Great Recordings of 20th C?

[Gordon]

I'm not sure that we have done this before on these boards so apologies if we have.

If you had to make a list of the 20 greatest recordings [let's say in the electrical age since 1925] what would they be and why? One candidate might be Dennis Brain's Mozart concerti because it has never been out of the catalogue.

Looking through the Decca Legends and EMI GROCs etc gives their ideas from their own catalogues but what about us consumers' views? Are they all in the distant past? Will more modern ones pass the test of time?

[Dave2002]

Possible candidates

Elgar Violin concerto, Menuhin, Elgar

Mahler Das Lied von der Erde, Walter, Ferrier
Symphony 2 - Klemperer or Rattle
Symphony 8 - Solti

Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten, Solti

Ives Symphony 4, Stokowski

Sibelius symphonies - maybe Vanska

[mathias broucek]

That's a VERY wide time period and I think it's hard to compare recordings from the 20s and 30s with more recent stuff. Is there a case for looking a the stereo and mono eras separately (recognising that within mono there are huge variations in sound quality).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If you had to make a list of the 20 greatest recordings [let's say in the electrical age since 1925] what would they be and why?

"20"?

A measly "20"?

I'd have difficulty restricting myself to 20 "greatest" Mahler recordings!* Mozart would need 50 at the very least!


EDIT: * = But, yes, the Ferrier/Patzak/VPO/Walter would be one of the first to go on this list!

[Osborn]

I doubt I've heard more than 0.1% of recordngs made since 1925. So no comment is possible.

[umslopogaas]

A pretty impossible task, but of the recordings I have heard, here a list of the first twenty that come to mind:

Messiaen. Turangalila Symphony. Ozawa
Mahler. Symphony 2. Solti (the LSO one)
Sibelius. Luonnotar. Jones, Dorati
Shostakovich. Symphony 10. Ormandy
Weill. Threepenny Opera. Bruckner-Ruggeberg (supervised by Lenya)
Verdi. Aida. Karajan
Wagner. The Ring. Solti
Schubert. Symphony 9. Klassiche Philharmonie Stuttgart, Munchinger
Stravinsky. Rite of Spring. Stravinsky
Busoni. Doctor Faust. Leitner
Berlioz. The Trojans. Davis
Berg. Lulu. Boulez
Busoni. Piano Concerto. Ogdon. Revanaugh
Brahms. Piano Concertos. Gilels. Jochum
Cherubini. Medea. Callas. Serafin
JS Bach. Harpsichord concertos. Kipnis. Marriner
Wagner. Tristan and Isolde. Nilsson, Windgassen. Bohm
JS Bach. Six Keyboard Partitas. Gould
Bartok. Bluebeard's Castle. Ludwig, Berry. Kertesz
Bartok. Concerto for Orchestra. LSO, Solti.

These are all recordings that for some reason or other stick in the memory. In many cases its simply that they are the first versions I heard.

I'm sure if I do it again tomorrow I can find twenty different ones!

And if I could have 21, I'd add Brendel playing Schubert's D960 sonata, the Philips recording from the early seventies.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Gramophone did something like this for their 75th Anniversary.Their list had the Solti Ring at the top. Others in the first 10 included Furtwangler's Tristan and Beethoven 9, as well as the classic Du Pre/Barbirolli Elgar Cello Concerto.

[verismissimo]

Why leave out those great singers from the first quarter of the century, mostly well recorded in their prime?

A personal choice:

Alda
Bahr-Mildenburg
Battistini
Boronat
Caruso
Chaliapin
De Lucia
Destinn
Jorn
Kurz
Lilli Lehmann
Melba
Nezhdanova
Plancon
Plunket Greene
Ruffo
Slezak
Smirnoff
Tamagno
Tetrazzini

Such riches.

Then there are the fiddlers!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There are 22 CDs in the SONY/CBS Stravinsky conducts Stravinsky box for a start!

