Exceptional recordings

[teamsaint]

7. 'Fairest Isle' - songs by Dowland, Campion, Morley, Byrd and Purcell. Barbara Bonney, Jacob Heringman, Phantasm, AAM/Hogwood. Surely this is Ms Bonney at the very top of her game. In Campion's The Sypres Curtain of the Night (a depiction of a sleepless night brought on by depression) she is almost unbearably moving, and she makes Morley's It was a lover and is lass sound properly sexy by taking it slower than usual.

You make this sound so tempting, Rauschy.
It is available a bargain price used on marketplace. Very much looking forward to mine dropping through the post box.

[rauschwerk]

You make this sound so tempting, Rauchsy.

Glad to spread my enthusiasm for wonderful performances of less familiar repertoire!

8. Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony (LSO/Previn)

[visualnickmos]

Absolutely no offence taken. I'm very thick-skinned anyway (41+ years of teaching). In my response, I was doing so to clarify.

For me, I could list a dozen recordings. For others it may be more or fewer.

Phew! Thank you. Meanwhile - back to compiling my own list(!)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Phew! Thank you. Meanwhile - back to compiling my own list(!)

All I did was to run my eyes over my own collection and the "exceptional" ones seemed to jump off the shelves and grab me.

On the general topic of causing offence, I can appreciate that written messages can be misinterpreted, but it should be OK to speak one's mind provided that it isn't deliberately malicious.
For example, Ferney likes to stick pins in me from time to time, but I think he likes me really.

[rauschwerk]

9. Tippett: Concerto for Double String Orchestra (ASMIF/Marriner), Fantasia Concertante (BBCSO/Andrew Davis), Piano Sonata 2 (Ogdon)

(My own compilation)

[visualnickmos]

For example, Ferney likes to stick pins in me from time to time, but I think he likes me really.

Of course, he does; we all do, actually

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For example, Ferney likes to stick pins in me from time to time, but I think he likes me really.

I think you're smashing - the dedication you give to the Forum (and from a professional teacher, too) cannot but inspire respect and gratitude. Which is why, when you make a statement that I think is incorrect/outrageous/needs further clarification, I respond so warmly (usually in both senses of the word) and never with deliberate malice.

I enjoy dispute when it helps point out flaws in my own thinking, or makes me clarify what I'm saying: it adds greatly to what I get from Music (or whatever). One of the joys of this Forum is that there is often heated dispute, but rarely does it descend to the infantile exchange of gratuitous insulting that characterizes so much online exchanges - not even in the Choir Threads!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think you're smashing - the dedication you give to the Forum (and from a professional teacher, too) cannot but inspire respect and gratitude. Which is why, when you make a statement that I think is incorrect/outrageous/needs further clarification, I respond so warmly (usually in both senses of the word) and never with deliberate malice.

That's what I thought.

[rauschwerk]

10. Come Rain or Come Shine: the songs of Harold Arlen (Sylvia McNair/André Previn/David Finck (db))

A delight from beginning to end. Sylvia McNair seems as much at home here as in Haydn and Mozart. When it comes to Previn's solo in Between the Devil and he Deep Blue Sea he wittily offers a bitonal boogie (in C and F# - diabolus in musica).

[HighlandDougie]

It is available a bargain price used on marketplace.

Duly purchased. £1.04 plus £1.26 p&p seems reasonable for a disc which has received such a strong endorsement from someone who has such impeccable taste. OK, remarkably like my own but great music in great performances. I await the next few instalments eagerly

[gradus]

Exceptional recordings:
Walter/VPO Mahler 9
Walter/Ferrier Das Lied von der Erde
Toscanini NBCSO Beethoven sym 7
Barbirolli, Madam Butterfly
Wilfrid Brown, Dies Natalis
Bryn Terfel/ Malcolm Martineau, English Song (first vol)
Horowitz, Schumann Arabesque from Carnegie Hall recital
Monteux/LSO, Daphnis and Chloe
USSR Chamber Choir, Rachmaninov Vespers
Sinatra, It's All Right With Me
Beecham, Ein Heldenleben

[Nick Armstrong]

Ah - just thought of another: Alicia De Larrocha's later digital Decca recording of Albéniz's Iberia.

I don't know a better sounding piano recording, quite apart from the unparallel'd playing.

[Don Petter]

Ah - just thought of another: Alicia De Larrocha's later digital Decca recording of Albéniz's Iberia.

I don't know a better sounding piano recording, quite apart from the unparallel'd playing.

Ah! But if you want her best, youthful, playing you can't beat her Hispavox recordings in their later EMI incarnations.

[gurnemanz]

Ah! But if you want her best, youthful, playing you can't beat her Hispavox recordings in their later EMI incarnations.

I've recently acquired this via the superb 8CD Icon box and already had the later one on a Decca Twofer. As discussed here, the answer is probably to get both.

[Nick Armstrong]

the answer is probably to get both.

Yes I have both. I just love the later one!