More classical music

As you'll recall from my last entry on this topic my love of classical music goes back to my childhood and with the advent of the compact disc, I began building my core collection in this format exclusively.

First off, I kind of got off on a lopsided approach to Beethoven, missing out on his Violin and Piano Sonatas completely plowing through the Symphonies and then the Piano Concertos before meeting the Violin Concerto Op.61.

Well, I got the discs in the old DG Galleria series of Wilhelm Kempff's masterful Piano Sonatas cycle from the mid 1960's that as recordings weren't unfamiliar to me as I'd borrowed tapes from the public library of them before. I think there was a big box with all thirty two of them but I kinda thought it would be overkill.

I eventually got the cd in the same series yesterday of Menuhin and Kempff's account of the Sonatas for Piano and Violin numbers Five and Nine from 1970 that remains one of the finest ever recorded. I also picked up used the Violinist Anne Sophie-Mutter's recording with Herbert von Karajan of the Triple Concerto from 1980 which was a full price disc issued 1985 with three overtures tacked on to fill up the disc.

Berlioz and his Fantastique symphony was an early obsession of mine something a psychologist I saw picked up on and I've been hunting for years for a recording I really could enjoy that was in print. I found it although sadly it's not available in Europe on the American arm of EMI Classica 'Angel' in the form of a recording by the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 conducted by André Cluytens a conductor whose records I like.

Dvorák: Well I always had a soft spot from his work but outside of the odd Piano Sonata plus recordings of his Cello and Violin Concertos, hadn't gone beyond his famous Ninth symphony (the New World).

I bought a re-issue of a 1991 cd set packaged in a cardboard box and card sleeves of Rafael Kubelik's complete cycle of nine symphonies recorded 1968 thru'1973 for DG, something I'd always dreamt of getting as a kid which were amongst the strongest interpretations ever and anyway I've always loved theses performances having the Ninth on lp.

I also got a complete set of his Violin Sonatas recently too by the Prague Quartet

Finally to Brahms. Poor thing I kinda neglected him beyond the cat gut works and a recording of his Second and Third symphonies I inexplicably picked up in the early 1990's. I've finally added his First and Fourth symphonies as performed by Herbert von Karajan (1978 and 1988 respectively).