CDs - best and worst buy

[stormx]

Hi !! 

lets talk about your CDs (commercially available ones, that is excluding any CD you have recorded mixing others, or downloading pieces from the net).

2 questions:

1- What CD is almost worn out after so many listenings?
2- What CD, if any, did you purchase and you never listen?

In my case,

1) Chopin "The complete nocturnes and Impromptus" (Claudio Arrau). 

2) Bartok "Piano concertos" (1-2-3).
Stephen Kovacevich as soloist and Sir Colin Davis directing. 

PD: from 2), what i do not like is Bartok. Kovacevich and Davis are innocents 

[steinwayguy]

Gosh there are so many...
1) Richard Goode's Beethoven Sonatas (especially the last two discs)
1) Van Cliburn's Rachmaninoff Third (paired with the Prokofiev Third)
1) Argerich's Prokofiev Third (with Prokofiev First and Bartok Third)

2) Wolfgang Rubsam's Bach Inventions (listened to the first invention, threw the CD out)
2) Kissin's Ballades and E Major Scherzo (generally horrifying interpretations)
2) Juana Zayas' Chopin Etudes (mindless)

[hodi]

1.
saint saens complete piano concertos (pascal roge)
schumann complete symphonies & manfred overture (szell)
brahms 1&2 (gilels)

2.
chopin 1&2 , gilels (i don't really like chopin's concertos)

[bwv]

(1) Bach Partitas by Zhu Xiao-Mei. You got  to listen to her.  A clever mix of Gould and, oh, Pires if I can say so.  Her Goldberg are also incredible.  Got to make another copy for the car, this one's going bad.

(1) Handel-Scarlatti by Perahia. Again and again. Great driving music. Especially the Chaconne.

(1) Got a minute? by Fredrik Ullen on BIS CD-1083.  Ullen makes me think of Hamelin in his touch and sound.  Fascinating disc.  21 variations on the Minute Waltz.  Then the disc ends with the 'original' version, ha!, but after hearing all the variations it now sounds so 'plain'.  Also great driving music. Weird eh?

And of this Top Three^tm, the Desert Island Disk Award goes to Zhu Xiao-Mei.

(2) Medtner, the Complete Sonatas by Hamelin.  Curiously, I have never listened to it at all.  I do have the CDs though.  Right here.  In my hands.  Listened to all my other CDs of Hamelin but not that one.  Go figure.

[Mozartian]

1) Anything with Kapell or Lipatti performing, all their stuff is amazing. Kempff's Kinderscenen/Kreisleriana/Waldscenen CD.

2) Idil Biret's Chopin Mazurkas CD. I swear, it's painful to listen to- I've yet to get through an entire recording on that CD (to be fair, I've only attempted listening to 6/2, some of the others might not be as bad).

[musicsdarkangel]

Ashkenazy - Chopin sonatas

Ashkenazy - Rachmaninoff Rhapsody On A Them By Pagannini

Van Cliburn - Rach 3, 2

Jablonski - playing Chopin's scherzo no 1 (makes this piece shine) it's on a KICK@SS compilation with some other pianists and some of Chopin's greatest.... the Yundi Li plays Chopin will do also.  His Scherzo no 1 is the next best.

Dmitri Alexeyev - Rachmaninoff Preludes (unbeatable)

Horowitz - Horowitz plays Rachmaninoff

Alicia De La Roccha - Mozart sonatas .......... Maria Joao Pirez is awesome too

Jeno Jando - Liszt's Transcendental etudes

Hamelin - the Chopin-Godowsky studies (yikes)

for Chopin etudes... i'd suggest Garrick Ohlssohn, I haven't heard close.

Bach - Glen Gould's WTK and Goldberg Variations

Franck - Symphony no 1 and Symphonic Variations played by Alex Weissenberg. 

Liszt - there is a double cd, one cd has orchestrals and piano concerto with Argerich, the other has Ashkenazy doing Mephisto Waltz (OH MY GOD IS IT GOOD), Argerich doing the sonata in b minor, Richter doing Feux Follets (known to be the best recording), and Harmonies du soir, Arrau doing Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude, and last but not least, Argerich doing the Rhapsody no 6

that's one hell of a Liszt album if you ask me.

