101 Classical Music CDs

"I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it." --Claude Debussy Today we'll listen for the first time to Debussy, one of the greatest rule-breakers in all of classical music. ********************** Los Angeles Philharmonic/Boston Symphony Orchestra Claude Debussy (1862-1918) La Mer; Images Deutsche Grammophon, 1971/1980 ********************** If you enjoy vivid musical imagery, this is a composer you should get to know. And if you enjoy salacious personal details, you'll want to read all about the controversies of Debussy's personal life (an example: not one, but two of his jilted lovers attempted suicide by shooting themselves after he left them. Both recovered). Fairly or unfairly, Debussy has been labeled an "impressionist"--many listeners consider his music to be an auditory representation of the well-known painting movement. I'll offer my own impression: if we have to define Debussy...

Just a brief post today: Here's an awesome t-shirt design of Strauss and Mahler available for sale that I thought I'd share with my readers. Available from the blog Soho the Dog in short and long-sleeved versions from $15.40. Proceeds go to the charity organization Christopher's Haven , which provides a housing for a nominal fee for pediatric cancer patients at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children. (Also a tip of the hat to Chantal at Mahler Owes Me Ten Bucks for bringing this to my attention!)

Today's CD, a glorious recording of Mozart's Horn Concertos, gives me a chance to share a few thoughts on the miserable difficulties of playing the french horn. ********************** Dennis Brain and the Philharmonia Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Mozart: Horn Concertos; Quintet, K.452 EMI Classics, 1954, 1955 ********************** I may be a trumpet player, but I've fooled around with the french horn enough to appreciate how hard an instrument it can be to play. And the french horn is, at its core, an uncontrollable instrument. All it takes is a very, very tiny change in your embouchure (that's a fancy word for the shape and formation of your lips when they're up against the mouthpiece), and you'll play a completely different note from the one you expected to play. And in Mozart's day, brass instruments (including the horn) were valveless. Thus you changed notes entirely by changing your embouchure-- and probably every third note was off...

I've dealt with Brahms' Fourth once before in a recording by the Weiner Philharmoniker under Carlos Kleiber. Today's post will cover an alternate recording of Brahms' Fourth, and it will complete our journey through the Philadelphia Orchestra's recording of Brahms' complete symphonies. Recall how I said that the simple act of picking up that Klieber disc, dusting it off and playing it made this entire blog worthwhile ? Well, today's CD has helped me get to know Brahms' Fourth even more intimately. It's one of the greatest classical music works I've ever heard, and I'm starting to think it might be my favorite symphony of all time. And I never knew it existed until I started this blog and began systematically working through my collection of classical music CDs. ********************** Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Complete Symphonies Philips, 1989 ********************** We've talked before about...

The Third is the most overlooked of Brahms' symphonies. In fact, The Essential Canon of Classical Music (which has become a veritable bible to me as I write this blog) gives the work only three bare sentences, saying that the Third "is infused with a genial lyricism," a phrase I view to be more condescending than insightful. ********************** Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Complete Symphonies Philips, 1989 ********************** I consider this symphony simple and direct. It is a pearl. And it has one element that at the time was considered shocking in its originality: a quiet, peaceful ending during an era of loud and drawn-out symphonic climaxes. With the minor exception of an out of tune clarinetist (more on this below), this is an excellent recording. Before we get to the listener notes, let's spend a brief moment on my favorite pet peeve: atrociously written liner notes . Here's a particularly inscrutable lin...

Today we'll go over a disc that you could almost call a mix tape of Russian classical music favorites. If you're a classical music beginner looking to sample some truly memorable musical works, this is a great disc to buy or download. ********************** Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition No 1-10; Night on the Bare Mountain; Khovanshchina - Prelude; Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture Decca, 1987 ********************** I generally hate to buy classical music CDs containing works by multiple composers (after all, which composer do you file it under?) but I gladly made an exception for this exceptional CD. I challenge you to find works more thrilling than Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Festival Orchestra . And one listen to Pictures at an Exhibition and you'll wish you were a brass player. Before we get to the listener notes, I'll tell a brief story about a time when I performed Pictures a...