure/experience with the composer or their pupils/colleagues. Like Walter/Klemperer with Mahler, Arrau with Liszt, Monteux with Berlioz, Richter with Prokofiev. Some more recent composers actually supervise or approve certain recordings, like Messiaen approving Chung's version of his symphony. I have little interest in current performers, like Lang Lang, Dudamel, Hamelin, Trifonov, etc. I think the old warhorses have not been bettered. I do keep an ear out for rarely recorded 20th century works though.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

I've said it before, but one of the best resources for discovering good recordings is THIS SITE RIGHT HERE. And unlike Gramophone, or Penguin, etc., it's free! There have been many discerning and knowledgeable listeners who have given their thoughts and recommendations over the years, and there is almost always someone on this site who can give some valuable insights when I'm looking for something in particular.

The forum user Trout made a blog with recommended recordings that you really can't go wrong with as a general entry into classical music:

Recommended Recordings Intro and Entry Links


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

When I first started listening to classical music (it was a long time ago, mind), most people would only think to buy one recording of each work that they wanted. Some used critical magazines like The Gramophone to help them choose which account to get, others just chose recordings by artists who they knew they liked. And still others didn't care - they aimed to buy cheap or to get LPs with nice covers. 

I am not sure that a strong understanding or interest in different recordings would have served me well at that stage. I was all about hearing more and more of the important and great works. Later, as I got to know a lot, I became fascinated by how different accounts of some works could tell you very different but equally valid things about the music. And that sort of enjoyment came a lot more easily that getting to know yet more new music. But discovering more and more great works still represents the more rewarding and more valuable use of my time. 

It is worth getting a good performance of each work but while so much of the music is new to you I would focus on getting to know more and more of it. Later you will be able to explore the different faces of the pieces you love.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2018)

I began really listening to classical music in earnest nearly a decade ago. A lot of people have musical scores and will notice if certain repeats in a piece are taken or not, or if a performer misses notes, or other technical issues. I can read music from 4-5 years in band in high school, but have no interest in trying to follow along with a score. Then there is the issue of interpretations. You can decide for yourself whether that will matter to you. My approach was to simply start with a basic recommendation list - www.classicalcdguide.com was the one I first went to. Their lists of "bests" and their recommended recordings will undoubtedly receive a great deal of disagreement - I, myself, don't like many of their recommendations. But it gives you a launching point.

Best advice? Just jump in. Go to your local library and get classical CDs from there to hear, or use a streaming service like Spotify, to cheaply listen. Just listen. You will eventually find what you like and don't like. And don't ever give up on a work based on a single recording that you didn't like. Sometimes hearing a different interpretation can make all the difference in the world. And never give up on any composer or work, or even genre or period or style, if you don't initially like it. The more refined your listening gets, you may be surprised what you can return to and like. I listen to stuff now that I initially hated, especially more modern stuff. Initially, HIP performances were very pleasing to my ear, and I thought I would never appreciate non-HIP performances of works by Bach, or Mozart, or many of the Baroque composers. But now, I love to hear the great romantic conductors playing something like Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

Just listen. Trying to read some of these guides may initially be daunting. There is a lot of jargon used by classical music experts that is highly specialized, and much of it I still don't understand. Hanging out here has helped some, but ultimately I didn't find it important enough for my appreciation of the music. I know what sounds good to me, and that was ultimately most important for me. You may want that higher appreciation, though. But nothing beats just going out and listening to as much as you can - either in breadth (more works, more composers) or depth (multiple recordings and interpretations of the same work). The understanding will come.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Gramophone was good pre-1990 or so. I lost interest & don't know about recent developments.

Here are 5 very contrasting recordings of the same piece - Mozart, Piano Concerto 20, the last movement:

- Vladar,Haenchen, unusually fast 



- Michelangeli,Garben - rather serious, more subdued 



- Rubinstein,Wallenstein - somewhat balancing examples 1+2 



- with Peter Breiner - experiments with solo jazz cadenzas 



- Bilson/Gardiner - HIP. Starts at 21:55


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

Sexton 1022, the only way to explore music is to listen to it. If I was to start all over again, the backbone of my orchestral collection would be Klemperer. It is generally acknowledged that this conductor had something to say, particularly in the Germanic repertoire. And, he had one other feature, too often absent, namely rhythm. He never lost the pulse of the music. Klemperer’s entire discography is inexpensive nowadays.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

sexton1022 said:


> I've always loved classical music but it hasn't been until this past year that I've really started to try and branch out from Mozart and Handel and understand what I'm listening to. I'm reading a great book called The Language of the Spirit by Jan Swafford. I've been googling pieces that he talks about as I read along so I can hear it. But as I read through the posts on this forum, you guys talk about how some recordings may be truer (?) than others, etc and that had never occurred to me before.
> So does anyone know of a resource that would help me understand the actual recordings that are available? How would I know which recordings are accurate interpretations? Or am I reading too much into these posts and not understanding what you guys are saying? :lol:
> Thanks for your help as I understand this has the potential of being a really stupid question!


