Recommendations of Classical Music
Jan Dejnožka
November 15, 2003; last updated December 2, 2023
INTRODUCTION
There is so much beautiful music in this world, but I wanted to keep the list short, so I weighted it heavily with favorites of long standing. For variety, I have found at least one good classical radio station within range of every town I have lived in.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Art of the Fugue, Contrapuncti 1-24. Part One, fugues 1-11. Part Two (playlist), fugues 12-24 (#24 is unfinished), plus “Vor Deinem Thron Steh’ Ich.” The Fine Arts Quartet and The New York Woodwind Quintet. I find all of it basically perfect in tone and spirit. I have loved Part One (vinyl LP #1, red cover, fugues 1-11) since high school in the 1960s. Part One is Concert-Disc Connoisseur Series CS-230. In 2014, about fifty years later, I found Part Two (vinyl LP #2, green cover, fugues 12-24 plus “Vor Deinem Thron”) for sale online. Part Two is Concert-Disc Connoisseur Series CS-250. I also like the harpsichord performance of Art of the Fugue by Gunnar Johansen, recorded in his home studio. That’s Die Kunst der Fuge in German, and Ars Fuga in Latin. “Contrapunctus” means counterpoint. “Fuga” literally means flight, as in the flight of a bird. It’s related to the English word “fugitive.” But here it means the flight of musical thought or of the piece of music; and perhaps no flight is less improvisational, or harder, more laborious, and planned than these fugues! Yet the flight of their musical thought, though rigidly controlled in one sense, is incredibly free and full of life in another.
I had read many years ago that the first half dozen or so fugues in Art of the Fugue were very dry and austere, and that Bach then started to loosen up when writing the rest of them. And so I listened to them that way for almost fifty years. But on May 16, 2015, after listening to Albert Schweitzer play Bach’s organ fugues for perhaps the hundredth time, I heard the first six fugues in Art of the Fugue in a very different way. They too are full of deep emotion, even perhaps more deeply than the later fugues. They are mainly full of the emotion of religious humility. I missed it completely, but it was there all along, in the performances by The Fine Arts Quartet and The New York Woodwind Quintet. This fits the facts, too. Bach was deeply religious and near the end of his life, he was unable to finish the last fugue before he died. So he turned away from the Art of the Fugue to compose the brief Vor Deinem Thron Steh' Ich (Before Thy Throne Stand I), which is also on the Part Two album. As I hear it now, the Art of the Fugue starts with Bach humbly asking God in the first fugue if he may proceed with this last work. Then God gradually allows Bach to express himself more and more freely as the fugues go on. But the fugues maintain throughout an underlying mood of religious humility, since that is who Bach is - a devout believer. The last and greatest fugue, the one he was unable to finish, was the one where he was the most himself, but also the most limited by his impending death. According to his son, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, he even used his own name - B flat, A, C, B neutral - as the motif for the unfinished countersubject, as if he were signing his name using musical notes within the work. The whole story is an example of the finite limits of humanity. Bach could not finish his last and greatest work before dying, so he turned away from it and turned toward God instead. Vor Deinem Thron is best played right after where he stopped writing the last fugue, just as it is placed in the album. The 24 fugues of Art of the Fugue correspond to the 24 scales of Western classical music, one fugue in each scale.
Schweitzer's revival of Bach after centuries of neglect was largely based on bringing out the religious emotions in Bach's work. Perhaps only someone with similarly deep religious emotions, such as Schweitzer, could have seen that and done that, after Bach had been written off as an obscure pedant for so long. But this was not all there was to Schweitzer's revival, and in fact the revival of interesst in Bach had already started before Schweitzer.
Here my favorite pianist, the composer Ferruccio Busoni, plays some Bach, Bach-Busoni, Beethoven-Busoni, Chopin, and Liszt in Ferruccio Busoni: His Complete Disc Recordings, February 27, 1922, recorded in the London studios of British Columbia Records (International Piano Archives IPA 104). I heard it on vinyl LP for many years. The IPA vinyl LP has typically poor 1920s sound quality.
The best performance of the Bach-Busoni Chaconne (Bach’s Partita 2, Chaconne for solo violin transcribed for piano by Busoni) is by Busoni himself on Nimbus 8810. The following two clips purport to be Busoni playing, but I believe they are not. For one thing, they sound slow and uninspired, even somnolent. For another, the “Show more” for Section 2 lists the “Artist” as Wolf Harden! Here is Harden presented as fake Busoni: Section 1. Section 2. Many famous pianists have played this great work, and many of them are on YouTube.
Four Sonatas: in G major, E minor, F major, and G minor. Steven Staryk, violin, Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord. Baroque Records BC 2858. I first listened to this album in the 1960s. I especially love the Allegro from the Allegro-Adagio, first movement of Sonata in E minor. It starts 9 minutes and 40 seconds into the link just above. It is my favorite movement in the E minor, and on the whole album. Here the movement is played alone: Sonata in E minor, Movement 1, Prelude: Adagio ma non tanto, 1:17; but unfortunately, it is marred by flutter.
Violin Concerto #1 in A minor and #2 in E major, and Concerto in D minor for two violins. Josef Suk, violin, Ladislav Jásek, violin. Václav Smetaček conducts The Prague Symphony Orchestra. Supraphon (a product of Epic Records) stereo Crossroads 22 16 0038. I have been listening to this album since the late 1960s. This is the album that led me to mention Suk to Krasner as a violinist I liked.
Bach Recital. Toccata & Fugue in D minor, Fantasia & Fugue in G minor (The Great), Fugue in G minor (The Little), Preludes and Fugues in F minor, C, and G. Albert Schweitzer, organ. Angel COLC 89. 1935. I have loved this album since the 1960s; it belonged to my parents. The performances are said to be the first ones recorded of Bach’s organ works played by a great 19th-century-trained organist. (Schweitzer studied organ with Charles Marie Widor.) Yet if Schweitzer had not needed more money to keep his hospital going, he never would have done them. He would have stayed in his hospital in Africa. All the YouTube clips I’ve heard of Schweitzer playing Bach sound poor. Happily, the performances on my album have been digitized on CD and sound better than ever. The six performances I have loved the most since the 1960s are in a four-CD set (which also includes much else), except for G minor “The Little,” which is on another CD, which was mastered at a lower sound level than the four-CD set. Here are performances from the album: Prelude and Fugue in F minor (part one). Prelude and Fugue in F minor (part two). Prelude and Fugue in G major (part one). Prelude and Fugue in G major (part two). Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (“The Great”). Fugue in G minor (“The Little”). Here is a playlist of the fugues. Here are over three hours of Schweitzer playing Bach, including many fugues and much else. If you click on “Show more,” you can pick the piece you want to hear.
