Albums of the Week

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5/20-26/12: Elgar
5/13-19/12: Smetana
5/6-12/12: Rossini
4/29-5/5, 2012: Berlioz
Tchaikovsky
4/1-7/12: Milhaud
3/25-31/12: Purcell
3/18-24/12: Puccini
3/11-17/12: Schumann
3/4-10/12: Mozart
2/26-3/3/12: von Weber
2/19-25/12: Theodorakis
2/12-18/12:Vaughn Williams
2/5-11/12: Grieg
1/29-2/4/12:Hovhaness
1/22-28/12: Faure
1/15-21/12: Sibelius
1/8-14/12: Respighi
ESSAYS
EXTRAS

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.  

Click on the above to enter this week's page

 

 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 [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