BaL 9.09.23 - Building an essential library of great recordings

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Andrew McGregor is joined by regular contributors to the programme Allyson Devenish, Joanna MacGregor and Nigel Simeone to discuss and illustrate some of the great recordings with which to start an essential library of classical music. If you want to dip a toe into the world of recorded music, our regular presenter together with three intrepid reviewers suggest some places to start - including a few personal enthusiasms as well as some classics - covering the full range from solo piano to opera; from Bach to Beethoven; from Mozart to Mahler.

[Pulcinella]

Andrew McGregor is joined by regular contributors to the programme Allyson Devenish, Joanna MacGregor and Nigel Simeone to discuss and illustrate some of the great recordings with which to start an essential library of classical music. If you want to dip a toe into the world of recorded music, our regular presenter together with three intrepid reviewers suggest some places to start - including a few personal enthusiasms as well as some classics - covering the full range from solo piano to opera; from Bach to Beethoven; from Mozart to Mahler.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or to cry.
It's only the presence of our own makropulos that might, just might, redeem this.

[smittims]

Didn't we discuss this before , a year or so ago? It's an interesting topic but I wouldn't want to regurgitate old ground unnecessarily.

[Pulcinella]

Didn't we discuss this before , a year or so ago? It's an interesting topic but I wouldn't want to regurgitate old ground unnecessarily.

Wasn't the discussion more about why you'd want to build a library these days with so many streaming options available rather than what might end up in your favourites list?

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm not sure whether to laugh or to cry.
It's only the presence of our own makropulos that might, just might, redeem this.

It occurs to me that this edition points up how many of us have (long) outgrown the remit of this programme - a remit which retains validity. I would have needed this edition in c.1980…

I’ll probably listen with half an ear in case makropulos comes up with a gem that’s eluded me in the last 40 or so years

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I did consider not including this as a BaL thread. A simple list of, say, 50 works to introduce people to classical music would probably be more helpful. Reducing it further leads to the level of the dumb mentality of CFM’s list of the 15 Greatest Symphonies, which corresponds quite closely with its own extremely limited playlist of symphony (movements), except that Mendelssohn 4 isn’t included:-

Mozart 41
Price 1
Beethoven 9
Mahler 2
Dvorak 9
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Brahms 4
Gorecki 3
Shostakovich 5
Farrenc 3
Still 1
Tchaikovsky 6
Rachmaninov 2
Sibelius 5
Beethoven 3

[FRJames]

A rather half baked programme with a similar theme was broadcast in December last year -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fnts

I feel sure that this new programme can only be an improvement - particularly with Joanna Macgregor in attendance.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I did consider not including this as a BaL thread. A simple list of, say, 50 works to introduce people to classical music would probably be more helpful. Reducing it further leads to the level of the dumb mentality of CFM’s list of the 15 Greatest Symphonies, which corresponds quite closely with its own extremely limited playlist of symphony (movements), except that Mendelssohn 4 isn’t included:-

Mozart 41
Price 1
Beethoven 9
Mahler 2
Dvorak 9
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Brahms 4
Gorecki 3
Shostakovich 5
Farrenc 3
Still 1
Tchaikovsky 6
Rachmaninov 2
Sibelius 5
Beethoven 3

The problem with this list is that all Mahler’s and Beethoven’s symphonies are greater works than Price, Gorecki, Still and Farrenc’s .And not just a bit better but on a completely different level of artistic achievement. It hasn’t even got Beethoven’s 5th on it.

PS. What about Haydn ?

[smittims]

Thanks, FRJ, that December programme was the one I was thinking about.

Many years ago, when the concert and recorded repertoire were much smaller, recommendations for 'a basic library' would make more sense. Then, 'music' meant classical, as in 'The Oxford Companion to Music' or 'Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'. Now the boundaries are blurred , to say the least. As late as the mid-sixties the Penguin Guide could say of ACL 113 ('A Concert of English Music') that it was 'a record that should be in every collection.' Could we say that of any disc today? Every collection?

In short, we've moved from a world where Leonard Bast regarded a performance of Beethoven's Fifth as a unique event, to one where most people could hear fifty or a hundred and fifty different performances at the flick of a switch. I wouldn't know where to start in telling someone what to buy, except 'start with what you know and love , and move outwards from there'. .

[Mandryka]

I think the whole idea of a library, building a library - and having a collection - are a bit yesterday. People stream, people listen. They don’t build or collect.

That being said, the one disc everybody should have is Rene Clemencic’s first series of selections from Carmina Burana. Obvs.

[Bryn]

I think the whole idea of a library, building a library - and having a collection - are a bit yesterday. People stream, people listen. They don’t build or collect.

That being said, the one disc everybody should have is Rene Clemencic’s first series of selections from Carmina Burana. Obvs.

Oh but some, especially those of a certain age, still collect. Who else is it that buys CDs, LPs and even cassettes?

[FRJames]

I think the whole idea of a library, building a library - and having a collection - are a bit yesterday. People stream, people listen. They don’t build or collect.

That being said, the one disc everybody should have is Rene Clemencic’s first series of selections from Carmina Burana. Obvs.

I think people who stream will still build libraries of music, it's just that the libraries will be in the form of lists in their streamer rather than physical entities such as CDs.

[CallMePaul]

A rather half baked programme with a similar theme was broadcast in December last year -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fnts

I feel sure that this new programme can only be an improvement - particularly with Joanna Macgregor in attendance.

Maybe, but Allyson Devenish is by some distance the worst "reviewer" I have evet heard over more than 30 years of listening to BAL. I know why she keeps on being invited but I would get into trouble if I put this in writing!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think the whole idea of a library, building a library - and having a collection - are a bit yesterday. People stream, people listen. They don’t build or collect.

Not everyone is a slave to fashion.
If no recordings were sold, there’d probably be very few made, so streaming would then rely on back catalogue only.

[Dave2002]

I think the whole idea of a library, building a library - and having a collection - are a bit yesterday. People stream, people listen. They don’t build or collect.

That being said, the one disc everybody should have is Rene Clemencic’s first series of selections from Carmina Burana. Obvs.

I have the LPs of the Cantigas ....