Albert Schweitzer was a philosopher, theologian, organist, and organ designer / builder / restorer who decided to become a medical doctor to help others after he turned 30. Again, he studied organ in the 19th century with the great French organist and composer Charles Marie Widor. Widor was so impressed with Schweitzer's understanding of Bach that he encouraged Schweitzer to write a book on how to play Bach, which Schweitzer did some years later. I bought Schweitzer’s two volume work, J.S. Bach, which, along with his Bach performances, was a main part of the revival of public interest in Bach after centuries of neglect, when I was in high school. Trans. by Ernest Newman. New York: Dover, 1966. First published in 1911. Schweitzer's doctoral dissertation in philosophy was on Immanuel Kant's philosophy of religion. Schweitzer's major work in philosophy was the two volume The Philosophy of Civilization. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy, Schweitzer then qualified both as theologian and as pastor, and wrote a major theological work, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Schweitzer then devoted the rest of his life to serving humanity. He qualified as a medical doctor and surgeon. He served in Lambaréné, Africa as a medical missionary and humanitarian for many years, building his own hospital for the Africans, and supervising the construction of new buildings as the hospital expanded. He also served as the hospital pastor. He returned to Europe from time to time to give organ recitals to help raise money for the hospital. The best known of these is the one recorded on the Angel album I love so much. I believe the money was used to buy corrugated iron to replace the leaky thatched roofs on the buildings in his leper colony. Schweitzer may not have been a perfect human being, but he certainly did his best. Many have called him a twentieth century saint. For the record, I'm an agnostic, a philosopher following the path of reason, not a believer following the path of faith, and I share the rational skepticism of most academically trained philosophers. But I find spiritual value in all the major world religions, and I'm very sympathetic. In fact, it's hard to find this kind of spiritual life, meaning inspiration and service, outside of religion. And it’s easy to find in Schweitzer’s life and works.
Italian Concerto. Wanda Landowska, harpsichord. Another favorite performance I’ve loved since the 1970s. There is more Landowska on YouTube.
Sonatas and Partitas. Hopkinson Smith, lute.
Walter/Wendy Carlos, Switched-On Bach. This was the first major performance of classical music on an electronic Moog Synthesizer, named after Robert Moog, its inventor. The album was not just a novelty. It was not just “mechanically” flawless and perfect. It was not even just a breakthrough taking the synthesizer out of the austerity of performances in the lab and into the world of music people could enjoy listening to. It was a first-rate performance in every way. And that’s why it was so popular. It fully deserved its popularity. I for one loved it. But I’m sure I was far from alone. The album is hard to find on the Web, possibly because of zealous copyright protection. There are all sorts of “tribute” performances honoring Carlos’ style on YouTube, but it’s hard to find the whole actual album online, as of December 2, 2023. At least the album is available in CD on Amazon.
BELA BÁRTOK
Piano Concerto #3. Eva Bernathová, piano. Karel Ančerl conducts Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Artia ALP 199. The album has Bártok's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra on the other side. The music meant nothing to me at first. About two years later I found it warm, sensitive, intimate, loving, and unassuming. Later it seemed like a good blend of Bártok's austerity (though he is always colorful in his way) and Czech colorfulness in performance. (Sometimes a colorful performance comes off as sugar-coating, as in Suk's performance of the Berg concerto. Contrast Ravel's colorful orchestral transcription of Mussorsky's Pictures to Hans Richter's performance of the original piano score, which does not come across as sugar-coating at all, but as a fuller embodiment.) When I listened to it in February 2003, I found myself focusing on the deep intuitive logic of the performance, and all the warmth and color disappeared! It seems that every time I listen to it, it is a different piece of music. That may reflect on my growth, but I think it also reflects on the music. I am not sure why I am recommending the piece, or why I keep coming back to it. Perhaps it is the very intrigue. Nor am I sure why I was never interested in the viola concerto; it seems about as well-performed as the piano concerto. I have had the album since the 1970s. I especially like the first movement. It’s intriguing, inviting, whimsical, playful, and fascinating. 1. Allegretto. 2. Adagio Religioso. 3. Allegro Vivace.
I like the Tátrai String Quartet’s performances of Bártok’s six string quartets, but I can’t seem to find them online. My favorites are the third and fourth. Here the Juilliard plays the third quartet. Here the Juilliard plays the fourth quartet. Here is a live performance of the fourth quartet by the Leonkoro Quartet in a quartet competition.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
String Quartets #14 and #15 by the Budapest String Quartet. Very near and dear. I also include here String Quartet #16, called the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue). All are called Beethoven’s late quartets because he wrote them late in life and they were his last quartets. All of them are in The Late Quartets, The Budapest String Quartet, Columbia Stereo M5S 677, meaning the compositions. not necessarily all the performances linked just above. Beethoven's Grosse Fuge impresses me as the best fugal writing after Bach's Art of the Fugue. And after Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, for me the third best fugal writing is Brahms' fugue which is the last variation in his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Händel, which I love performed by Walter Klien, piano. That is here, showing the old album jacket I love. But to return to Beethoven's late quartets, as performed by the Budapest, 14 and 15 are my favorites, which I like to listen to as a single huge quartet. I was glad to learn many years later, in 2014, that quartet 14 was Beethoven's favorite.
Violin Concerto. Isaac Stern, violin, Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic. Columbia ML 5415. I probably first listened to this album over fifty years ago in the 1960s. My parents took me to hear Stern play live in the Proctor Theatre in Schenectady when I was in high school, also in the 1960s. Stern was full of complaints about Mohawk Airlines for losing his luggage, including his music. Then he said he would play a piece from memory. I think it was a sonata for violin and piano. He played beautifully for quite a while. Then he stopped and said, “That’s all I remember.” At least Mohawk Airlines didn’t lose his piano accompanist!
Fifth Symphony. Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic. Columbia MLC 5868. I probably first listened to this album in the 1970s. It belonged to my parents. Here you can see Bernstein conducting the Fifth live with the Vienna Philharmonic - not quite as good, but worth watching. Here is a video of Bernstein’s discussion of the Fifth, which came as a small vinyl LP (audio only) along with the regular sized vinyl LP of the performance of the Fifth.
Piano Sonata 32. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. London CS 6446. 1961. The album also includes sonatas by Galuppi and Scarlatti. Here is a video of a live performance of the piece by Michelangeli - it’s almost as good, and you can watch him playing it.
ALBAN BERG
Violin Concerto. 1. Andante-Allegro. 2. Allegro-Adagio. Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin. James Levine conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft DGG 437 093-2. Recorded in 1992. This performance is also included on Mutter’s multi-CD Modern, along with her performances of the Bártok and Schoenberg violin concertos.
