Classical music

Other recommendations - depends on what moves you. Mozart and Faure's "Requiem" works, Barber's "Adagio for Strings", Holst's "The
Planets", Satie, Bach's cello works, Beethoven, Gorecki's 3rd - all things I'd rebuy if I lost the ones I have.

Are you American? If so, join the BMG Classical Music Club. They have a "Get 12 for the Price of 1" - years ago, when it was 9 for 1, I joined from multiple family addresses, and with advice from mom, amassed a decent collection quickly. There's an Erik Satie "greatest hits" disc right there on the first page. Would assume there's a BMG branch/variant in the UK/Europe, too - not to be Ameri-centric.

You could also go on AllMusic and see who they namedrop in Satie reviews, and move on from there. The library's a good source for audio browsing.

rachmaninoff's 3 concerti are also extremely popular.

Also, in the same vein: Poulenc & Faure. It's true what you say about indie types...maybe it works as follows: Indie=Satie, Rock=Beethoven...Dance=Tchaikovsky ;-)

obv this is so very wrong

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5201584.ece

Gramophone critic survey produces Best Orchestras list

The poll was... limited to modern romantic orchestras (so period bands such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment did not get a look in).

Exactly why this list is crap, cos at least half if not more of the whole classical repertoire is unfit to be performed by most of the orchs listed. Why give the impression that so much music doesn't matter?It's like listing the best jazz combos around today and not including anyone who doesn't have a synth player or electric instruments.

1 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
2 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
3 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
4 London Symphony Orchestra
5 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
6 Bavarian Radio Symphony
7 Cleveland Orchestra
8 Los Angeles Philharmonic
9 Budapest Festival Orchestra
10 Dresden Staatskapelle
11 Boston Symphony Orchestra
12 New York Philharmonic
13 San Francisco Symphony
14 Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra
15 Russian National Orchestra
16 Leningrad Philharmonic
17 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
18 Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
19 Saito Kinen Symphony Orchestra
20 Czech Philharmonic

From what I know, this seems about right. A little surprised that Chicago beat out Cleveland, but other than that...

lololol. what a weird dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ygCMYm0CLM

okay, i am pondering buying David Lang's 'Little Match Girl' thing, because even tho it is super-hyped etc., i am kind of in love with it after hearing it a couple weeks ago. worth it? $9 for the album.

What about Lully's Dies Irae
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Am5E1NHJF4

and Telemann's Don Quichotte?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbTerf4sXG4&feature=related (Telemann - Don Quichotte II)

Very fine music!

Does anyone else use the Ulysses' Classical App in Spotify?

It's basically like a blog that updates with big classical playlists...but it's kinda crazy, right now i'm listening to one that is EVERY mozart composition in chronological order.

Skip ahead to the K200s IMO.

Paul Kroogman on why Arcade Fire is the new Classical Music:

Some commenters mentioned the passing of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who brought lieder to a wide audience (and my mother was a Fischer-Dieskau fanatic!); listen to Feist for a while, and you’ll realize that what she’s writing are art songs, in some sense very much in the same tradition. Arcade Fire are basically intellectual art-school types whose natural habitat is recitals in someone’s loft; if their collective genius turns that sensibility into anthems and laments that can fill arenas, all the better.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/musical-meta-self-indulgent/

rmde

also WAHT DF-D died? That is huge

I know! I looked for a RIP thread but didn't see one.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/bruckner-symphonie-no-8-mw0001813787

this review is so shit

Review by James Leonard [+]
Admit it.

"Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the high priest of authentically autistic performance practice"

is James Leonard an ILXor?

idk who the fuck he is, but would put cash on him giving a completely different review of that lp if he had been told it was by abbado or mehta or someone

Apologies if this has been posted before, but amazing collection of interviews with composers/conductors/musicians here

Published today, a feature on Michael Tilson Thomas: A Star Maestro, Fighting Brain Cancer, Finds Peace in Music

He guest conducted the National Symphony last spring and received a long standing ovation when he canoe on stage at the start of the concert. It was a nice program with a short Carl Ruggles piece, something by Thomas himself which I have absolutely no recollection of unfortunately, and Appalachian Spring.

Came on stage. He did not canoe.

Canoeing would be particularly badass, particularly for "Appalachian Spring."

Surprised there was no mention upthread of the Beethoven String Quartets. One of my mentors described them as the pinnacle of Western music, and he wasn't far wrong. I'm still fond of the Smetana Quartet's cycle, which was the first one I ever heard all the way through.

i remember learning of him when i did a deep dive on L bernstein last year. tilson thomas was a protegé of his back in the '70s. you can here MTT talking about that time at 37:36 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRxEJbN2PcM

I’m partial to old Hungarians (either the Budapest or Hungarian Quartets) with the Beethoven quartets. I just read a very entertaining transcribed series of lectures by Hans Keller on the Op.130.

That must be an interesting read. Op.130 is a towering work. The Smetana's recording of the Cavatina is extremely moving.

Some of the recordings I have include both the Große Fuge and the rewritten sixth movement. Others just opt for the former.

Keller prefers the revised last movement and thinks it’s more radical than the Fuge. I’ll have to refresh myself as to why he thinks that. His whole argument is about how Beethoven is subverting the (contemporary) audiences’s expectation of how a string quartet is supposed to go, as established in the Classical era.

Norman Lebrecht is kind of a dork but this is chilling: Concertmaster of the Salt Lake Symphony in ICE detention https://slippedisc.com/2025/08/us-music-director-speaks-up-for-ice-seized-violinist/

Chilling it is.