Classical Music - Where do you look to find the best recordings?

[AudioNut]

You want to find the best recording of a particular piece of classical music.

Where do you look?

[AudioNut]

Originally Posted by jprice

You want to find the best recording of a particular piece of classical music.

Where do you look?

1. I usually just enter the name of the piece into Amazon - but dozens of selections may come up - and you have to look through the user reviews for each recording. Effective but takes time.

2. Stereophile and The Absolute Sound have extremely good reviews and you can find many of their recommendations on line.

3. The HP/TAS lists - great recommendations, but many are years out-of-date and won't include recent recordings.

4. Dozens of great books (guides) on Classical Music. Many are frequently updated and are a good source for recommendations. The Penguin Guide to Classical Music is particularly good but is expensive. It is updated every year and you can pick up a year old copy on Amazon for about 15% of new cost.

5. And my favorite source for "professional" recommendations is the British on-line shop "Presto Classical". Includes mostly British magazine and book reviews, but the Brits do love their classical music and have excellent magazines covering the stuff. Their website is Presto Classical - Buy classical CDs, opera CDs, & DVDs online . On the upper left column is the heading Browse. I usually click "Composers and Works" and you will be directed to world of reviews for almost everything you want to find.

[Amfibius]

Hi Julian, the problem with recommendations for Classical music is that they are the same as recommendations for hifi. Someone else's idea of "good" may not correspond with yours. I am sure you have had many occasions where you have bought something because some reviewer, or a group of people have raved about it and it turned out to be not quite to your expectations.

In the past I used to think that the problem was with me - perhaps it is my lack of musical insight which was why I was not enjoying the pieces as much as some reviewers. After all - they have years of formal musical training, they have years of experience, have heard far more recordings than me, and rub shoulders with other people in the industry. I would listen to a piece over and over because I was determined to gain the same insights that they had. In the end - I concluded that I simply did not like those pieces, and there was nothing that a reviewer, no matter how knowledgeable or how eloquent - could do to change that.

If you ask me my opinion of a piece which I have thoroughly investigated - e.g. I have gone on quests to find the best set of Beethoven piano sonatas, or Bach WTK's, or Mahler symphonies - and spending thousands of dollars on CD's along the way - I will have my own definite list of who I like and who I don't, and the reasons why. But here is the rub - just as I disregard the opinions of others, I also expect that you will disregard mine We all experience music in our own personal way, and my experience is not more valid than yours.

So, if I ignore reviewers, ignore forums, ignore what my friends say, and ignore what shop salesmen say - how do I find good recordings? My answer is Youtube and Amazon preview. I pay attention to forum chatter and reviewers and use that as a starting point to do my research. I will look for the performance on Youtube or Amazon and decide for myself if the disc is worth buying. I probably spend 1/4 of all my music listening time on Youtube instead of my main system!

I still grant that my opinion is NOT the last word on music, and there is probably still something which I am missing on many discs which I pass over. This is why I like discussion forums - to see if someone else can offer a fresh perspective. I am not going to pretend I am some Classical music guru, and that my opinion on something is final. I am here to find out what I am missing. This is why I do not find most posts in that "Classical Spinning" thread very useful - showing an album cover and saying that "I am listening to this" does not provide me with any new insight. I would like to see people actually describe what is on the disc and why they like it.

[Kal Rubinson]

Good post. I recall a conversation that I had with my brother-in-law some years back when he complained about his general dissatisfaction with the recordings he was buying. I told him something similar to what you said. His reply was that it was too much work and all he wanted was a simple resource. I told him that hope was futile.

I listen to radio (FM and internet) for exposure to new recordings.

[AudioNut]

I guess my all time favorite recordings are ones that "spoke to me" when I heard them on radio, in a dealer's showroom as a demo disc, or more recently, on line.

And, I do agree that people's taste in music is different (witness the recent "big Bach" vs authentic Bach discussion here), Although Keith, I am also reminded that you like Bach played on modern instruments while others (me included) prefer period instruments.

OK, so I do agree with you on the credibility of reviewers and the value of hearing for myself . . . But, i also find that certain reviewers are fairly well aligned with my own preferences and I do tend to value their opinions about what is good. Also, I think that certain review sources provide an excellent starting point.

Now, I am not a trained musicologist, and wouldn't know subtle differences in five different performances if they hit me in the face. . . I just know what sounds good, what tempo I prefer, which voices sound the best to me, which recording sounds the best on my particular audio system. I guess in many cases I would prefer the best sound over the best performances, although I actually want both.

And, I do want to find what other, more sophisticated classical music experts think about recordings, and, I'll often try their recommendations. The cost of a CD or SACD is significant, but I have gotten some marvelous music by experimenting. Actually, I've seldom been disappointed.

Please note that I own a good many thousand classical LP's and often compare different orchestras, conductors, etc.. I have the advantage of a large number of performances of many, many different pieces of music. But, most of my LP's are older. I find that reading reviews that compare newer recordings to what I already own helps me to improve myself when I'm shopping for CD's or SACD's. I own so many LP's that I seldom buy them anymore.