In 2012, I was very impressed by Anne-Sophie Mutter’s wonderful and masterful multi-CD album Modern, which includes works by several composers. I started listening to the piece on it that I know best, Berg’s Violin Concerto, since my teacher, Louis Krasner, had commissioned it and played the world premiere. For the first minute, I was saying to myself, Where’s the emotion? All the feeling of the Krasner performance is gone! In the second minute, I was saying to myself, Wait a minute. She’s making the piece clear and intelligible! I soon saw she was giving a remarkably balanced performance of the piece. It is a performance I recommend not only as a performance, but if you want to understand the composition as a composition. Not that it’s merely pedagogical - far from it! - but that she worked the piece out and understood it so completely. Likewise for all the pieces on the album. It was the last thing I expected, because I had such a low opinion of her because of her weird, idiosyncratic interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on a certain album. Frankly, she sounded lost playing a piece that’s almost impossible to go wrong on. But her performance of the modern pieces turned my opinion of her around completely. I concluded that her strong point is modern, not baroque. In fact, there are many good baroque performers, but few who can do what she does with the modern pieces. That said, in late 2023 I was happy to find her playing a wonderful Four Seasons chamber music style. “All’s Well That Ends Well!”
Krasner’s 1936 performance of Berg’s violin concerto was already linked in the Introduction above.
ALEXANDER BORODIN
String Quartet #2. The Borodin Quartet. London STS 15046. Beautiful! I’ve loved it since the late 1960s or early 1970s. The other side of the album has an outstanding performance of Shostakovich’s String Quartet #8.
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Concerto for Violin and Cello. Jascha Heifetz, violin, Gregor Piatigorksy, cello. Alfred Wallenstein, conductor. RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. RCA Victor LD 2513. Beautiful for over forty years of listening to it since the 1970s. I doubt there will ever exist a better performance. Among the other performances I have heard, there is simply no comparison. If I may quote from the Wikipedia article “Jascha Heifetz,” “Among other noted violinists in attendance [of a 1912 matinee] was Fritz Kreisler. After the 12-year-old Heifetz performed the Mendelssohn violin concerto, [Arthur] Abell reported that Kreisler said to all present, ‘We may as well break our fiddles across our knees’.”
Piano Quintet, with all four movements in sequence. The Budapest String Quartet with Clifford Curzon, piano. With poorer sound quality but showing the original album cover, here is the first movement alone: Piano Quintet, movement 1. Odyssey monaural 32 16 0173. My favorite album for about eight years, ca. 1970-78, and I think still my favorite. Brahms wrote it before he was thirty. It is unbelievable to me that this is still not available on CD. This is one of the two or three albums I have loved the most.
The Budapest also plays the piano quintet with the famous conductor George Szell on the piano, but I am sorry to say that Szell cannot keep up with the Budapest. It is unbelievable to me that they would put the Szell on CD, but not the Curzon. Rudolf Serkin with the Budapest is too slow compared to Curzon. This might be Curzon’s best performance. I was inspired to check some of his other performances, which are uniformly excellent, but not on the exalted level of the Brahms quintet in my opinion. The Budapest, on the other hand, is rightly deemed legendary for practically everything they perform, especially the later Beethoven quartets. In any case, Curzon rises to the occasion and plays with them at their best. I think they all inspire the best in each other.
The Three Piano Quartets. Also Schumann, Piano Quintet. Artur Rubinstein, piano, The Guarneri Quartet. RCA stereo LSC 6188. Copyright 1969. I do not usually like Rubinstein, though I love him with Heifetz and Piatigorsky. I have enjoyed this album for at least forty years since the 1970s. I love the chemistry, the warmth and cordiality. I have seen the Brahms on CD. I love the Schumann as well - some beautiful moments. My parents and I heard Rubinstein play live in Schenectady when I was in high school. That must have been in the Proctor Theatre. But I am sorry to say that I do not care for Rubinstein and the Guarneri playing Brahms’ Piano Quintet. They are almost somnolent compared to Curzon and the Budapest. Anyway, here Rubinstein and the Guarneri play Brahms’ Piano Quartets #1, #2, movement 1, Allegro non Troppo, and #3.
Piano Concerto #1. Gary Graffman, piano, Charles Munch conducts Boston Symphony. RCA Victrola stereo VICS 1109. I have dearly loved it since about 1970.
Piano Concerto #2. Emil Gilels, piano, Fritz Reiner conducts Chicago Symphony. RCA Victrola stereo VICS 1025. Magnificent, beautiful, overwhelming. It overwhelmed me in late 1969 or early 1970. Who says Brahms was not a Romantic? Indeed, it is best precisely for romantics who want to be swept away. But this great work can also be played quietly for its great beauty and grace.
Clarinet Quintet in B minor. David Oppenheim, clarinet. The Budapest String Quartet. Columbia stereo MS 6226. I first heard it around 1970. Beautiful. An autumnal work by the old Brahms. It’s the perfect companion to the young Brahms’ Piano Quintet performed by Curzon and the Budapest; and sadly, it never made it to CD either. Movement 1. Movement 2. Movement 3. Movement 4.
Two Sonatas, Op. 120. William Primrose, viola, Rudolf Firkušný (FEER-koosh-nee), piano. Seraphim 60011. I list this not as a favorite but as a best version. They are fine performances, but not of my favorite Brahms compositions. I first heard them around 1970. Like the clarinet quintet, they are late, autumnal works. The sonatas are for viola or alto clarinet. An alto clarinet has a pitch range comparable to the viola, and is so called because music for it is written in the alto clef, just like music for viola. A viola is a fifth lower than a violin. Their strings are tuned in fifths, and a viola lacks the violin’s high E string and adds a lower C string. I once met a young clarinetist who had never heard of alto clarinets and adamantly insisted there was no such thing, despite their long and distinguished history in classical music. Looking online into her puzzing response, I found that alto clarinets had been discontinued in American high schools because music administrators came to feel that having too many kinds of clarinets would only confuse the students. Here is the first sonata played by Primrose and Firkušný. It sounds a little slow today, but I still like it. You can see the original album cover in the visual. Here is the second sonata played by Primrose and Gerald Moore.
Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Händel. Walter Klien, piano. He’s wonderful. If you don’t find his performances at least satisfying and rewarding, you probably shouldn’t be listening to classical music. In fact, I’d be tempted to say there is something wrong with you! The exception to that is the fugue that is the last part of the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Händel. It was opaque to me the first time I heard it. But something led me to want to keep listening to it. I don’t know why, but I counted the number of times listening to it that it took until I understood it. I counted 28 times! The 28th time, the fugue struck me as exceptionally clear, deep, and sensitive, a worthy successor to Bach’s Art of the Fugue and Beethoven’s quartet 16. I can pinpoint when I started listening to this album to 1976-1978 because of where I was living when I bought it and played it.
