i need help with symphony recordings

[samuel]

ok im going to sound like a total n00b but ive mainly listened to only solo piano music and piano concertos since i play the piano but lately ive just started getting into orchestral music and i need help with which recordings of symphonies (the main ones not obscure ones) i should buy. with so many recordings out there, i dont want to waste a lot of money trying to find the best ones and it can be really confusing when so many great conductors have recorded the same pieces (and multiple times). can someone please help me by recommending which symphony recordings are the best for a new listener so i know which ones to buy? im mainly looking for recommendations for beethoven, brahms, tchaikovsky, schubert, mendelssohn, dvorak, schumann, and/or any other symphonies you feel a newcomer to the genre should listen to. all i know so far is that kleiber has a couple highly rated cds on dg originals (beethoven 5/7 and brahms 4 i think).

[hornteacher]

First of all welcome to the forum. 

There are a lot of friendly people here that will give you suggestions.  The only problem is that you will get MANY different opinions, all of which have merit but we all share different views.

For me personally, I suggest starting with the following:

Beethoven (all 9 symphonies): The Karajan 63 cycle is the traditional choice.  The Gardiner cycle is the choice for historical instrument lovers.  My personal favorite is the Mackerras cycle which is fairly recent and highly acclaimed.  Wand's cycle is also excellent.

For Mendelssohn's Symphonies I perfer Abbado's recordings.

For Schumann's Symphonies I perfer Bernstein with the Vienna Phil.

For Dvorak's I perfer Anguelov or Neumann for complete cycles but Mackerras with the Prague Symphony for just the 8th and 9th.  That is a CD to die for (link is below).

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=118764&album_group=5

For Mozart the Mackerras cycle has all 41 symphonies played fantastically as a set or individual CDs.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Those are excellent recommendations by hornteacher. All easily available and for the most part don't cost an arm and a leg. As alternative versions I can recommend:

Beethoven: Wand/RCA, or Barenboim/Teldec(now Warner)
Brahms: Wand/RCA or Sanderling/Eurodisc
Tchaikovsky: Marketvich/Philips in 1-3 and Mravinsky/DG in 4-6 or you can go Marketvich all the way in 1-6; supplement this with Chailly/DECCA recording of the Manfred Symphony.
Schubert: Wand/RCA or Kertesz/DECCA
Mendelssohn: Masur/RCA
Dvorak: Kertesz/DECCA
Schumann: Barenboim/Teldec or Sawallisch/EMI
Mozart (late symphonies 35-41): Colin Davis/Philips
Haydn: Paris Symphonies: Harnoncourt/Deutsche Harmonia Munde, London SYmphonies: Jochum/DG


Of course I would add:
Bruckner: Jochum/DG or Jochum/EMI (same set on the Brilliant Label)
Mahler: Bernstein/SONY or Bernstein DG or Bertini/EMI
Sibelius: Maazel/DECCA

I think all of the above are as basic a collection as you would need to get going while not spending a whole lot of $$$.

[(poco) Sforzando]

There are a lot of friendly people here that will give you suggestions.  The only problem is that you will get MANY different opinions, all of which have merit but we all share different views.

Of course, the easiest way around that is to ignore everyone else and listen only to moi. 

Seriously, both posters above have lots of good recommendations, but if you order everything on their lists you're going to have about 100 CDs to wade through. I'll suggest just a starter list of about 10 CDs I especially like, and you can amplify as time, budget, and inclination allow.

Beethoven's 3rd (Eroica) - Bernstein NY Philharmonic, and Savall if you can find it (HIP and radically different).
Haydn Paris Symphonies - Bernstein or Brueggen.
Mozart Last Five - Marriner.
Schubert Unfinished and Mendelssohn Italian: Sinopoli.
Brahms 4th - Reiner or C. Kleiber.
Bruckner 8 - Karajan
Mahler 9 - Maderna BBC
Dvorak 9 - Toscanini
Tchaikovsky 4-6 - Mravinsky
Berlioz Fantastique - Munch or Markevitch.

[Montpellier]

Best to get up the library and see what they have.   The old favourites will be a good start:

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms.