To add to what's already been said, I'll just provide a paragraph from Antal Dorati's autobiography (written in the 1970's), which touches on issues raised here:

"...I went to the record library of the BBC and got out the records of the same work as conducted by all my great, greater and greatest colleagues of past and present: Furtwangler, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Weingartner, _et al._ I listened hard and conscientiously, hardly eating and sleeping, keeping my attention closely focused. When I had finished I had heard the splendid Second Symphony by Johannes Brahms twenty times in two days. I could not remember one single difference between the many performances. They were all well played, well conducted, well presented, in good taste, honestly offered. One louder accent, one shade of different speed, did not matter at all. But the sound of the piece _itself_, Brahms's masterwork, was not fresher in my mind than before the twenty hearings."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Sid James said:


> To add to what's already been said, I'll just provide a paragraph from Antal Dorati's autobiography (written in the 1970's), which touches on issues raised here:
> 
> "...I went to the record library of the BBC and got out the records of the same work as conducted by all my great, greater and greatest colleagues of past and present: Furtwangler, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Weingartner, _et al._ I listened hard and conscientiously, hardly eating and sleeping, keeping my attention closely focused. When I had finished I had heard the splendid Second Symphony by Johannes Brahms twenty times in two days. I could not remember one single difference between the many performances. They were all well played, well conducted, well presented, in good taste, honestly offered. One louder accent, one shade of different speed, did not matter at all. But the sound of the piece _itself_, Brahms's masterwork, was not fresher in my mind than before the twenty hearings."


What do you think Dorati's trying to say here? I just can't make sense of it.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_What do you think Dorati's trying to say here? I just can't make sense of it. _

He was likely being a bit sarcastic … and in all likelihood saying the Brahms Second Symphony is always the Brahms Second Symphony, a tremendous work of art, unless it is butchered. Keep in mind he only listened to recordings by the "great, greater and greatest" colleagues, not the mediocrities he knew.

I had a similar experience once listening to 30 different versions of Bruckner's Symphony 5. I was hot on the work at the moment and endured the trial. I was able to order them in succession from the ones I liked the most to the ones I liked the least and wrote reasons why.

When I went back and listened to many of them 5 years later I didn't hear all the differences I heard the first time. Time, place, persuasion and personal changes change everything. What seems important, stupendous, horrendous and offensive at one point may turn around some time later.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I don't know how many recordings/performances of a great work one can listen to in one go (or over a day or two) and still hold each (as a whole and/or as a collection of details) without their all blurring into one another. I can manage four or five at most. Dorati as a conductor might have had a greater capacity. But there again, I am not a musician but am very experienced in listening - which may be entirely different.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

larold said:


> What do you think Dorati's trying to say here? I just can't make sense of it.
> 
> He was likely being a bit sarcastic … and in all likelihood saying the Brahms Second Symphony is always the Brahms Second Symphony, a tremendous work of art, unless it is butchered.
> .


Plato!



larold said:


> .
> 
> I had a similar experience once listening to 30 different versions of Bruckner's Symphony 5. I was hot on the work at the moment and endured the trial. I was able to order them in succession from the ones I liked the most to the ones I liked the least and wrote reasons why.
> 
> When I went back and listened to many of them 5 years later I didn't hear all the differences I heard the first time. Time, place, persuasion and personal changes change everything. What seems important, stupendous, horrendous and offensive at one point may turn around some time later.


That's why it's more useful to explain why, than to judge, order, rank.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> What do you think Dorati's trying to say here? I just can't make sense of it.


He's pointing out the limitations to comparing different recordings. Larold's point about the piece being the same while interpretations of it differ is along similar lines to Dorati's argument.

Later in the chapter though, he says that listening to different recordings of the same piece may prevent it from becoming stale. He also cautions young musicians from relying too much on recordings to provide what he calls short cuts. He argues that this can hinder the development of their own style.

Dorati comes down on the side of listening for pleasure, whether it be on record or live. Not surprisingly, for him the latter is the real thing. I hope this provides some context to the quote which I posted.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I’m not sure I believe that there is a “piece” which stays the same while the interpretations differ. But maybe this is not the place.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> I'm not sure I believe that there is a "piece" which stays the same while the interpretations differ.