I always play the Amazon (or other on-line sellers) samples before I buy, but the fidelity of those is poor at best, and the clips are very short - so reviews do help. YouTube is great, but doesn't cover the gamut of releases on any particular work. I do look there, and have actually embedded a couple of YouTube clips into AA threads. iTunes has longer clips but is more trouble to navigate and I don't want to download music, so I have to leave that site and go to an online seller anyway.

Many other reviewers are excellent sources for ideas. Gramophone Magazine seems to me to be a good source for reviews on recent releases, as do TAS and Stereophile. Kal Rubinson is a very credible reviewer and when he says that something is good, I do tend to listen, and I listen even harder when he says something is not!

So, You're right - listen for yourself and make your own decisions, but as for me, I'll try to get as much information on musical works as I can muster, and try to make informed decisions.

[Amfibius]

Hi Julian, regarding Bach - I should probably say that I like him played on appropriate instruments - and that there should be no strict rule about Bach being played on period instruments (as some people seem to insist). For example - I don't like Stokowski playing Bach, because that kind of giant, bombastic sound is simply not Bach. I enjoy Klemperer's version of St Matthews Passion, even though his massive orchestra and chorus are Stokowski-like in size but definitely not Stokowski-like in humility and feeling. As for Bach's orchestral suites and Brandenburgs, the only versions I find satisfying are on period instruments. And I am sure that anybody who insists that Bach should be played on period instruments will make an exception for his keyboard works - nearly everyone plays them on the piano instead of the harpsichord.

BTW I am on a couple of classical music forums but I think I would be breaking AA's "no linking" rule by naming them - so I won't.

(edit) ooh look at that ... 116 posts and I am a "senior member"! That was quick!

[Phaedrus]

Hi everybody,

Mind if I chime in: This seems obvious to me but the helas soon to be extinct record store owners have acquired a wealth of knowledge over the years and are very helpfull in many ways.

Unfortunately there are not many left (in my area for sure) but I for certain wouldn't discard them. Their sales have gone from selling alot of music to many people to selling alot of music to a few people who take the time to drive for up to 1 hour to visit their store. Any of you done that lately?

Those soon to be obsolete stores are being overtaken by an online industry. Ask yourselves: How many of your purchases were done in a good old store, how many times have you asked the owner/personnel for advice?

Remember the days when a record store owner would come up to you and say: Listen to this, it just came in! And he would transmit that enthusiasm for music?

Yes, our world is changing.

Excuse my poor English but I hope I am getting the message across.

Best regards,

[Robert_Anderson]

As a rule, XRCD24, which are much more musical on my Reimyo that on my uber-expensive Esoteric rig on SACD.

[bart]

Interesting discussion again.
As always, as many truths as there are people.
Raymond, you're right. We also have a music store in Bruges, specialized in jazz and classical.
Their advice is mostly very reliable.
They have more than 10000 jazz titles in house, and even more classical.
When I go there, and ask for let's say 'the Brandenburger Concertos', I have the choice between at least 5 interpretations.
Then I ask for differences, and they can tell me if it is played rather fast, or which instruments the conductor chose.
As Julian mentioned, I also have my sources in newspapers, magazines, ... which I find very similar in taste.
And I like to discover.
I often buy, after consulting other sources, what you guys post, even if I haven't got a clue whether I will like it or not.
I don't have the time to look it up on YouTube, and most of the sound quality there is quite awful.
Fortunately, I seem to have a very broad musical taste because so far I haven't been disappointed: I almost always like what I have purchased.
And hey, if you really don't like it, it's not such a disastrous misadventure.
Let's say you buy 1 CD you don't like every month, well then you loose like 10$?
There is more price difference between 2 bottles of wine on the wine list of a decent restaurant.
And since I got seriously involved with music again, I have less time to go to restaurants anyway
Like now I'm listening to a recommendation from this thread... and like it! And I had never heard of Hadley nor Finzi before...

[Amfibius]

Oh yeah, I should probably say that I have my own version of "google ranking" to sort out the wheat from the chaff. When google ranks pages, the pages that have the most references are ranked highest. In the same way, the most talked about recordings are likely to be the most important. For example - you will hear many people referring to the 1930's Schnabel Beethoven piano sonata cycle, but very few people referring to the Brautigam Beethoven cycle. In the same vein - many people talk about the 1938 Mahler 9th with Bruno Walter, and very few people talk about Benjamin Zander's Mahler 9th. As far as Wagner Ring cycles goes - you will find names like Solti, Knappertsbusch, Furtwangler, and Keilberth mentioned very often. But nobody ever says "Zubin Mehta". The reason is - some of these recordings are more important than others.

However, it is not always a reliable indicator of quality. For example, the Glenn Gould 1955 Goldberg Variations is mentioned by many to be the ultimate Goldberg set, but hardly anybody talks about Rosalyn Tureck's Goldbergs. I happen to like Tureck very, very much and prefer her clear, simple, and modest playing to Gould's eccentric showmanship.