If you like heavy stuff then Bruckner or Mahler.

Unfortunately, performance is so much personal preference that it's probably best to get to know a few conductor orchestra interpretations to gauge for the future.   Many recommendations here are sound.  You can usually trust Klemperer with the old German masters (though in my view he conducts Beethoven's 5th far too slow) - his tempi are usually slower.  Karajan, faster tempi. 

But it's difficult.  A while ago Solti's Brahms' 1st came with several recs... and I can't stomach it!     

[PerfectWagnerite]

Or try here, 100 CDs for building your classical collection.

[jwinter]

Welcome to the forum! 

Man, there's a lot of great advice here.  Let me try the opposite approach and give you one name, in the hopes that it might stick in your memory when browsing in the local CD shop:  George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra. 

Two reasons.  First, he recorded most of the main symphonic repertoire, and his recordings are both widely available and cheap, thus making for a good way to sample lots of different music easily.  Second, while he's not always the top choice in a given work, he is uniformly excellent, and to my personal taste (which is what this is all about, natch), never a bad choice. 

The only caveat is that most of his recordings will come from the 1960s and late 50s -- they're in quite good stereo sound, but if digital state-of-the-art sound is one of your pre-requisites, you may need to look elsewhere. 

Hope that helps!

[PerfectWagnerite]

Welcome to the forum! 

Man, there's a lot of great advice here.  Let me try the opposite approach and give you one name, in the hopes that it might stick in your memory when browsing in the local CD shop:  George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra. 

I'll give you two more names: Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein/NYPO. Isn't it sick how SONY/CBS had Szell, Bernstein AND Ormandy all under contract at the same time?

[jwinter]

I'll give you two more names: Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein/NYPO. Isn't it sick how SONY/CBS had Szell, Bernstein AND Ormandy all under contract at the same time?

Can't argue with that -- all three would be pretty safe bets for an intro to the major symphonies.  Personally I still gotta go with Szell.

If you want to move away from CBS/Sony, Karl Bohm is a solid choice in most core Germanic repertoire, too (Beethoven/Brahms/Mozart/etc.)

[samuel]

thank you for the suggestions! this is a great forum. i have heard of most of these conductors so ill see what i can find even though i realize that everyone will probably give me a different answer lol.

[Don]

Of course, the easiest way around that is to ignore everyone else and listen only to moi. 

Seriously, both posters above have lots of good recommendations, but if you order everything on their lists you're going to have about 100 CDs to wade through. I'll suggest just a starter list of about 10 CDs I especially like, and you can amplify as time, budget, and inclination allow.

Beethoven's 3rd (Eroica) - Bernstein NY Philharmonic, and Savall if you can find it (HIP and radically different).
Haydn Paris Symphonies - Bernstein or Brueggen.
Mozart Last Five - Marriner.
Schubert Unfinished and Mendelssohn Italian: Sinopoli.
Brahms 4th - Reiner or C. Kleiber.
Bruckner 8 - Karajan
Mahler 9 - Maderna BBC
Dvorak 9 - Toscanini
Tchaikovsky 4-6 - Mravinsky
Berlioz Fantastique - Munch or Markevitch.

Excellent list except for Marriner in the more mature Mozart symphonies.  A lot of folks consider Marriner rather lame; obviously I'm one of them.  My preferences would go to Gardiner, Mackerras and Szell.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Excellent list except for Marriner in the more mature Mozart symphonies.  A lot of folks consider Marriner rather lame; obviously I'm one of them.  My preferences would go to Gardiner, Mackerras and Szell.

I'm no fan of Gardiner as a rule, but would have no problem at all with your other choices. In honesty, I haven't heard the Marriner in a while, but a point in its favor is price. A point against it is that one of the five symphonies gets split between the two CDs.

Actually, Samuel, one way to help yourself through the thicket of multiple recordings is to get to know what conductors are associated with what interpretive approaches. For instances:

In the streamlined, generally fast, generally steady tempo category: conductors like Toscanini, Reiner, Szell.

In a more slow and monumental style: Klemperer.

In a style that tends to greater tempo fluctuation: Furtwaengler, Barenboim, Eschenbach.