ELLIOTT CARTER
String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2. The Composers Quartet. Nonesuch H-71249. I have listened to this album since law school in the 1990s. For years I had thought of Carter as the American Bártok. Then I signed out Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern and found that he sounded much more like them than he sounded like Bártok. This inspired me to listen to about a dozen other compositions by Carter, in another law student foray to the music library; but I liked none of the others as much as these string quartets. Sometimes I feel I would like to hear a warmer, more loving (though not sugar-coated) interpretation. But the music does lend itself to the performance given here. After all, it is meant to describe the desert (quartet 1), and the nature of time (both quartets 1 and 2, in different ways). Thus I am not sure how much I am recommending the composition and how much the performance. But when I listen to the performance again, I remember why I find it rewarding. Here are the first three movements of Quartet 1 from the album, showing the original jacket cover. I also recommend Carter’s Piano Sonata. It’s a popular performance work, and many pianists play it on YouTube. I’m sorry to say I no longer remember who played the performance I liked back in 1990s. I also liked some of Carter’s works for woodwinds, but I remember even less about them. Not memorable, LOL! But they were quite vivid and memorable when I listened to them in the 1990s, over 30 years ago. So that is nonmemorability due to mere passage of time.
Here are three videos of Elliott Carter. The first two are Juilliard String Quartet Greets Elliott Carter, and Juilliard String Quartet rehearses Carter with Carter. In the third, Carter takes The Juilliard String Quartet to task for not playing Schubert's 32nd notes as written, and faking them with tremolo, so that they are not starting and stopping the 32nd notes in unison, as they would have if they were playing them correctly as 32nd notes. The Juilliard good-naturedly agree that he caught them red-handed, and laughingly confess that the 32nd notes are too fast for them to play. This reminds me of the viola joke that a violist was challenged on his ability to play 32nd notes, so he played one just to show he could do it. And that reminds me in turn of the fastest gun in the West joke from high school. Someone would stand in a gunfighter quick draw stance and say, “Would you like to see the fastest draw in the West? Would you like to see it again?” Faking the notes with tremolo reminds me of another viola joke. A violinist, violist, and cellist are travelling together, and their ship hits an iceberg and sinks. They are left alive, clinging to a plank of wood in the water. The violinist calls out, “I see an island about a mile away,” and quickly swims off. The cellist says, “But I can’t swim!” The violist says, “Don’t worry, just fake it.”
FREDERICK / FRYDERYK CHOPIN
Here Ferruccio Busoni plays the 24 Chopin Preludes. His performance on the Nimbus 8810 CD is far better in sound, but does not have all 24 preludes.
My favorite is Chopin's "The Raindrop" prelude (apparently not Chopin’s name for it). A slightly different (and I think earlier) performance of "The Raindrop" is on Legendary Masters of the Piano, a three-record album from the Book of the Month Club. In 1976-1979, the Book of the Month Club was really great for me. If I bought four books, I got a choice among several special deals for $27.99 each. So I joined three times, each time buying four books that were meaningless to me, but good (I hope) gifts for others. And that’s how I got Legendary Masters of the Piano, the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the monumental four volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy, general editor Paul Edwards, for $27.99 each. Even for the low album and book prices at the time, and even having to pay for twelve books I didn’t want, they were an incredible bargain.
And that’s about it for Chopin!
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
String Quartet. Vlach (Josef Vlac) Quartet. Supraphon DV 10063. The album presents the Debussy String Quartet first, and then the Ravel String Quartet. Another one my parents owned and I loved since high school. If you click on “Show more,” you can pick the movement you want to hear.
I love many things by Debussy, from La Mer (The Sea) to short pieces like Reverie, but can no longer remember the performances I used to listen to. And remember that I gave all my vinyl records away, so I cannot check them. So let me suggest somthing a little offbeat that at least I remember and liked: Isao Tomita’s Snowflakes are Dancing, an album of Debussy works performed on the Moog Synthesizer. Tomita’s performances of various composers on the synthesizer were popular back in the day, and I imagine they still are.
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK
Violin Concerto in A Minor. Also Romance, Op. 11. Josef Suk, violin. Karel Ančerl conducts Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Artia ALP-193, reissued as Vanguard-Supraphon SU-3. 1961. I loved this in the late '60's / early '70s. This is the younger Josef Suk whose playing I praised to Krasner. Suk’s father, the older Josef Suk, was a violinist, composer, and student and son in law of Dvořák.
Cello Concerto in B Minor. Pablo Casals, cello. George Szell conducts Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Seraphim 60240. 1937, digitally remastered in 2003. Here are the individual movements with different sound quality: 1/2, 1/2, 2, 3/1, 3/2. Rightly said to be a legendary performance. I loved this in the late '60's / early '70s too. For more Casals, see the Mendelssohn section.
FRANZ JOSEF HAYDN
Harpsichord Concerto, F Major and Harpsichord Concerto, C Major (order page). Helma Elsner, harpsichord, Rolf Reinhardt conducts Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart. Vox ultra high fidelity PLIO 300. Another great album that never made it to CD. It belonged to my parents, and they gave it to me because I liked it so much. This is the secret cult favorite on my list, a sleeper if there ever was one.
Here is a consolation prize - the beloved Elsner plays solo Bach, more Bach, and Telemann.
LEOS JANÁČEK
String Quartets #1 and #2. The Smetana Quartet. Supraphon / Ramco / Artia ALP/S 109. Recorded September 7-23, 1955. Not to be confused with Smetana quartets played by the Janáček Quartet, LOL! I loved this album in the late '60s and early '70s. Here the Smetana Quartet plays Quartet #1 recorded live in 1975. I like the 1955 performance just a little better, but both performances are wonderful, and they are almost the same. The namesake Janáċek Quartet plays the Janáċek quartets in a dull, uninspired, and lifeless way.
FRANZ LISZT
All-Liszt Program. Erwin Nyiregyházi. Columbia M2 34598. Nyiregyházi is my favorite pianist after Busoni. What they say is true: nobody else plays like this. He is moody, gloomy, slowly despairing, wanly hopeful, proud, deep, and great. If he wants to repeat things, add notes, or improvise, he will, much as Liszt did. Nyiregyházi wrote a lot of music himself, which has never or almost never been heard. I first heard the album, I think, in the 1970s. It is strange and idiosyncratic, but deeply magnificent. My two favorites on the album are "March of the Three Kings" and "Miserere after Palestrina". By the way, “miserere” does not mean “I’m in misery,” but “Have mercy.” “Miserere mei, o Deus” means “Have mercy on me, O God.” There are lots of misereres in Christian music, LOL! Said the agnostic.
I’ve loved this performance since the summer of 1973 (I was living in Bennington, Vermont): Vladimir Horowitz plays Liszt, Vallee d'Obermann (Obermann’s Valley), from Années de Pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse (Years of Pilgrimage, First year: Switzerland). The performance was on a two-record album.
I was taken with this performance around 2015: André Laplante plays Liszt, Chapelle de Guillaume Tell (The Chapel of William Tell), also from (and along with other works from) Années de Pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse. You can follow the piano score as he plays.
