Thread: End of year list mania (classical)

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Post by fausto K December 18, 2014 (1 of 14)
Rules: your favourite *classical* recordings of 2014 in SACD or BluRay, either new or remastered, but released in 2014 (hence, no older discs you purchased this year)


Here are mine (in arbitrary order but the Hartmann & Prazak/Shostakovich probably on top)

Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte etc - Prégardien, Schnackertz
Beethoven: Overtures - Järvi
Bernstein: West Side Story - Tilson Thomas
Brahms: String Quartets, Op. 51 - Rodin Quartett
Bruckner: Symphony No. 00 "Study" - Young
Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 - Young
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 - Haitink
Goebbels: Suite from Surrogate Cities, Frank Zappa: 5 works - Søndergård
Hartmann: Symphonies 1-8 - Gaffigan, Metzmacher, Poppen, Schønwandt, Stenz, Vänskä
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 - Stenz
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde, Busoni: Berceuse - Zinman
Ravel: Orchestral & virtuoso piano - Larderet
Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos 14 & 15, Two pieces, Op. 36 - Prazak Quartet
DO.GMA #3: Shostakovich

And the one still missing in my collection:
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 - Fischer

And here some redbooks I quite enjoyed:

Brahms - String Quintets - Takacs (Hyperion)
Bruckner 9 - Abbado/LFO (Accentus/DG)
Bruckner 3 - Böhm (remaster Decca Japan) SHM-CD
Cage - D’Arcy Philip Gray - Works for Percussion vol. 3 (Mode)
Unsuk Chin - Piano and Cello Concertos - Myung-Whun Chung/Seoul PO (DG)
Feldman - String Qt No. 1 - Flux Quartet (Mode)

Post by Iain December 18, 2014 (2 of 14)
Completely agree with your recommendations.

I don't have these yet:
Bernstein: West Side Story - Tilson Thomas
The Argentinian Album - Thompson

... but these titles are on my imminent buy list, as my highest priority over the past couple of months has been and now is my new laptop.

BTW, thanks for the recommendation of the Cage RBCD.

Post by SteelyTom December 18, 2014 (3 of 14)
Good to see props for the Zinman/Zurich Das Lied.

I'll pick the Universal DSD remasters of old Deutsche Grammophon material, for example, Fournier/Karajan/BPO in Strauss's Don Quixote, and the Tokyo String Quartet's complete (and highly affordable) Beethoven quartets. The 2014 Venus jazz SACDs have been excellent, too, especially the Archie Shepp, Steve Kuhn, and Barney Wilen reissues.

Post by wehecht December 18, 2014 (4 of 14)
After a cleanout of a sizeable number of discs that hadn't seen the player for some time I ended up buying more discs this year than in several years. As a result I could compile quite a long list of very fine 2014 recordings (using US release dates to determine what came out in '14, some have '13 copyrights), but I'll reluctantly restrain myself:

Schumann: Symphonies 1-4 - Ticciati
Walton: Violin Concerto & Symphony No. 1 - Little, Gardner
Mozart: Requiem - Suzuki
Walton, Hindemith: Cello Concertos - Poltera, Shipway
Elgar: Symphony No 1 - Oramo
Beethoven: String Trio Op. 3 & Serenade Op. 8 - Trio Zimmermann
Pettersson: Symphony No. 9 - Lindberg
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 - Fischer
Weinberg, Britten: Violin Concertos - Linus Roth
Nørgård: Symphonies No. 1 & 8 - Oramo

And like some other posters I'll stretch the "classical" designation to include:
Bernstein: West Side Story - Tilson Thomas

Post by fausto K December 18, 2014 (5 of 14)
For those interested, the Feldman recording I mentioned (String Qt No. 1) includes a DVD with the uncompressed 24/48 recording in 5.1 surround. The additional benefit of the multichannel is that you can listen to the 90 minute string qt uninterrupted (while it is divided across two discs for the redbook) http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/269-270-feldman.html

For the incredible String Qt No. 2, which lasts approx. 6 hours, one luckily has the option to divide one's attention between 5 "normal" discs, since I can't believe anyone has the attention span of listening to Feldman for 6 uninterrupted hours, afforded by the DVD (although that's of course the intention)
http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/112feldman.html

Someone recently mentioned this here, but it's time for Feldman to appear on SACD, although the exhaustive Feldman programme of Mode Records can't of course be matched. And it should be said their recordings are top notch.

