101 Classical Music CDs

It's cheating to use the word impressionist when describing Debussy's music, and yet it's a simple fact that Debussy's piano compositions sound just as impressionistic as his orchestral compositions. Today's Preludes are stunning and vivid--they have splashes of wild color, strange chords, strange melodies and weirdly unorthodox techniques. This guy is a true rule-breaker, no matter what instrument he works with. ********************** Krystian Zimerman, piano Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Claude Debussy: Préludes Deutsche Grammophon, 1994 [2 CDs] ********************** Until today, I had only experienced Debussy's La Mer and Images , both of which are orchestral works which are at times is so vivid that you can literally almost see the music (the first movement of La Mer is an excellent example of this). The Preludes for piano are equally vivid, but I'd argue that at times Debussy's special effects and musical gadgets interfere with the music itself. I...

I stood by the body of my passionately loved husband, and was calm. All my feelings were absorbed in thankfulness to God that he was at last set free, and as I kneeled by his bed I was filled with awe. It was as if his holy spirit was hovering over me--Ah! If only he had taken me with him. --Clara Schumann, after the death of her husband Robert Schumann We return to George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra's exceptional recording of Schumann's Four Symphonies to hear his Symphony #2. ********************** George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Schumann: Symphonies 1-4; Manfred Overture CBS, 1958/Sony, 1996 ********************** When I sat down to listen to Schumann's Second Symphony, I assumed it would sound as Mozart-like as his First Symphony. I couldn't have been more wrong: these two symphonies sound strikingly different. Listener Notes for Schumann's Symphony #2: 1) You can tell right away that this symphony is far more Roman...

I can't help it. I just don't like Shostakovich. This is the second time I've tried my hand at a Shosty symphony, after listening to and heartily disliking his Eleventh Symphony . Unfortunately, I felt no emotional connection to his First Symphony either. The music seems random and arbitrary to me--and to be honest, I even caught myself rolling my eyes at a few of Shosty's musical devices. And as I'll show in the listener notes, it's more film score music than symphony. ********************** Leonard Bernstein and the Chicago Symphony Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 7 Deutsche Grammophone, 1989 ********************** Lucky me: I've still got three more of his symphonies left to listen to: his Second, Seventh and Twelfth. A little historical background before we get to the listener notes: Shostakovich wrote his First Symphony in 1925 at the shockingly young age of 18. It was his graduation piece at the Leningrad Conserva...

Today, at long last, I'll finally cover the fourth and final disc of my four-CD recording of Schumann's piano works performed by Wilhelm Kempff. Here are discs 1 , 2 and 3 if you missed them. I've really missed Schumie and his incomparable solo piano compositions. And what's amazing to me about these works is how complex they are. It's actually easier for me to follow a symphony--with all its dozens of different instruments--than it is for me to follow a single pianist performing one of Schumann's works. Despite repeated listens to each of the CDs in this four disc collection, I feel like I've only scratched at the surface of this music. ********************** Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Performed by Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991) Schumann: Piano Works Deutsche Grammophone, 1975 ********************** Before we get into the listener notes, let me say without reservation that I highly, highly recommend this exceptional recording to anyone interested in classi...

To be sure, a Schumann score is not as foolproof, as "self-rising," as a score of Wagner or Tchaikovsky or Richard Strauss, nor has the musical substance of a Schumann symphony the kind of inexorable propulsion of some Beethoven symphonies, which will survive even a shabby performance relatively unharmed. But is it really Schumann's fault that it takes a little trouble on the part of the conductor and orchestra to make his symphonies come off? --George Szell, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, 1946-1970 Schumann didn't just write music for the piano , obviously. But there is a bit of a debate as to the importance of his four symphonies. ********************** George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Schumann: Symphonies 1-4; Manfred Overture CBS, 1958/Sony, 1996 ********************** Fortunately, George Szell worshipped Schumann's four symphonies, and he conducted and recorded with the Cleveland Orchestra what is widely considered t...

But I have surely written you that I am at work on a large composition. You cannot believe how this claims one's entire being, and how one is often so deep in it that for the outer world one is as if dead. Try to conceive a work so vast that in it the entire world is mirrored--one is, so to speak, only an instrument on which the whole universe plays. (I have explained this to you often, and you must accept it, if you really wish to understand me. Everyone who wishes to live with me must learn this. In such moments I no longer belong to myself.) ...These are fearful birth pains the creator of such a work suffers, and before all this organizes itself, builds itself up, and ferments in his brain, it must be preceded by much preoccupation, engrossment with self, a being dead to the outer world. My symphony will be something the world has not as yet heard! --Gustav Mahler, in a letter to his lover Anna von Mildenburg, describing the gestation of his Third Symphony--and responding to her...