In the HIP vein: Brueggen, Gardiner, Norrington.

Those are very rough generalizations and I'm sure holes can be punched through every one of them. But if you find a style of interpretation you like, you might want to gravitate towards that kind of conductor. On the other hand, it's always beneficial as well to try a style of interpretation that's radically different. E.g., you'll get very different Eroicas from Klemperer (mono), Bernstein (NYP), Furtwaengler (he did quite a few, I don't recall exact dates), and Savall, but each is interesting.

[rappy]

Hi!

For Schubert, I'd recommend the Harnoncourt box. You'll fall in love with the 2nd and 4th symphony immediately!

[m_gigena]

Schubert: Symphony Nº 5.

Beethoven: Symphonies Nº 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Get Karajan's 1963 recording.

Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nº 3, 4 and 5. Get Svetlanov or Jansons.

Dvorak: Symphonies Nº 7, 8 and 9. Get Vaclav Neumann's.

Sibelius: Symphony Nº 3.

Brahms: Symphonies Nº 2, 3, 1 and 4.


Try this place:

ftp://oth:net@clms.da.ru:21099

navigate the whole place (I suggest some software in the style of Getright's Browser), you will find all the symphonies mentioned in this thread in very good recordings. The piano music available there is also great.

If requested, the username is OTH, and the password is net.

[hautbois]

Mozart = Harnoncourt

That's my only piece of advise, no one conducts Mozart with more beauty, detail, and exuberance!

Howard

[M forever]

I'll give you two more names: Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein/NYPO. Isn't it sick how SONY/CBS had Szell, Bernstein AND Ormandy all under contract at the same time?

What's so "sick" about that? These gentlemen were active in the US at the time, and CBS and RCA were the main labels. At the same time, major European labels like EMI, Decca, DG each had a much bigger number of relevant artists under contract.

[M forever]

thank you for the suggestions! this is a great forum. i have heard of most of these conductors so ill see what i can find even though i realize that everyone will probably give me a different answer lol.

The "problem" is not different answers. Th problem is that in most cases, you don't know what a recommendation is based on. You don't know how solid the musical background and listening experience is of those who recommend you certain recordings. There are many, many, many good recordings of all the standard repertoire pieces, and there are many different criteria for choosing which ones to recommend, many interpretive styles, considerations such as sound quality etcetcetc. So those posts who simply drop a few names are basically worthless for you. Concentrate on the recommendations which come with at least a short commentary explaining why a certain recording is recommended.

[Bonehelm]

The "problem" is not different answers. Th problem is that in most cases, you don't know what a recommendation is based on. You don't know how solid the musical background and listening experience is of those who recommend you certain recordings. There are many, many, many good recordings of all the standard repertoire pieces, and there are many different criteria for choosing which ones to recommend, many interpretive styles, considerations such as sound quality etcetcetc. So those posts who simply drop a few names are basically worthless for you. Concentrate on the recommendations which come with at least a short commentary explaining why a certain recording is recommended.

Exactly. Basically just listen to whatever M says, as he is the Simon here. Simon says, "j00 art 2 nOOb 2 L!$t3n 2 (L4$$|(4|_ |\/|U$lC !!!!111"

God, did that take long to type.

[Anne]

Sinopoli's Schubert "Unfinished" is wonderful.

Another good one is Furtwangler's 1951 Beethoven 9th, likewise F's 1954 Beethoven 9th.  (Also F's Beethoven 1942 9th but you might want to wait until you are more familiar with B's 9th sym before listening to F's 1942 Beethoven 9th.)

[Martin Lind]

For budget reasons I would recommend the Brilliant box "The symphonies". A lot of complete cycles are included, for example the complete Haydn with Fischer, the complete Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and so on.

I think in Germany it costs 75 Euro for 100 CDs.

But my impression is, that cheap CDs are quite expansive in the USA, I found the Brilliant boxes on Amazon quite expensive there, on the other hand expensive CDs are quite cheap, for example the Ravel with Abaddo, which I ordered through Amazon Marketplace. Strange.

But I am not a recording expert anyhow.