Classical Music Albums

Albums of the Week

Classical Music Albums

In keeping with the presentation of the complete set of Beethoven symphonies by the Columbia Symphony under Bruno Walter, here is the Symphony No. 3, the Eroica and the Coriolan Overture. The other two albums featured this week (October 3-9, 2010) are a set of Bach cantatas (BWV 163, 139, and 116) from disc 58 of the 69 disc set of Bach's complete choral works. This is followed by an album entitled Corellin in Venice. This includes his famous Adagio in g minor as well as some fine sounding concerti works for oboe. An "Extras" album is one of the Moody Blues best albums, To Our Children's Children's Children.

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Information about albums being featured is sent out via email. Track listings and YouTube links to examples of the music and any comments or reviews regarding the music can be accessed or read here. It's free. You can be added to the recipients list by signing up here. Your email address is secure and not shared with anyone or anything or any other entity.

Notes and admonitions:

Re: Presenting MP3s of the music:
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
Regarding YouTube links: These can be changed or deleted from YouTube without notice.
Regarding comments and reviews: Although I occasionally write comments (under any number of pseudonyms), I choose most comments based most closely to what I would have indicated had I written them. I try to chose comments and reviews written by someone who knows the piece of music better than I do. If I were to write a review or comment for every selection here, this would never get published.
For best results and for a maximal listening experience to both YouTube presentations and MP3 or MP4 links, use headphones or a good speaker system hooked up to your computer. It is rather impossible to obtain a true appreciation of this music (or any music) using the small speakers on a computer, as good as they might be. For music, such speakers will never do. If you listen to this music using only the computer speakers, the listening experience is entirely different from the enhanced and more nuanced experience gained by listening to the music with a good sound system. Using computer speakers only offers a subtantially diminished experience.

Works marked with a sun [

] are listed among the 150 most important classical works or are examples of great moments in Classical Music.

YouTube videos that are of exceptionally good quality are marked with a .

Purpose of This Web Site

Since I have about 1,300+ CD albums in my collection (and growing), mostly of Classical Music but a lot of other genres as well,and since I cannot listen to all of them all the time, I thought I would share some of this music in some way so these disks do not just sit there, going to waste. These are here for your listening enjoyment and perhaps enlightenment. This site could be used roughly as a course in Classical Music Appreciation. It can also be seen as a sort of advertisement for the albums featured. If individuals like an album well enough, they might be inspired to purchase it. Most of the albums featured here are available at some vendor's web site, such as Amazon, or at third parties at Amazon or other vending sites. In regard to using this site as a sort of rough course in Classical Music appreciation, here is a link to a course on how to listen to Classical Music: http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=7264

Why seeing the music being performed is a very good thing:

The music is unbelievable, but watching a video is like being treated to an opera. The obvious enjoyment and animation of the orchestra, the luscious visual feast to which we are treated by the camera work along with what could only be described as the choreography of the entire production with the synchronized movement of heads and bows and the characteristic but often inexplicable expression and movements of [the conductor] combine to make a most memorable visual pageant. [Paraphrased from jereunderwood at YouTube]

The Great Hall at the Moscow Conservatory of Music

1 Symphony No. 9 "Choral"--Ludwig Van Beethoven

2 Mass In B Minor--Johann Sebastian Bach

3 Rite Of Spring--Igor Stravinsky

Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique"--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

5 Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"--Ludwig Van Beethoven

Symphony No. 9--Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 41 "Jupiter"--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