Liszt-Lewenthal Totentanz. Raymond Lewenthal, piano, Charles Mackerra conducts London Symphony Orchestra. Columbia MS 7252. Literally, Dance of Death. Wild bravura playing. This is the wonderful version I listen to the most. Like but also unlike the Nyiregyházi album, it is strange and idiosyncratic, but magnificent. Perhaps Liszt attracts pianists like that. There is a whole section Lewenthal restored or added which I have heard in no other version. It starts just after fourteen minutes in. To me the restored section represents heaven, and the rest, both before and after, hell. We see similar contrastive sections in other music by Liszt. I must have first heard this performance in the 1970s; the album was released in 1969 and belonged to my parents. Also on the album is Henselt, Piano Concerto, which I have been unable to sit through. Here Lewenthal explains in a brief lecture how and why he edited the earlier version and the later version of Liszt’s Totentanz together into a single score. I think he succeeded very well.
I love many works by Liszt, but here too I am at a loss because I gave away all my LPs. I can remember I liked his piano concerto 1 as performed by a very young (16) André Watts with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. And I liked his piano concerto 2 as performed hy a Hungarian on the zongora (the Hungarian word for piano). But I can’t find it. I was reduced to searching for images of the album cover. Well, there are lots of performances on YouTube, and you can take your pick!
Liszt, Bach-Busoni & Chopin. Ferruccio Busoni, piano. Nimbus 8810 CD. Transcendental. I believe Busoni is the greatest pianist after Liszt, and the greatest pianist who was ever recorded. Please see my entry on my Favorites page for other Busoni recordings, some of which use Welte Vorsetzer piano rolls made as early as 1906. On the Nimbus 8810 CD, I often start with track 4, Liszt's La Campanella. Here is Busoni plays the Verdi / Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase on Legendary Masters of the Piano. Busoni was said to be at his greatest and most transcendental playing piano concertos and other long works, but none of them were recorded.
BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ
Piano Concerto #3. Josef Páleníček, piano, Karel Ančerl conducts Czech Philharmonic. Here are movements 1, 2, and 3. Here is the whole concerto. I do not know if this is the best performance available, but it is good enough for me. It’s rich, colorful, lively, fun, off-beat, and improbable. I ranked it as my #1 favorite music performance in the summer between high school and college in my high school scrapbook. The performance now sounds slower, more stately, and more elegant than I remember it, but I’m sure it’s the same performance. The YouTube accompanying visual is evidently a later album cover. My album cover shows a painting of a man in a beret holding a bird. Possibly the performance was remastered. Also on the same album, Violin Concerto, Bruno Bělčík, violin, Václav Neumann conducts Prague Symphony Orchestra.
Based on fifteen minutes of chance listening to a classical FM radio station in 2016, this performance of piano concerto #3 may be better: Martin Kasik (Kašík?), piano,Tomáš Brauner conducts Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinium, Prague, European Broadcasting Union (EBU). This performance lays the music out clearly and thoughtfully in a very pleasing way. This document shows the existence of Kasik’s performance. Aha, his own site shows his name is spelled Kasík, and his discography doesn’t include this performance. So apparently I can’t find it on CD because it isn’t on CD, but at least I know how to spell his name!
I do not care much for Martinů’s other works, especially his choral works. I have not even listened much to his string quartets, possibly because I haven’t heard a performance I like, but mainly because I don’t like them very much.
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Trio in D Minor for piano, violin, and cello, op. 49. Also Couperin, Schumann, and Song of the Birds (Catalan Folk Songs). A Concert at the White House, Performed live at the White House on November 13, 1961, with President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy attending. Alexander Schneider, violin, Pablo Casals, cello, Miecyslaw Horszowski, piano. Columbia Monaural KL 5726. The other performances from the same concert are listed and linked lower on the pages. I also recommend the Heifetz-Rubinstein-Piatigorsky performance of the Trio; see Tchaikovsky below.
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin). Philip Ledger conducts the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. EMI Classics 723 5 68631 2 5. Truly heavenly music! I first heard Monteverdi live, and it really bowled me over. As a University of Michigan law student who hated law and loved classical music, my escape in my first year (1991-1992) was to subscribe to the series of chamber music concerts offered in Ann Arbor MI. And as part of the series, I heard The Consorte of Music sing Monteverdi madrigals live on stage. The Consorte was astonishing and wonderful. And I was also astonished that I had never heard Monteverdi’s music before. Where had he been all my life? He was so fresh and inventive I could not believe it. Soon I was at the Music School library checking out Monteverdi music. (Going to the music library was my other way to escape law school.) Among other things, I checked out six LP albums and listened to six different performances of Vespro. It’s hard to go wrong performing music like this, and in fact all the performances were good; but I found that Ledger’s was the best.
CARL ORFF
Carmina Burana. Seiji Ozawa conducts. I love this performance. When I saw it on PBS public TV, I think its TV premiere in 1989, it had subtitles.
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
Piano Concerto 2 and Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. Gary Graffman, piano, Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic. Recorded in 1964. Columbia MS 6634. This was my favorite music for setting a romantic mood while serving dinner through the 1970s and 80s. Its rich warmth seems to go well with my three-color spaghetti sauce with zucchini and scallions for green, squash for yellow, and fresh cut tomatoes and tomato paste for red (and lots of whole mushrooms and several kinds of cheese). It may seem that Graffman and Bernstein are favorites of mine, and they are; but the performances on this list are pretty much all I listen to by them. By the way, I recently found out that Gary Graffman was Yuja Wang’s teacher. Again, she is highly intelligent and sensitive, and brings out all sorts of nuances in a very well-balanced overall performance; and I read that she is widely considered the world’s best pianist today. I like her. Her playing is fantastic. But I prefer her teacher. Perhaps he is not any deeper than she is, and perhaps no one would accuse either of them of being great or profound like Busoni or Nyiregyházi. But I’ve enjoyed listening to Graffman’s work over and over again through the years, and I haven’t wanted to listen to any of Wang’s work a second time. Once is wonderful, but once is enough. Here Rachmaninoff plays his own concerto 2.
Piano Concerto 3. Van Cliburn, piano. Kiril Kondrashin cond. Moscow State Philharmonic Academy Orchestra. RCA Victor LSC-2355. Live performance. 1958. It’s a great performance. I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to the solo cadenza in the first movement. It’s another album of my parents that they gave me because I loved it so much. I started listening to it in high school in the 1960s. Here Rachmaninoff plays his own concerto 3.
Rachmaninoff plays his own Prelude in C Sharp Minor, and his own Prelude in G Minor. Rachmaninoff plays many other things he wrote as well. He plays several short pieces in Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff Volume 1 and Volume 2. Here he plays all four of his piano concertos plus his Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. See “Show more” for the order of performance, and to select what you want to hear.