Really though, if you ever are buying romantic repitoire, and you don't know who would be good, either ask people, or go with Ashkenazy.....he's great at pretty much everything.

[quantum]

1) Anything Lipatti

1) Zimmerman - Chopin Ballades, Chopin Concertos

1) Demidenko - Chopin Scherzos

1) Tryon - Chopin Balades and Scherzos

1) Hamelin - Scriabin Sonatas

1) Laredo - Scriabin Sonatas

1) Perahia - His "portrait" CD

1) Petchersky - Tchaikovsky "Grand Sonata", Scriabin Sonata No.3

1) Kubalek - Brahms Op. 116, 118, 79, 119 (Vol.2)



2) Barenboim - Chopin Nocturnes (way to dry  )

[masman]

any thing with horowitz should be good

[mlsmithz]

So many....

(1) Lyapunov, Transcendental Etudes, Kentner.
(1) Prokofiev First and Third and Bartok Third, Argerich/Dutoit. (I've seen all three done live by, respectively, Louis Lortie, Lang Lang, and Helene Grimaud, but none of them compared to Argerich, whom I've never seen live.... )
(1) Chopin, Sonatas, Katsaris.
(1) Chopin, Etudes, Pollini.
(1) Brahms Second and Rhapsodies Op.79, Barenboim/Mehta (concerto) and Gould (rhapsodies). (Part of a boxed set with the other Brahms concerti - Barenboim on the piano, Stern for the violin concerto, Zukerman and Harrell for the double concerto.)
(1) Mahler, Symphony No.2, Philharmonia/Klemperer.
(1) Mahler, Symphony No.4, New York Phil/Bernstein.
(1) Rachmaninov, Symphony No.2, LSO/Previn.
(1) Debussy, Suite bergamasque/Children's corner/Images I and II/Arabesques, Roge. (Disc 1 of 'Piano Works'.)
(1) Alkan, Etudes Op.39 No.1-2, 4-7, 11, Ringeissen. (Still waiting for Hamelin to record 1, 2, and 11.)
(1) Elgar, Violin concerto, Kennedy/Handley. (One of Kennedy's few 'straight classical' recordings.)

(2) Debussy, Etudes, Uchida (nothing against Uchida - she's a terrific Mozart interpreter - but the etudes did nothing for me).
(2) Elgar, Symphony No.1 and 'Cockaigne' overture, can't remember the conductor as I sold the CD a few years ago but, again, the pieces did nothing for me.
(2) Officium, Garbarek/Hilliard Ensemble.  I couldn't get all the way through this one even after multiple attempts.

And I've not yet listened to my CD of Hamelin performing the Shostakovich concerti and the Shchedrin Second, but that's just laziness on my part.

[Bouter Boogie]

1) Gershwin's piano concerto, rhapsodies & more  (played by different pianists)

I'll reply the 2nd question later  Can't think of any now 

[Regulus Medtner]

(2) Medtner, the Complete Sonatas by Hamelin.  Curiously, I have never listened to it at all.  I do have the CDs though.  Right here.  In my hands.  Listened to all my other CDs of Hamelin but not that one.  Go figure.

This should be punishable by law! You can start by listening to the op.25 no.1 Sonata - Skazka.

(2) I tend to avoid the Horowitz portion of my collection, Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony and Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum. This doesn't mean I never listen to them, mind.

[ralessi]

1) Cziffra playing the Liszt Concerti, Totentanz, and Hungarian Fantasy
1) Volodos playing the Rach 3
1) Cziffra playing the complete Chopin Etudes
1) Cziffra playing the complete Transcendental Etudes

2) John Lill playing the Rach 4, Paganini, and Corelli
2) Richter playing the Liszt concerti and B minor sonata (i like the sonata sometimes...the concerti are so small...it sounds like a string ensemble was used)