[Roehre]

A pretty impossible task, but of the recordings I have heard, here a list of the first twenty that come to mind:

Messiaen. Turangalila Symphony. Ozawa
Mahler. Symphony 2. Solti (the LSO one)
Sibelius. Luonnotar. Jones, Dorati
Shostakovich. Symphony 10. Ormandy
Weill. Threepenny Opera. Bruckner-Ruggeberg (supervised by Lenya)
Verdi. Aida. Karajan
Wagner. The Ring. Solti
Schubert. Symphony 9. Klassiche Philharmonie Stuttgart, Munchinger
Stravinsky. Rite of Spring. Stravinsky
Busoni. Doctor Faust. Leitner
Berlioz. The Trojans. Davis
Berg. Lulu. Boulez
Busoni. Piano Concerto. Ogdon. Revanaugh
Brahms. Piano Concertos. Gilels. Jochum
Cherubini. Medea. Callas. Serafin
JS Bach. Harpsichord concertos. Kipnis. Marriner
Wagner. Tristan and Isolde. Nilsson, Windgassen. Bohm
JS Bach. Six Keyboard Partitas. Gould
Bartok. Bluebeard's Castle. Ludwig, Berry. Kertesz
Bartok. Concerto for Orchestra. LSO, Solti.

These are all recordings that for some reason or other stick in the memory. In many cases its simply that they are the first versions I heard.

I'm sure if I do it again tomorrow I can find twenty different ones!

And if I could have 21, I'd add Brendel playing Schubert's D960 sonata, the Philips recording from the early seventies.

All of these recordings stem from exactly 5 (=five) recording companies.
I cannot imagine that the greatest recordings of the 20th C were all made by these (though many obviously are)

[umslopogaas]

#10 Roehre, no indeed, I'm sure there are many other companies that could be represented, but the problem is, I'm only allowed 20 recordings! I noticed when I put the list together that there were a lot of Decca recordings, but Decca at that time were hot stuff. And yes, putting in Wagner's Ring as one recording is a bit of a cheat, I know ...

How many recording companies were in the list rather depends on how you define a company: RCA, Decca, HMV, CBS, DG, American Columbia, English Columbia and Philips add up to eight, but if you count English Columbia as part of HMV that makes seven; you might have had a bit of fight with Walter Legge, though. I'm not sure what you do with English CBS, I think they were part of a larger company, but I'm not sure which one.

[vinteuil]

Such riches.

Then there are the fiddlers!

... then there are the harpsichordists ...

Kenneth Gilbert
Christophe Rousset
Andreas Staier
Jean-Patrice Brosse
Davitt Moroney
Maggie Cole
Jane Chapman
Scott Ross
Gustav Leonhardt
Glen Wilson
Robert Hill
Peter Watchorn
Jan Pieter Belder
Michael Borgstede
Sophie Yates
Carole Cerasi
Blandine Verlet
Christopher Hogwood
Trevor Pinnock
Olivier Beaumont
Yannick le Gaillard
Skip Sempé
Laurence Boulay
Jos van Immerseel
Mitzi Meyerson
Ton Koopman

... but I fear I may be exceeding the "twenty" limit

[silvestrione]

I'll have a go at restoring some sanity here (after an aside: all those harpsichordists, and no Pierre Hantai!?):
Solti Ring
Karajan Ring
Furtwangler Tristan
Kleiber Beethoven Sym 5 &7
Schnabel Beethoven Sonatas
Busch Quartet Beethoven
Lipatti Chopin
Gould Bach Goldberg
Landowska Couperin and/or Scarlatti and/or Bach Goldberg
Schubert Wintereise Fischer-Dieskau (version?)
Gui Mozart Marriage
Guilini Mozart Don Giovanni
Bruckner 8 Karajan
Mahler 9 Karajan
Mahler 8 Solti
Mahler 5 Bernstein
Beethoven 3 Klemperer
Sviatoslav Richter Rachmaninov Preludes (DG)
Horowitz Schumann Kreisleriana
Bach B minor Mass Richter

but I don't know enough about singers, and there's no Verdi or Monteverdi, or, or...
I meant to restrict myself to performances made as recordings (not live broadcasts), but the two Karajan VPO/BPO performances have crept in, but they might qualify as planned recordings.

[vinteuil]

after an aside: all those harpsichordists, and no Pierre Hantai!?):

mea culpa, mea maxima culpa - of course Pierre Hantaï - he wd be in my top ten, easily

Mind you -

Karajan for Bruckner or Mahler - no thank you
Solti or Bernstein for Mahler - no thank you

Richter for Bach - vade retro, Satanas!

[verismissimo]

Then there are the fiddlers!

Just to be clear, I meant the fiddlers recorded before 1925, such as Joachim, Kreisler, Jan Kubelik and many others.

They recorded well, as did the singers, whereas the keyboard recordings of the period are mostly for information only!