The older we get, the more we lose that divine self-confidence which is the treasure of youth, the fewer are those moments when we believe that what we have done is good. --Sergei Rachmaninoff, in an interview, at age 56. The Symphonic Dances was the last work Rachmaninoff ever composed. He completed it some four years after his Third Symphony, during a period in his life when "he had become increasingly dissatisfied with himself as a composer and even as a pianist." Yet more compelling evidence that the profession of classical music brings misery to the vast majority of those who enter it. The more I learn about the lives of major classical music composers and musicians, the more I'm relieved that, at age 17, I gave up any serious idea of becoming a professional trumpet player. I can only think how miserable and self-critical I'd be now at age 40. ********************** Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Symphony No. 3 ...

Thanks to a drunk conductor and some harsh criticism, Rachmaninoff's Third Symphony came very close to never being written. In 1897, at the young age of just 23, Sergei Rachmaninoff's career as a composer nearly ended before it began with the premiere of his First Symphony. He had already built a reputation for himself as a master pianist, and he had already composed an opera as well as a few other significant works. But the premiere of his First Symphony, which was poorly performed, badly conducted (by an allegedly drunk Alexander Glazunov) and excoriated by critics, nearly destroyed him. ********************** Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) Symphony No. 3 in A minor Symphonic Dances Deutsche Grammophon, 1998 ********************** Rachmaninoff fell into a period of deep depression. It would be four years before he would compose again, and it would be twelve years before he would write another symphony. Fortunately, that symp...

Forget the snotty music critics who berate Sibelius as a simpleton who wrote " insufficiently complex " music. I consider him a truly gifted composer who can create a wide range of emotions in his beautiful, grand and all-too-brief symphonies. In this journey of mine through my dusty classical music collection, Sibelius is turning out to be one of my most pleasurable discoveries. ********************** Paavo Berglund and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) Symphony No. 3 in C major Symphony No. 5 in E flat major EMI Records, 1988 ********************** Sibelius began his Fifth Symphony in mid-1914, and while the work contains overtones of war and gloom, the key themes of this symphony are optimism and triumph. It's interesting to note, however, that Sibelius wasn't happy with the original version, completed in mid-1915, and he reworked this symphony over the next year--and then reworked it yet again in 1919. Clearly, just because a symphony s...

It's been a year and a half since I last listened to the music of Jean Sibelius. And if nothing else, I'm annoyed with myself for once again overlooking this often-overlooked composer. ********************** Paavo Berglund and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) Symphony No. 3 in C major Symphony No. 5 in E flat major EMI Records, 1988 ********************** Sibelius' Third Symphony represents a significant stylistic break from his First and Second Symphonies, both of which were typical examples of the so-called heroic-national style (Sibelius was a fierce Finnish nationalist during a period when Finland struggled under Russian control). However, the Third Symphony, as my Essential Canon of Classical Music puts it, "entered into a different sphere of musical thought, using a radically condensed form totally devoid of the grand manner of his earlier music." Compared to Sibelius' Second Symphony, which I wrote about back in 2008 , th...

It's not often that you see a classical music-related comment that makes you spit out your coffee : "Bach sucks because he was not a true composer. A true composer hears the music before he writes it. Bach composed using a mathematical system of numbers which he tought[sic] his students. After his death one of his students published a book “How to write a menuet[sic] with little or no musical knowledge”. Frankly, the result of his work is not musical, the opening bars always sound musical because he copied someone else’s melody, broke it down into numbers and wrote counterpoint from it. Handel did not even like Bach, because Handel wrote music. Anyone who does like Bach does so because they are told to. For a comparison, listen to music by Frescobaldi, Rameau, or Couperin, then listen to Bach. The difference? Something that is musical throughout the entire piece, and something that is musical for 10 seconds and quickly loses interest." Once I'd finished mopping the co...

Laura: What are you listening to? Dan: Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. L: Which one? D: He only wrote one. L: So Violin Concerto Number 1 then? D: Uh, well, just "Violin Concerto." I think. If you thought the critical reaction to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 was bad, wait until you hear about the abuse heaped upon his Violin Concerto . ********************** Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Itzhak Perlman, Violin Violin Concerto Piano Concerto No. 1 RCA/Papillon, 1987 ********************** Despite the fact that Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to Leopold Auer, a famous violinist of the time, Auer refused to play it, considering it too technically difficult. Later, violinist Adolf Brodsky, a fellow Russian, performed the work for an audience in Vienna in 1881--and the audience hissed (apparently, booing didn't become popular in Europe until years later). Worse still were the critical reviews. As the ...