MAURICE RAVEL
Trio. Jascha Heifetz, violin. Gregor Piatigorsky, cello. Artur Rubinstein, piano. RCA Victor Red Seal LM 1119. Movement 1. Movement 2. Movement 3. Movement 4. I've loved it since about 1973. I doubt there will ever be a better performance. Just look at who is playing! The other side of the album has a beautiful performance of the Mendelssohn Trio, but for some reason it does not stir me emotionally. I prefer the Mendelssohn performed by Casals, Schneider, and Horzowski before President Kennedy at the White House in 1960. Please see the Mendelssohn section above for the link.
String Quartet. Vlach (Josef Vlac) Quartet. Supraphon DV 10063. The album presents the Debussy String Quartet first, and then the Ravel String Quartet. Another one my parents owned and I loved since high school. I will always love my parents, and owe them so much in music and in every other way. If you click on “Show more,” you can pick the movement you want to hear.
MAX REGER
Suites for Solo Viola 1 and 3. Walter Trampler, viola. I uploaded this myself, digitizing my vinyl album with a Memorex. The composers write with desolate beauty and with full consciousness of the irretrievable loss of the old order before World War 1. Each writes as if he were Bach born again in the modernist era. I have loved Reger's suites since the 1970s. The obvious comparison is to Bach's suites for unaccompanied cello. Sometimes it is even as if Reger forgets for a moment that the lights went out all over Europe, and writes as if the old world were still there, lovingly like sunlight in our memory. I have listened to the Hindemith and Stravinsky much less, but they are good companions to the Reger. Another great LP that never made it to CD. Trampler is best, but just so you can hear the music, but here is a very good performance of all three Reger viola suites by Nobuko Imai. And here is a good live performance of the first suite by Hayang Park. I really like Imai and Park. They are very sympathetic to the music. Brava!
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Great German Songs (order page), also with songs by Schumann and Strauss. Hans Hotter (bass voice), Gerald Moore, piano. Seraphim 60025. My favorite song performances by my favorite singer. I know of no other singer who sings with Hotter's intelligence, maturity, and beauty. Hotter sets the standard. Sorry, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau! I have loved the Schubert on the album since the early 1970s. This performance of Schubert's An die Musik is from that album, and also this performance of Schubert's Im Abendrot. Hotter is also famous for his opera singing, but I listen to little opera. And here is a very special treat: Hotter and Moore perform Schubert’s entire song cycle Winterreise. Hotter’s first performance of the cycle was in Berlin in 1942 with pianist Michael Raucheisen, at about the time it was first widely sensed in Germany that they might lose the war. Moore has been considered the world’s finest piano accompanist, and I think you can see why. Moore put out a humorous yet insightful album of his own called “The Unashamed Accompanist,” Angel 35262, in 1962. Here are side 1 and side 2.
Quintet in C (order page). Also Rondo in A. Vivarte-Sony SK 46669 CD. Performed by a group all playing Stradivarius instruments held by the Smithsonian Institution in order to keep the instruments in shape. The interpretation is very satisfying and rewarding. The review in Neue Musikzeitung (Berlin) calls it “simply marvelously successful,” and the sound is unusually rich and deep. I wonder why! (just kidding) I couldn’t find the album online. Just so you can at least see the music performed live, here is a beautiful version by the Borodin Quartet with cellist Alexander Buzlov.
RAVI SHANKAR
I love Indian music so much! My favorite album is India’s Master Musician, Ravi Shankar (RA-vee SHON-kar per an Indian friend), sitar, with Chatur Lal, tabla, and N. C. Mullick, tamboura. World Pacific EALP 1283. The selections are in my own order. First, the second and my favorite vinyl side: 1. Kafi-Holi (Spring Festival of Colors). 2. Dhun (Folk Airs). 3. Mishra Piloo (Mixed Piloo / Piloo Medley). Then second, the first side, the longer, slower, and more contemplative pieces: 4. Raga Puriya Dhanashri. 5. Raga Churu Keshri. I think the album would have been better with the two sides switched around like this. I had about ten of Shankar’s albums, and I think this one is by far the best. It is his first, and is the showcase album which establishes his mastery of his instrument. In that respect it is much like Leo Kottke's 6 and 12 String Guitar; see the playlist to the right for the pieces. The album was originally released on vinyl in 1959. It was remastered in digital by Squires Productions, then released as a digital CD by Angel Records forty years later in 1999. I have loved the album since the early 1970s. I also enjoyed hearing Shankar play live outdoors in Syracuse NY in the early '70s. Music was already a Shankar family tradition when Ravi started, and his daughter Anoushka is carrying it on.
Shankar in live performance at the 1967 Monterey Festival. Shankar’s full performance at Monterey. Shankar in live performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Shankar’s full performance at Woodstock.
Dhun (Folk Airs) includes popular melodies. Popular melodies are often found in Western classical music as well. But unlike Western classical music, Indian classical music is very improvisational, and much more like jazz in that one respect.
Among other Indian musicians, I am very partial to Nikhil Bannerjee, sitar; Ali Akbar Khan, sarod; and Hariprasad Chaurasia, flute. I used to have records of all three, and many more. Three of my favorite records were: (1) Call of the Valley (showing the original album cover); (2) Sri Ganesh Mahotsav (order page showing the original album cover) with Amin Sangeet (“Musical duo... consisting of Arun Amin & Sangeet Amin”), Anhurada Paudwal, and Anup Jalota, Music India 2393 838, a devotional album; and (3) Song of God - Bagavad Gita (spelled that way as shown on the original album cover here, but wretched sound), World Pacific Records WPS-21466, Aashish Khan (son of Ali Akbar Khan), sarod, narrated by Ravi Shankar. Here is a four minute segment with far better sound quality.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Cello Concerto #1. Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. Eugene Ormandy conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra (Columbia MS 6124). The performance is here: part 1, Allegretto; part 2, Moderato; part 3, Cadenza; part 4, Allegro con moto. I have loved this performance since high school. I ranked it as my #2 favorite music performance in my senior year in my high school scrapbook. It is almost mystical, a quest of the wandering soul, just before the cello cadenza. The cadenza is a deep soliloquy, an ecce homo or hier steh’ ich.
Here is Rostropovich playing the first movement live. The performance is almost the same and almost as good as the album, and you can see how he plays the piece.
Here is Rostropovich playing Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto #2.
Piano Quintet in G minor (order page) as performed by the Janáček Quartet and Eva Bernathová, piano (Artia ALP-168). I have played this album so many times. It’s another fine LP that never made it to DVD. There are several live versions on YouTube. Most are well played and often graceful, but rather slow, and the fire, passion, and intensity are gone. I like this version very much from Warsaw, Poland in January 2022, just before the evil and unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine the next month. The performance is very solid, and there is fire, passion, and intensity. Shostakovich was a dissident in the Soviet Union who was severely restricted, basically silenced, and forced to conform in public performances of his music.
Here Shostakovich plays eight of his own preludes and fugues for piano.