8 The Ring of the Nibelungs--Richard Wagner

9 Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"--Ludwig Van Beethoven

10 Pictures At An Exhibition--Modest Mussorgsky

St Matthew Passion--Johann Sebastian Bach

12 Symphony No. 5--Ludwig Van Beethoven

13 Symphony No. 9 "From The New World"--Antonin Dvorak

14 Also Sprach Zarathustra--Richard Strauss

15 Violin Concerto--Ludwig Van Beethoven

16 Piano Concerto No. 2--Sergei Rachmaninoff

17 Symphony No. 4--Johannes Brahms

Requiem--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

19 Piano Concerto--Robert Schumann

20 Symphonie Fantastique--Hector Berlioz

21 Piano Sonata No. 2--Frederic Chopin

22 Symphony No. 9--Anton Bruckner

23 Piano Concerto No. 1--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

24 The Planets--Gustav Holst

25 Piano Sonata--Franz Liszt

Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"--Franz Schubert

27 Messiah--George Frideric Handel

28 Aida--Giuseppe Verdi

Piano Concerto No. 2--Johannes Brahms

30 The Four Seasons--Antonio Vivaldi

Messa Da Requiem--Giuseppe Verdi

32 Scheherazade--Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov

33 Enigma Variations--Edward Elgar

34 The Goldberg Variations--Johann Sebastian Bach

35 Don Giovanni--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Symphony No. 40--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

37 Symphony No. 7--Ludwig Van Beethoven

38 Symphony No. 94 "Surprise"--Franz Joseph Haydn

39 Piano Concerto No. 20--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

40 Symphony No. 5--Dmitri Shostakovich

41 Firebird Suite--Igor Stravinsky

42 Piano Concerto No. 2--Franz Liszt

43 Violin Concerto--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

44 Piano Quintet "The Trout"--Franz Schubert

45 Cello Concerto--Antonin Dvorak

Lohengrin--Richard Wagner

47 Symphony No. 1--Gustav Mahler

48 Appalachian Spring--Aaron Copland

49 Missa Solemnis--Ludwig Van Beethoven

50 Piano Sonata No. 14 "Moonlight"--Ludwig Van Beethoven

51 Madama Butterfly--Giacomo Puccini

Serenade No. 13 "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

53 Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini--Sergei Rachmaninoff

54 Symphony No. 5--Serge Prokofiev

55 La Mer--Claude Debussy

56 Symphony No. 2--Jean Sibelius

57 Don Quixote--Richard Strauss

58 Piano Concerto No. 2--Frederic Chopin

59 Symphony No. 5--Ralph Vaughan Williams

60 Symphony No. 4--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

61 24 Preludes--Frederic Chopin

The Barber Of Seville--Gioacchino Rossini

63 Symphony No. 3 "Scotch"--Felix Mendelssohn

64 Carmen--Georges Bizet

65 Symphony of Psalms--Igor Stravinsky

Falstaff--Giuseppe Verdi

67 Canon--Johann Pachelbel

Toccata and Fugue--Johann Sebastian Bach

68 Romeo And Juliet Overture Fantasy--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

69 Symphony No. 2--Johannes Brahms

70 Piano Concerto No. 21--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

71 Boris Godunov--Modest Mussorgsky

Water Music--George Frideric Handel

73 Piano Concerto No. 3--Sergei Rachmaninoff

74 Symphony No. 4--Charles Ives

75 Otello--Giuseppe Verdi

Carmina Burana--Carl Orff

77 "Little" Fugue--Johann Sebastian Bach

Symphony No. 35 "Haffner"--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

79 Piano Concerto No. 4--Ludwig Van Beethoven

Night On Bald Mountain--Modest Mussorgsky

81 Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale"--Ludwig Van Beethoven

82 Carnavel--Robert Schumann

83 Symphony No. 3 "Rhenish"--Robert Schumann

A Midsummer Night's Dream--Felix Mendelssohn

85 Symphony No. 9 "The Great"--Franz Schubert

86 The Marriage Of Figaro--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Violin Concerto--Felix Mendelssohn

88 Hungarian Rhapsodies--Franz Liszt

89 String Quartet No. 14--Ludwig Van Beethoven

90 Peer Gynt Suite No. 1--Edvard Grieg

91 Concerto for Orchestra--Bela Bartok

92 Symphony No. 5--Jean Sibelius

93 Tristan Und Isolde--Richard Wagner

Verklaerte Nacht--Arnold Schoenberg

95 Symphony No. 1--Dmitri Shostakovich

96 Clarinet Quintet "Stadler"--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

97 Piano Sonata No. 15--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

German Requiem--Johannes Brahms

99 Violin Concerto--Johannes Brahms

100 Symphony No. 4--Gustav Mahler

101 Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis--Ralph Vaughan Williams