I replied that I would not alter a single note, and that I would have the concerto printed exactly as it stood. --Tchaikovsky, reacting to Nikolai Rubinstein's harsh criticism of Piano Concerto #1 Today's CD contains one of the very few examples of CD liner notes that are not only comprehensible, but actually fun to read. ********************** Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Misha Dichter, Piano Piano Concerto No. 1 Violin Concerto RCA/Papillon, 1987 ********************** In a (sadly uncredited) essay, readers learn the story about the reaction Tchaikovsky received when he showed his first piano concerto to his boss at the Moscow Conservatory, Nikolai Rubenstein: "Rubinstein excoriated the work after a private hearing.... Tchaikovsky was pitilessly flayed for what Rubenstein charged was tawdry, plagiaristic and unpianistic. The irate pedagogue even went to the piano and burlesqued page after page." Tchaikovsky...

Saint-Saens knows everything, but he lacks inexperience. --Hector Berlioz It's safe to say that Camille Saint-Saens' life was far more interesting than his music. ********************** James Levine and the Berliner Philharmoniker Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 "Organ" Dukas: L'Apprenti Sorcier (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) Deutsche Grammophon, 1987 ********************** He was a true polymath: a musical prodigy, a scientist, a philosopher, a travel writer, a poet and a composer. He lived a life filled with tragedy: when Saint-Saens was in his early forties, his two-and-a-half-year-old son died in a fall from the balcony of his Paris apartment. Just six weeks later, his other son died of pneumonia at just seven months of age. And three years after these incomprehensible tragedies, he walked out on his wife--in the middle of a vacation they were taking together! He left a note for her at their hotel and simply left. Today we'll g...

He has captured the click of castanets, the strumming of guitars, the thud of muffled dreams, the harsh better wail of Gypsy lament, the overwhelming gaiety of the village band, and above all, the wiry tension of the Spanish dance. --Ralph Kirkpatrick, harpsichordist and Scarlatti biographer Quite frankly, it's pure luck that any of Domenico Scarlatti's beautiful music survived at all. ********************** Ivo Pogorelich, piano Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) Scarlatti: Sonaten Deutsche Grammophon, 1992 ********************** The original manuscripts of his famous harpsichord sonatas were discarded upon his death, and if it weren't for his wife who had seen to it that his work was copied, his entire oeuvre would likely have disappeared down the memory hole. Worse, even those copies were ignored for more than a century. Scarlatti was born into an extremely musical family in Italy, and he was a startlingly talented harpsichordist. But it wasn't until he left Italy to be ...

One particularly annoying thing about the Rimsky-Korsakov works on this CD is that they are recordings of performances I already own, on a CD that I already wrote about . Granted, these works are still a great pleasure to listen to (uh, again), but I'd prefer that that publishers at least chose another performance of the same work by the same symphony. At least then listeners could compare the two . But of course the publisher can make more money by simply re-copying an already recorded performance, and no one, except a few true classical music nerds, will ever know the difference. ********************** Neeme Jarvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Tchaikovsky (1841-1904); Borodin (1833-1887); Rimsky Korsakov (1844-1908) Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture and Marche Slave Alexander Borodin: Polovtsian Dances and In The Steppes of Central Asia Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture and Capriccio Espagnol Deutsche Grammophon, 1990 ********************** However, this ...

The overture will be very loud and noisy, but probably has no artistic merit, as I wrote it without either warmth or love. --Tchaikovsky, writing about the 1812 Overture to his patron Madame von Meck Tchaikovsky wasn't the only critic of his 1812 Overture . There isn't a music pundit anywhere who hasn't said something witheringly condescending about this work ("it is filled with cheap thrills," sneers my trusty Essential Canon of Classical Music). 1812 is the bane of high school bands anywhere and an eye-roll-inducer at summer pops orchestras everywhere. And despite all this, it remains one of the most electrifying works of classical music ever written. ********************** Neeme Jarvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Tchaikovsky (1841-1904); Borodin (1833-1887); Rimsky Korsakov (1844-1908) Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture and Marche Slave Alexander Borodin: Polovtsian Dances and In The Steppes of Central Asia Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival O...