BEDŘICH SMETANA
Vltava (The Moldau). Karel Ančerl conducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Crossroads 22 26 0002. 1963. I’ve loved it since the late 1960s or early 1970s. The Czechs are on their home ground. The album is the entire Má Vlast (My Country) cycle of six symphonic poems, of which Vltava is the second.
Trio. David Oistrakh Trio. David Oistrakh, violin. Sviatoslav Knushevitsky, cello. Lev Orborin, piano. Monitor MC 2070. 1950. I’ve loved this one since the late 1960s or early 1970s too. The other side has Dvořák’s Dumky Trio, which has not captured my heart.
RICHARD STRAUSS
Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra). Karl Böhm conducts the Berlin Philharmonic. DGG SLPEM 136 001. Studio recording, Berlin, 1958. Grand Prix du Disque. Exalted. Overwhelming. Then a sweetly charming violin waltz. Mystical and otherworldly in the end. I've absolutely loved this performance since I first heard it on the vinyl LP, which I bought in 1970. I still have the LP, but these days I play it on digital. I heard the LP shortly before everyone at college was overwhelmed by the Zarathustra introduction sound track in Stanley Kubrick's movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was there when the movie was played outdoors at night on the Syracuse University Quad. The movie is not a favorite of mine, but there's no doubt it's a cultural icon. Perhaps the only greater performance of Zarathustra is by Richard Strauss himself, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in 1944 honor of his 80th birthday. (He was no Nazi, and tried to protect his Jewish relatives from the gas chambers.) Strauss was never considered a great or even a very emotionally inspiring conductor, perhaps because conducting was just a job to him. The story is that when he used to conduct, he kept looking at his watch. And if it looked like he might be late for his card game after the concert, he would pick up the tempo. But I agree with those who say that this one time, he rose to the occasion and was a great conductor. Perhaps the operant term is legacy. He wanted to leave a legacy performance. If you want better, more modern sound quality, the third best performance (after Strauss and Böhm) I know of is by Rudolf Kempe in 1971. I find Herbert van Karajan’s 1973 Zarathustra to be too slick, finished, and polished to be great. But it’s still a fourth excellent performance. I read once that Karajan produced a lot of slick, highly polished albums because there was a big market for it in post-war Japan. Not great, but unfailingly excellent. By the way, that image of the maiden knighting the man in the Karajan link is just irrelevant. I read Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and all of his other basic writings in two translations, and there are no maidens or knights in shining armor in Zarathustra. Zarathustra is an old hermit who comes down from his mountain cave to share his wisdom with humanity. In addition, there are a tightrope walker, a (or the) Spirit of Gravity, a shepherd, a soothsayer, and various animals.
The reviewer C. Ryan Hill is completely right that Rudolf Kempe’s recordings of Strauss in the 1970s are far superior in production quality to those of Böhm’s . Production quality had come a long way in the intervening years. Kempe’s performances are truly beautiful, and I heard all sorts of things that I had not heard in Böhm’s. But in recommending that “unless you are looking for a historical document of how these works sounded closer to Strauss' time (or a Böhm devotee), you can look [Kempe] over,” Hill does not address the elephant in the room. Namely, whose performance is spiritually deeper and greater? I think it’s Böhm’s. And if I wanted to find a greater performance, I would go back even further in time to (again) Strauss’s own live 1944 performance. Despite the poor sound quality, the YouTube comments include “glorious,” “amazing,” “Magnificent!,” “fantastic,” and “What a treasure.” Though I have been warned against composers’ performing their own works, I think this is the greatest performance, closely followed by Böhm’s. I hope my Dejnožka cousin the Nazis executed as a Czech partisan (resistance) fighter, and my other Dejnožka cousin they put in a concentration camp, and who emerged like living “skin and bones” at the end of the war, could forgive me for what I regard as a purely musical judgment. As to the partisans the Nazis executed while fleeing the Red Army near the end of the war, see the memorial plaque near the church in our ancestral town of Trhová Kamenice in Bohemia. On one level, I agree with the World War 2 American veteran who told me in the 1960s, “The SS were animals, and we shot them like animals.” On another level, we all need universal compassion and forgiveness. That is the level of Jesus, Buddha, and (see above) Schweitzer. But on a third level, forgiveness from me is not the same as forgiveness from their victims. And on a fourth level, have you ever heard the joke about the two Nazi officers who were talking about the war near the end, and finally figured out that they were the bad guys?
Many years after first hearing Böhm, I was unhappy to discover that he might have been a Nazi sympathizer. The Wikipedia article on Böhm suggests it is hard to say that he was, in any straightforward sense. It says he never joined the Nazi party, but underwent a post-war de-nazification ban. The article says that the Nazis disliked the modernist music he often liked to conduct, and that he was planning to flee Germany because of that. I still love his Zarathustra performance just as much, and distinguish it from his possible Nazism. Böhm conducted that performance in 1958, long after his post-war ban ended. Again, I like it far better than Karajan’s overpolished and comparatively emotionless (I want to say slick) (I guess I did say slick) but technically superb performance designed for mass production in the post-war market, and especially for sale in Japan, where Karajan was very popular. Karajan is another German conductor with a murky wartime past. Again, I am happy to report that Strauss himself was quite anti-Nazi, and was only tolerated as a famous German cultural icon. See the Wikipedia article on Strauss, I’m also happy to report that today’s free and democratic Germany is nothing like Nazi Germany, and that German people today should be treated with the same respect as anyone else. They may have a few right wing nuts, but so do many other European countries, and we in America have more than they do! (We have left wing nuts too.) But I believe that most people around the world are good, or would be if they had half a chance at a good upbringing, democratic egalitarianism, and a fair playing field at work. Most people around the world are just trying to get along, and hopefully to leave the world better than they found it.
Tod und Verklärung (commonly translated as Death and Transfiguration). Karl Böhm conducts the Concertbebouw Orchestra Amersterdam (Royal Concertbebouw Orchestra). Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest. Studio recording, Amsterdam, 1955. An early work, and my second favorite, both by composer Strauss and conductor Böhm.
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVKSY
Trio in A Minor. Jascha Heifetz, violin. Gregor Piatigorsky, cello. Artur Rubinstein, piano. RCA LCM 1120. This is another one I have loved since the early 1970s. I doubt there will ever be a better performance. The Mendelssohn Trio is on the same CD.
Piano Concerto 1. Van Cliburn, piano. 1958 winner, Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. Kiril Kondrashin conducts the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s a great performance. I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to the first few minutes. It’s another album of my parents that they gave to me because I loved it so much. I started listening to it in high school in the 1960s. It is said that the competition organizers approached Nikita Krushchev to ask if an American could be allowed to win the competition. Krushchev asked, was he the best? They said yes. Krushchev said, then let him win.
