Best recordings of 2010

[verismissimo]

What's top of the pile from your 2010 acquisitions and listenings?

And what would you like to get in your Xmas stocking?

Best for me are the Alfred Hill string quartets by the Dominion Quartet on Naxos and EMI's Hugo Wolf Anniversary Edition.

[Alf-Prufrock]

My recording of 2010 was the Mackerras set of Mozart symphonies. Quite wonderful, especially in SACD sound. A splendid memorial to a conductor and musician who is much missed.

[Bryn]

If the heading refers to recordings issued in 2010, then without doubt I opt for Morton Feldman's For John Cage and Piano & String Quartet on a Matchless audio DVD:


http://matchlessrecordings.com/node/327

[BBMmk2]

Red Priesr by Black Dyke Band. Triumphant Brass by Cory Band. The composer Alfred Lefebure Wely has been a real find this year. Bruckner and Mahler recpordings by Ababdo have been a real treat for me this year.

[moeranbiogman]

Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" with the Halle and Sir Mark Elder, recorded live at Bridgwater Hall. Stunning in every way.

[perfect wagnerite]

... which I know is a controversial choice, but I was bowled over by it and it has cast much light on a work I thought I knew.



... more Norrington but I know of no other Haydn recordings which communicate so much of the sheer joy of this music. I've been playing these discs over and over again.



... because it brings a warhorse gloriously alive. Not often I order a disk while it's still being reviewed on Record Review, but I did with this.

[HighlandDougie]

A discovery of a composer of whom, shamefully, I'd never heard: Manuel Blasco de Nebra. The Harmonia Mundi disc of his Piano Sonatas played by Javier Perianes has been much played this year. And the Arcadi Volodos recital from Vienna - which was revelatory to me in relation to Scriabin's piano music. A composer with whom I'd always had great difficulty (Poem of Ecstasy etc) was suddenly revealed as someone quite extraordinary. The rest of the recital is pretty damned good as well (as was Volodos's recital at Roque d'Antheron this summer - Mompou and Albeniz etc).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was going to say Elgar's "The Crown of India", orchestrated by Anthony Payne, with Sir Andrew Davis on Chandos, but I see that was issued in 2009, but I'll include it anyway.

[StephenO]

Agree with Mackerras's Mozart Symphonies and Elder's Gotterdammerung. I'd add Haitink's Alpensinfonie, Ivan Fischer's Dvorak 7 and Angelika Kirchschlager's Brahms Lieder.

[Mahlerei]

This is one of my picks. An extraordinary work.

[Chris Newman]

"

My recording of 2010 was the Mackerras set of Mozart symphonies. Quite wonderful, especially in SACD sound. A splendid memorial to a conductor and musician who is much missed.

"

I agree entirely with Alf-Prufrock. It was a splendid memorial to Sir Charles. The last opera this year that I heard in an opera house was "The Cunning Little Vixen" with Sir Charles (OK. I heard three others at the Proms) but I cannot think of any conductor who has given me more consistent satisfaction over fifty years of music loving.

[Petekelly55]

Best for me are the Alfred Hill string quartets by the Dominion Quartet on Naxos and EMI's Hugo Wolf Anniversary Edition.

Thanks for the pointer. Just listened on Spotify - liked what I heard.

bws PK

[reinerfan]

Without a doubt, the CDs that have given me most pleasure are the two 3 CD sets from First Hand of the Boult stereo Nixa recordings. He certainly must have had his Shreddies before he made these recordings! As far as new recordings go, a Linn SACD of flute concertos with Katherine Bryan recently arrived and has hardly been out of the player.

[Mr Pee]

I find it much easier to nominate my worst CD - bit of a one horse race really (see t'other thread for details)- than my favourite. So many discs have given me great pleasure this past year.

Petrenko's on-going Shostakovitch cycle, particularly No.10; and the recent disc of Schubert Piano Duets by Stephen Osborne and Paul Lewis is an absolute gem.

If I were to nominate just one, I think it would be the Beethoven 4 and 6 from Ivan Fischer and the BFO. Both these great symphonies were in danger of becoming over-familiar, but this CD makes me feel as though I am hearing them for the first time all over again. At the end of the CD I always have a huge on my silly old face, and so this has to be my CD of the year.

[LaurieWatt]

Without doubt for me the Klaus Tennstedt recording from 1989 of his incandescent performance, superbly recorded, of Mahler's Symphony No 2 'Resurrection' with the LPO, LP Chorus and soloists. It was like drawing teeth to get it to commercial availability and even then Gramophone failed to review it....!