102 24 Caprices--Niccolo Paganini

103 Fantasy in C major--Robert Schumann

104 String Quintet No. 1 "Spring"--Johannes Brahms

105 Symphony No. 7--Anton Bruckner

106 Faust Suite--Charles Gounod

107 Symphony No. 3--Johannes Brahms

108 Symphony No. 8--Anton Bruckner

109 Violin Concerto No. 1--Max Bruch

110 Symphony No. 3 "Organ"--Camille Saint Saens

111 Symphony No. 5--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

112 Requiem--Hector Berlioz

113 Rhapsody In Blue--George Gershwin

114 The Royal Fireworks Music--George Frideric Handel

115 Symphony No. 104 "London"--Franz Joseph Haydn

116 Prelude A L'apres Midi D'un Faune--Claude Debussy

117 Fur Elise--Ludwig Van Beethoven

La Boheme--Giacomo Puccini

119 Requiem--Maurice Durufle

120 Symphony No. 5--Gustav Mahler

121 The Swan Lake Ballet Suite--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

122 Brandenburg Concertos--Johann Sebastian Bach

123 Petrouchka--Igor Stravinsky

124 Symphony No. 10--Dmitri Shostakovich

127 Symphony No. 2--Alexander Borodin

128 Adagio For Strings--Samuel Barber

Bach: The Four Orchestral Suites

130 Symphony No. 100 "Military"--Franz Joseph Haydn

131 Piano Concerto No. 1--Franz Liszt

132 War Requiem--Benjamin Britten

133 Symphony No. 1--Edward Elgar

134 Symphony No. 4--Jean Sibelius

135 Requiem--Gabriel Faure

136 The Sorcerer's Apprentice--Paul Dukas

137 Poem of Ecstacy--Alexander Scriabin

138 Symphony No. 3 "Pastoral"--Ralph Vaughan Williams

139 Symphony No. 4--Robert Schumann

140 Symphony No. 4 "Italian"--Felix Mendelssohn

Choral Fantasia for Piano, Orchestra, and Cho--Ludwig Van Beethoven

142 Marche Slav--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

Piano Concerto No. 1--Frederic Chopin

144 Symphony in D minor--Cesar Franck

145 Mozartiana from The four Orchestral Suites--Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

Violin Concerto--Niccolo Paganini

147 Violin Concerto--Edward Elgar

Violin Partita No. 2--Johann Sebastian Bach

149 Symphonie Espagnole -- Éduard Lalo

150 Trois Gymnopedie--Erik Satie

BBC Music Magazine listed its 20 Greatest Conductors of All-Time. It placed Carlos Kleiber at #1. Since I do not hold to these singular lists, I did as was done for the above 150 Most Important Classical Works: I surfed through the internet and compiled multiple lists of "Greatest Conductors" by a variety of musical experts. I then averaged out their rankings but also valued the rankings based on the number of entries, rounding out the numbers to the nearest whole, and came up with a comprehensive compilation based on over a dozen lists, including BBC Music Magazine's. Here is the list (because of the rounding of the results, numerous ties occur, which is the fairest way):

1	Herbert Van Karajan
2	Wilhelm Furtwangler
3	Leonard Bernstein
4	Arturo Toscanini
5	Otto Klemperer
	Claudio Abbado
7	Thomas Beecham
	Simon Rattle
9	John Barbirolli
	Sergei Celibidache
	Carlos Kleiber
	Georg Solti
13	Eugen Jochum
14	Ferenc Friscay
	Karl Bohm
16	George Szell
	Dmitri Metropoulos
18	Bruno Walter
	Andre Previn
20	Lorin Maazel