Post by Chris from Lafayette December 19, 2014 (6 of 14)
fausto K said:

Rules: your favourite *classical* recordings of 2014 in SACD or BluRay, either new or remastered, but released in 2014 (hence, no older discs you purchased this year)


. . .

Great idea, fausto! I'm going to wait a few more days before submitting my list, since a few items seem to be sneaking under the wire for me at the last minute! A few of us have done this kind of "BEST EOY" list over on the Audio Asylum site for the last couple of years, and I think it's great if we have it here too.

Post by steviev December 19, 2014 (7 of 14)
fausto K said:

Rules: your favourite *classical* recordings of 2014 in SACD or BluRay, either new or remastered, but released in 2014 (hence, no older discs you purchased this year)

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos 1 & 2 - Matsuev, Gergiev

Favorite all-around disc for 2014, for performance, repertory, and sound.

Langgaard: String Quartets Vol. 3 - Nightingale String Quartet

A great series, capped by the most attractive and appealing works Langgaard wrote for string quartet.

Aho: Symphony No. 15, Minea, Concerto for Double Bass & Orchestra - Slobodeniouk, Vänskä, Kuusisto

Best single-disc introduction to Kalevi Aho's music, with typically excellent BIS production values.

Richard Wagner: The Operas - Janowski

Individual operas not initially released in 2014, but released as an integrale in 2014. A great value, in amazing, clear sound with ideal balance between orchestra and singers.

Post by krisjan December 19, 2014 (8 of 14)

Post by Polly Nomial December 20, 2014 (9 of 14)

Post by Joseph Ponessa December 22, 2014 (10 of 14)
There have been many fine classical reissues in all formats this year. Limiting myself just to new recordings, these are the standouts:

SACD: Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel -- It is good that this recording brings Humperdinck some of the attention he deserves, alongside the fine BDA and BDV re-releases of Königkinder.

CD and BDA: Nozze di figaro (Currentsis)
VINYL and CD: Cosi fan tutte (Currentsis) -- these aren't the neatest or prettiest Mozart recordings of all time but form part of a serious recording project, which is all too rare these days and deserves support.

BDV: Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (Bejun Mehta) -- the walkaway at the end makes the whole opera so real. This opera is more Orfeo than Euridice, since the wife is already deceased at the beginning of the opera and has very little to sing after her late entry on the stage. Many mezzos have been great in the part of Orfeo, but the countertenor Mehta is absolute perfection. No other recording rises to this level. (The fact that the venue was very cold during the filming somehow added to the dramatic tension.)

CD and DVD: Bach-Kantaten-Edition der Bach-Stiftung St.Gallen -- Lutz is recording one cantata per month in the same venue for twenty years in contrast with Gardiner's recording of all the cantatas in different places within a year -- but Gardiner is unexcelled, because his singers were all experienced Bach specialists, and the engineering team did an outstanding job

DVD: Vinci: Artaserse -- talk about luxury casting! -- five counter-tenors for a single opera production!

BDV: Bruckner: Mature Symphonies (Barenboim) -- Barenboim and this orchestra have worked together for decades, and this is not his first Bruckner cycle. Still, it is a matter for wonder how they managed to film all these symphonies in the course of a few days and still come in ahead of all the competition. This seems to be a late-earning dividend from the early years of working with Celibidache.

BDA: Bruckner: First Versions of 4/7/8 (Nagano) -- Makes the best possible case for the first drafts of the Bruckner symphonies in the one of the best audiophile formats available today. One would still rather listen to the mature versions of the mature symphonies (Barenboim).

BDA: Brahms: Symphonies (Chailly) -- The orchestra has not slacked off in the forty years since Masur made his multichannel recording of this cycle with them. Too bad Chailly's recordings are not multi-channel, but in every other way this cycle is one of the best.

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