And even the same interpretation of the same work may be listened to by the same listener differently at two different occasions, and the listener thereby experiences two different works.


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## brahms4 (May 8, 2017)

Dorati took on listening to all those recordings of Brahms`2nd Symphony after reading an extensive record review of his recording of this piece in which the reviewer "compared with admirable patience,my performance with that of about fifteen others,I decided to listen myself."Dorati says that the recorded performance has the built-in drawback that it remains the same.He states that listening to more than one recording of a work keeps the work fresh.He didn`t think having twenty to thirty Beethoven`s 5th,etc in the catalogue to be too many.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

In my experience, since most of the great classical works will win out regardless of the performance, the performance you hear of that work for the first time will often be your favorite going forward.


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## Resurrexit (Apr 1, 2014)

DaveM said:


> In my experience, since most of the great classical works will win out regardless of the performance, the performance you hear of that work for the first time will often be your favorite going forward.


Sometimes this is true for me. But there are other times where a work doesn't really even click with me at first, and that changes when I hear an exceptional performance.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> I'm not sure I believe that there is a "piece" which stays the same while the interpretations differ. But maybe this is not the place.


Apart from any textual anomalies within it, the score remains the same. This is pretty much commonsense, and even though not literally spelled out it underlies Dorati's argument.

Dorati focuses on the implications of recording technology. He's less interested in technical variables (such as sound quality) but more in terms of how they can convey differences of interpretation. He says that in live performance "no two performances are alike." As I noted earlier (as did Brahms4's summary of the chapter) Dorati says that recordings can replicate this, but only to a certain extent.

I see nothing wrong with acknowledging, as Dorati does, that there are different types of listeners. They can have vastly differing criteria and priorities, all coming out of what particular aspects they choose to focus on. Its no different from any other area of human endeavour.

This chapter is interesting but so is the whole book. Its from the same period as Yehudi Menuhin's autobiography, and of the same caliber. I no longer have time or interest in generating threads but I did one years ago which is closely related to this topic:

Performance & interpretation...


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

After virtually a lifetime of listening experiences and exposure to music and the arts, I believe it can be a great disadvantage to be too outwardly directed on externals and, say, get lost or confused by countless recordings of a particular work that everyone has a different opinion on, though sometimes there may be a sense of consensus regarding a certain recording that has stood the test of time and is particularly illuminating.

But perhaps more important than that, I feel that the real value of the music is the inward journey and what a particular recording can invoke and awaken within the individual-and to pay close attention to that, to never forget it. Then the music is like an awakener that's capable of widening one's emotional responses, one's human understanding, one's ability to love, one's depth of feeling, one's sense of discrimination and refinement, plus countless other benefits within one's lifetime that are like a mirror to the deeper Self.

Once there's an awakening in a particular way, there's an expanded consciousness that can stay with the person for a lifetime and even become a force in one's daily life--and that kind of a journey, that kind of an awakening, is quite possibly what matters most.

The ancient Greeks believed that art was where the inner world of the individual and the outer world met--and I believe that awareness is exceedingly important and a great truth. Both have great equal value, and one half of the equation should not be forgotten for the other, or one can get lost in the multiplicity of externals. I believe it's not mentioned enough how valuable it is to hear even _lousy_ recordings, for it teaches about the necessity of failure in developing discrimination and valuing the good, not only in art but in life.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I like to listen to different accounts of pieces I like. Some music seems able to "give rise to" many different "visions" of how the music is. A lot of Mahler is like this for me and Beethoven. Others as well. Of course, not every possible version of a piece can work well - sometimes a performer can seem to misrepresent a work - but I do think there are many sides to most pieces of very great music and that there is no "right way" with such music. I tend to stop reading or listening to critics who talk about how a work _should _sound - even when they can find quotes to support their view.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

My video provides a pretty good overview, with recommended recordings for each piece:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Sid James said:


> Apart from any textual anomalies within it, the score remains the same.


The score isn't a "piece" of music -- it's a bit of paper.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> The score isn't a "piece" of music -- it's a bit of paper.


Its the primary source from which everything else emanates, eg. interpretation, analysis, recordings.

I have answered your initial question in the best way I could. Another member, Brahms4, also talked about Dorati's book. Short of all this, the best thing you can do is get a copy and read it. Sorry to be so direct, but I am not here to spoonfeed you, nor anyone else for that matter.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

the score is like the script of a play....it is on paper, but needs to be actualized by a performer...one can read a script, or a score....but that's not the same as hearing/seeing it live, or on recording or video...


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