RENAISSANCE MUSIC
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (see above)
NEW YORK PRO MUSICA
Spanish Music of the Renaissance. Playable in sequence. Some songs are mislabeled. Various composers, including Anonymous. New York Pro Musica. Decca DL 9409. The whole album is there, but you have to click on each song individually in the playlist. The album jacket is the one I know and love. There is so much beautiful medieval and Renaissance music, but I have loved this album the most since the 1960s. Like many of the albums listed above, it was a gift from my parents’ music library when I was in high school. I studied Spanish for seven and a half years; the Spanish here is often close to Latin. Some selections are religious or spiritual. Others might be called humanist; at least, they are concerned with very human themes. They are very secular! (In a good and almost innocent way.) I'm astonished that this album never made it to CD.
Here is the New York Pro Musica live, but there are no voices, and they sound better on the studio album, Spanish Music of the Renaissance. Here they sing Petrucci’s Lirim Blilirum, though the music is very different in tone and mood. This is much closer to the album, perhaps because it too is Spanish: Riu, Riu.
And now a special treat (actually, I hope everything here is): the Pro Musica perform Susato, Suite of Dances.
THE MERRY MINSTRELS
A Lover and His Lass. 21 Renaissance songs. I uploaded this myself, using a Memorex to digitize the tape cassette. Garald Lee Farnham, baritone, lute. Elizabeth Henreckson, soprano. Baby Monster Studios, NYC. 1989. The performers are (or were) local artists of the NYC area. See Garald Lee Farnham (bio) for more. The music was published only on cassette as far as I know, and there is no copyright on the cover. A cousin from Long Island gave me a copy in the 1990s, and I dearly love it. It includes several songs from Shakespeare’s plays, as set to music by composers of Shakespeare's. Another song is a poem by John Donne set to music. Most songs are English, but there are also an Italian, a Spanish, and a French song. Here Garald Lee Farnham sings “O Mistress Mine,” which is on the album; but it is a live performance several years later, and sung somewhat differently, especially as to rhythm. But it is good to hear his voice again. The song was composed by Thomas Morley in 1600. Here he sings “It was a Lover and His Lass,” also on the album, also many years later, and singing with Ann Willson. Words by Shakespeare, music by Thomas Morley in 1600. Farnham is just so congenial, and so natural for this music! Here Farnham has put together his own medley of talk and bits of Renaissance songs, which he calls “Passing By: My Life as a Minstrel.” Here Elizabeth Henreckson (now) Farnum (not: Farnham) sings a similar song, “Mary’s Dream,” also apparently years later, and with a different tenor and a piano. It’s good to hear her voice again too. It’s on an album called Jane’s Hand: The Jane Austen Songbooks. I hope you can put together from these two performances how Farnham and Farnum sounded together, but I’m not sure it can be done except in general terms. The whole of that singing duo was greater than the parts. Anyway, I like A Lover and His Lass the best of Farnham’s and Henreckson’s performances I have heard.
On a medieval note, I really liked the performances of David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London, and of Gerald English and the Jaye Consort. And I really like the compositions of the French troubador Adam de la Halle and of the German Minnesinger Walther von der Vogelweide.
THE SIX GREATEST ALBUMS I KNOW
One of the highest forms of music is the string quartet, or similar small chamber group or solo work. If I had to pick the six greatest albums I have ever heard, they would be, in no particular order:
1. Brahms, Piano Quintet, with all four movements in sequence. The Budapest String Quartet with Clifford Curzon, piano. With poorer sound quality but still showing the original album cover, here is the first movement alone: Piano Quintet, movement 1. Odyssey monaural 32 16 0173.Again, this was my favorite album for eight years, ca. 1970-1978, and is perhaps still my favorite. I wish the whole album were on YouTube with good sound quality. I played my vinyl LP until it wore out, bought a second, and then gave it away when I gave away all my vinyl LPs upon moving.
2. Beethoven, String Quartet 14 performed by The Budapest String Quartet. Again, I was pleased to learn that this was Beethoven's favorite as well as my own. Quartet #15 is on the album too, and I like to listen to the two quartets as a single continuous work. Here again are #14 and #15 by the Budapest.
3./4. Bach, Art of the Fugue (two albums), performed by The Fine Arts Quartet and The New York Woodwind Quintet. I take fugue to be the highest form of musical dialogue or dialectic, and Bach to be the greatest master of it. Don’t look for pyrotechnics. Many high school students can easily play the notes. This is the complete opposite of bravura playing, and in this respect is more like devotional music in a church. The greatness is in the composition and the spirit. And these two albums capture the spirit best in my opinion. Here again are Part One playlist, fugues 1-11, and Part Two playlist, fugues 12-24 (#24 is unfinished), plus “Vor Deinem Thron Steh’ Ich.” Part One is Concert-Disc Connoisseur Series CS-230, and Part Two is Concert-Disc Connoisseur Series CS-250.
5. Ferruccio Busoni plays Liszt, Bach-Busoni & Chopin. The Nimbus NI 8810 compact disk is the best production. Again, the closest I can come to that is Ferruccio Busoni plays the 24 Chopin Preludes. This is not from the Nimbus 8810 CD, since that does not have all 24 preludes. But it is from the same original piano roll cut made in 1906 as Busoni played.
Busoni is the greatest pianist I have heard. Nyiregyházi called Busoni “the best.” Liszt might have been greater, but we’ll never know. Here is the clip of Busoni playing Chopin, “The Raindrop,” which is my favorite performance of his. Here is Busoni playing the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in two parts: 1 and 2. Bach wrote the original Chaconne for violin, and Busoni transcribed it for piano. The whole CD is made from piano roll cuts. For Busoni’s live performances, the major collection is Ferruccio Busoni: His Complete Disc Recordings, February 27, 1922, recorded in the London studios of British Columbia Records (International Piano Archives IPA 104). The IPA disk has typically poor 1920s recordings of brief Busoni performances on side 1. On side 2, Busoni’s students play some Busoni compositions and transcriptions. Here again is Busoni playing the Verdi / Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase on Legendary Masters of the Piano. But again, Busoni was said to be at his greatest and most transcendental playing piano concertos and other long works, none of which were recorded.
6. Albert Schweitzer’s 1935 Bach Recital. Don’t listen to it for pyrotechnics, nor even for precision playing. Every other major organist plays the notes more precisely. Listen to it instead for the greatness of the spiritual passion, and what is the same here, the greatness of the understanding of Bach. No other major organist plays with such greatness. Here are performances from the album:
Prelude and Fugue in F minor (part one).
Prelude and Fugue in F minor (part two).
Prelude and Fugue in G major (part one).
Prelude and Fugue in G major (part two).
Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (“The Great”).
Fugue in G minor (“The Little”).
Schweitzer played the recital to raise money for his hospital as a medical missionary in Africa.
If I were listing greatest performances of single compositions as well as albums, I would include Heifetz’s performance of Bach’s Chaconne. Heifetz played it in his 70th birthday TV special, which became an album.