101 Classical Music CDs

I challenge anyone to sit quietly and attentively through a Beethoven symphony-- any Beethoven symphony--and not get both engrossed and emotional. ********************** George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony #4 Symphony #7 Sony Classical, 1992 ********************** Today we'll talk about Beethoven's 4th Symphony, and how the 4th seems to get overlooked--even forgotten--in the context of Beethoven's best known works. Granted, everything is relative in life, and it's hard to compare favorably to titanic works like Beethoven's 1st, 5th and 9th Symphonies (we'll eventually get to all of them in this blog). It's like being the youngest kid in a family, getting straight A's and going on to a great career as a doctor or lawyer or whatever, but because your older brothers are Stephen Hawking, Winston Churchill and Michael Jordan, nobody notices you. Even Beethoven, by definition, has a least successful symphony. But it's a...

I considered holding off on Bach for a little bit because I feel he's almost too difficult to listen to, especially for classical music beginners. But because Bach holds such an important place in music history, and because his music will be the cornerstone of any basic classical music collection, we're going to tackle one of his more accessible works early on in this blog. ********************** Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Johann Sebastian Bach The Brandengurg Concertos Orchestral Suites No. 2 &3 Deutsche Grammophon, 1965 ********************** The Brandenberg Concertos (there are six of them) are deeply complicated works, but don't let that scare you off. These works are accessible to a novice listener. And I'd suggest if you are starting your own classical music collection, get a copy of the Brandenberg Concertos early on. The particular recording I have (listed above) is performed in a relatively slow tempo on modern instruments, and I prefer...

Part of me is almost sheepish about promoting Anton Bruckner. I suppose I consider him one of my guilty pleasures. ********************** Claudio Abbado and the Weiner Philharmoniker Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) Symphony #4 "Romantic" (ca. 1874) Deutsche Grammophon, 1991 ********************** I had a friend back in high school who really insulted me once when I told her that I liked Bruckner: Bruckner? Come on. He's the John Williams of .... no, he's the Andrew Lloyd Webber of classical music! If you were a music student in the 1980s, and if you thought of yourself as culturally superior in an era of overwrought musicals like Phantom and Cats and cheesy movie scores for movies like E.T. and Star Wars, then you'd understand how profoundly condescending this statement was to me. All I could do was weakly claim that she'd "get" Bruckner if she played a brass instrument instead of a clarinet. I rarely find anybody who finds this story funny when I tell ...

Have you ever read the liner notes of a classical music CD and scratched your head wondering what the heck the writer was trying to say? Or attempted to read a classical music concert review in your newspaper and felt totally illiterate? One of the things that frustrates many people about classical music is its perceived elitism. It's unfortunate, but most of what gets written about classical music only worsens that perception. Most of the classical music writing I see out there--either in symphony concert program books, in concert reviews in major papers like the New York Times, or worst of all in the little essays in the booklets accompanying most classical music CDs--is quite simply terrible. Often, it is pretentiously written, it is full of industry jargon (yes, even the classical music industry has its own jargon), and it reads like an intellectually insecure liberal arts student's PhD thesis. There are a few reasons for this. First, there's the fundamental difficulty ...

I've wondered, after composing something as flawless and structurally perfect as the 5th Symphony , what can a man, even a giant like this man, possibly do for an encore? That's what draws me to Beethoven's 6th Symphony. ********************** Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony #5 Symphony #6, "Pastoral" Deutsche Grammophon, 1984 ********************** The 6th Symphony, which I'll focus on today, may not have the gravitas of the 5th, but it is still stunningly beautiful and inspiring. It is lilting (as much as Beethoven can lilt), yet still quite formal. Beethoven was probably the cockiest composer in the history of classical music, but if you just spend a little time listening closely to any of his music, you can see that he deserved to be cocky. I have always loved the story about his response to people who were bewildered by the dissonance and complexity of his so-called "late" string quartets. He said,...

If you are interested in starting up a collection of solid classical music, you probably should start by buying all of Beethoven's symphonies, and the first one I suggest you spend time on is his 5th. ********************** Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony #5 Symphony #6, "Pastoral" Deutsche Grammophon, 1984 ********************** It is the most accessible of his symphonies to anyone new to classical music. Everyone recognizes the four-note opening theme. Beethoven's 5th is a textbook example of the symphonic form (some would say it represents the utter perfection of the symphonic form). And, at about 25 minutes in running time, it won't strain your attention span. I've probably listened to this symphony at least 200 times, and I've performed it as well. And I still get emotional listening to it. Listen for the triumphal sections about one minute into the second movement, as well as the soft woodwind and strin...

Lorin Maazel and the Cleveland Orchestra Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Romeo & Juliet Symphony #4 in F minor Telarc, 1993 ******************************* Today's post brings back memories. Terrible memories. Romeo and Juliet was a piece our high school symphonic band played, and in the arrangement for concert band, inexplicably, the trumpets had to play a lot of the technically demanding runs that would have been assigned to the strings in the orchestral/original version. Now, anybody who knows high school music programs knows that high school trumpet players, mostly boys, don't practice like the predominantly flute- or clarinet-playing girls. So our band director, Mr. I, growing increasingly frustrated with our muddy sound, went "down the line." Meaning, he made each individual trumpet player play the run by himself. In front of the rest of the band. Which included all the girls in the clarinet and flute section in front of us who turned around to look and watch us scr...

I'm going to start with the Czech composer Dvorak (1841-1904) and his 7th Symphony, written in 1885. Of course, everybody who even slightly knows any classical music will know Dvorak's 9th Symphony, or at least recognize the famous melody in the second movement. But I already know that one. So I'm starting with the somewhat more obscure 7th. I actually have two recordings of Dvorak's 7th: one is by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch in a 1990 CD of Dvorak's Symphony #7 and Symphony #8; the other is the London Symphony Orchesta in a 2001 CD, conducted by Sir Colin Davis in a live recording. The Philly Orchestra recording is considerably better. It sounds cleaner and fuller. And something about the London Symphony's trumpet players bugs me--they feel underfed and they play off key at times. But those are minor criticisms. There's actually a New York connection with Dvorak, as he was the director the New York Conservatory of Music fr...

This blog represents the documentation of my efforts to quit buying new classical music and actually listen to all the music that I already own. Each week I'll share my (hopefully brief) thoughts and impressions as I work through a 100+ classical music CD collection. My goal at the end of this year is to be much more familiar with all of the great music that's just sitting here in my home. If you're new to classical music and are interested in learning more, or if you are interested in building your own library of classical classics and you want some suggestions to get started, or if you are an experienced listener or musician willing to share your views, please join me!