50 Greatest Recordings

[cloughie]

January's BBC Music Magazine arrived this morning, the cover proudly announcing 50 Greatest Recordings of all time. These have been selected by a panel of reviewers who have voted on them. I know that this kind of offering is subjective and unlikely to be statistically very sound - I doubt that each of them chose fifty, ranked them and thence the list. There are a couple which would grace many collections - Solti's Ring topped the list and the Crespin/Ansermet Scheherazade/Nuits d'Ete was at 8 and Monteux's Daphnis was at 35. For me though Britten and Janacek seem to be over-favoured, and one I am totally unfamiliar with at 22 Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

Maybe in a spare moment or three over Christmas I'll think over my own Top 50. One thing sure it will contain very few of the expert reviewers selection.

[Parry1912]

I am totally unfamiliar with at 22 Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

Be thankful for small mercies!

I understand that tastes vary but are we really putting this stuff up there with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner et al?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I understand that tastes vary but are we really putting this stuff up there with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner et al?

Well, personally, I wouldn't, but the quality of the Recording, not the Music on that recording is what's being judged, surely?

It's another damned list preceeded by "the Greatest" that the 12 year-old Editor of this magazine (No 67 on the list of "50 greatest magazines published by the BBC") is so keen on.

[Alison]

Does the January cover disc contain anything of interest ?

I feel like avoiding this issue.

[zola]

Does the January cover disc contain anything of interest ?

I feel like avoiding this issue.

It's been discussed on this thread Alison.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?4079-Latest-CD-from-BBCMM-Recorded-in-1948-1936

[geofflikesmusic]

Be thankful for small mercies!

I understand that tastes vary but are we really putting this stuff up there with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner et al?

I think it certainly deserves to be up there.

[Chris Newman]

January's BBC Music Magazine arrived this morning, the cover proudly announcing 50 Greatest Recordings of all time. These have been selected by a panel of reviewers who have voted on them. I know that this kind of offering is subjective and unlikely to be statistically very sound - I doubt that each of them chose fifty, ranked them and thence the list. There are a couple which would grace many collections - Solti's Ring topped the list and the Crespin/Ansermet Scheherazade/Nuits d'Ete was at 8 and Monteux's Daphnis was at 35. For me though Britten and Janacek seem to be over-favoured, and one I am totally unfamiliar with at 22 Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

Maybe in a spare moment or three over Christmas I'll think over my own Top 50. One thing sure it will contain very few of the expert reviewers selection.

Well, it is all personal taste. I would happily put the Crespin/Ansermet Scheherazade/Nuits d'Ete in my top five and all the Janacek chosen in the BBCMM top 50 into my top 10, but I have Ring Cycles I prefer to Solti's. I would also put the Carlos Kleiber Beethoven 5th Symphony in my top 10 but not the 7th which I would give to Monteux. There are many others there that might get into my top 100 but not 50. As we say, it is personal taste.

[Ferretfancy]

I went to the late Prom this year which featured the Music for Eighteen Musicians. I do have a CD of it, but had not played it more than once. The live performance was fascinating, a form of theatre really, as well as music, with the players moving between instruments and displaying amazing rhythmic accuracy over a span of nearly an hour. It certainly is not music for every day, but in my opinion not to be dismissed.
Making these lists is pointless, because no two people will make the same choices. As a small example, the Barenboim / ECO set of the Mozart Piano Concertos is included. It's certainly a fine set, but then there are sets by Brendel, Perahiah etc. which could just as easily fill the bill. Again, if had to choose a Beethoven 7, I might go for the Colin Davis / RPO performance from way back in the early sixties, and so it goes.

[Roehre]

Well, it is all personal taste. I would happily put the Crespin/Ansermet Scheherazade/Nuits d'Ete in my top five and all the Janacek chosen in the BBCMM top 50 into my top 10, but I have Ring Cycles I prefer to Solti's. I would also put the Carlos Kleiber Beethoven 5th Symphony in my top 10 but not the 7th which I would give to Monteux. There are many others there that might get into my top 100 but not 50. As we say, it is personal taste.

It's all personal taste, and on top of that a very British-centred as well