Drop-Dead Recordings

[cmg]

You know what I mean.  Performances so electric and memorable, if they were vinyl you'd have flattened the grooves by now playing them so much.

My current best of the best: 


Shostakovich/Tchaikovsky Trios:  Argerich-Kremer-Maisky (Live 1988, DG)

What's yours?

[argerichfan]

My current best of the best: 

Shostakovich/Tchaikovsky Trios:  Argerich-Kremer-Maisky (Live 1988, DG)

Nice... very nice.  You have excellent taste. 

Now let's see (in no particular order):

There's Argerich's Liszt B minor or Prokofiev 3 (I never tire of them), Britten's recording of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, Ogdon's Busoni Concerto, Gulda's Beethoven Op. 27 #1, Ripon Cathedral's recording of Dyson's (Anglican) Service in D, Richter's Brahms Bb, Ute Lemper's Kurt Weill recordings, so many others.

Such riches in my life.   

[thalberg]

Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations

Richter's 1958 Pictures At an Exhibition (live)

Jacqueline DuPre's Elgar Cello Concerto

[argerichfan]

Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations

Richter's 1958 Pictures At an Exhibition (live)

Hard to argue with those choices... cheers! 

[pies]

That Bernard guy that's posted here a few times has an amazing La Campanella

[alessandro]

Nice topic.
I surely will look try to find the upward examples and listen to them.

First thing that I'm thinking about is

Kind of blue.
Miles Davis

I can't immediately think about a favourite "interpretation" of a work...

I also I feel very affected by the J.S. Bach Sonata n° 2 in A minor for violin solo BWV1003, I happen to have a recording by Philippe Hirshhorn on 1967 June, 7.

Also delightful 'Brandenburger Concerto', again Bach (I happen to have a recording by Academy of Ancient music)...

Or the aria from Puccini's "Tosca" - E lucevan le stele...

Oh yes, one more, visual and all

Live benefit concert, I think Band Aid, in the Wembley-arena in the eighties, Freddy Mercury with his band Queen, with the song 'Radio Gaga'... that was a really electrifying performance...

[opus10no2]

Barere Grieg concerto

[thalbergmad]

HAHAHA Classic

[richard black]

HAHAHA Classic

Tasteful, too!

Returning to the OP's question, how about Furtwängler's 1942 account of Beethoven 9 with the BPO? Among piano recordings, I'd nominate Moiseiwitsch playing, well, almost anything really but certainly the Mendelssohn/Rachmaninov Scherzo, Horowitz playing his Carmen Variations (almost any of the squillion recordings), Ronald Stevenson playing Grainger's 'Rosenkavalier Ramble', John Ogdon playing the Dante Sonata (1986 recording), Hamelin playing Grainger's 'In Dahomey', Gilels playing the Bach-Busoni Prelude and Fugue in D, Nyiregyhazi playing Grieg's 'She Dances', Rosenthal playing his own (I think) 'Carnival of Venice' variations, Lhevinne playing the Schulz-Evler 'Blue Danube' variations (either recording), lots more I ought to be able to remember but can't offhand....

[Edit: how could I possibly forget Art Tatum's 'Tiger Rag'?]

[And another late-night thought - Cziffra playing any of his own transcriptions.]