Yes, these are not “traditional/conventional” performances, and will not be to everyone’s taste. Nevertheless, they bring out different qualities and illuminate detail which is often missed. I greatly admire Vanska’s cycle which I have as well. There are many different ways of interpreting these masterworks and hearing alternative versions helps our understanding. The use of original instruments helps clarify textures.
Gardiner beat it:
Movement 2: Funeral March: Adagio Assai 12:41
I don’t have his 3rd but I actually like his 9th where this has got to be the shortest 9th.
The whole set is less than an hour!
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To add some others to the unofficial speed contest for the 2nd movement of the Eroica:
Klemperer 16:54 (for comparison purposes)
Paavo Järvi 13:18
Williem de Vriend 12:49
Norrington (with Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart) 12:18
Here’s the latest disc from the excellent John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London. Even as a Ravel fan, I’ve always struggled a bit with La Valse but here, suddenly, it makes complete sense and the dramatic coda/collapse at the end is overwhelming. The remaining pieces are very well performed too and the disc includes the ballet version of Bolero with antiphonal side drums – fascinating.
One word of warning. The recording is terrific but it does have a very wide dynamic range. However, as a lot of it is very quiet, the volume needs to be turned up to hear just how good the pianissimo playing is and then the climaxes are pretty loud. Well worth it though.
Roger
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I can’t say I have ever spent time listening to recordings of solo viola da gamba music before, but maybe I should! This is magical. Especially the Abel WK 205 (which could have been written by Glass) and the transcription of the Bach G major cello suite.
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With the completion of Angela Hewitt’s 15-year Beethoven project, it’s a good time to revisit the first volume. She’s a much better Beethoven interpreter than she’s sometimes credited for, I think, and certainly got off to a good start.
Cheers
EJ
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I really enjoyed this one:
Digital Concert Hall – Philippe Jordan conducts Strauss’s “Alpine Symphony”
Not so much the Alpine Symphony, but more the Excerpts from Das Rheingold.
A few years ago I could not digest Wagners Idiom, but it has come to me.
I, too, came rather late to Wagner and still take the music in small doses—rather preferring some of the orchestral work to entire operas. In that context, there is another rather fine Philippe Jordan “album” (do we have to call it that?) of Wagner’s music:
Stephen
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I still can’t. There are two musical geniuses I still don’t “get”. Wagner and John Coltrane 
Maybe in good time I will…
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I got fed up waiting for Presto to make this new Die Schöne Müllerin with Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton available as a download so I bought it direct from Signum. It’s magical.
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I think the Bryden Thomson set of the Bax symphonies is pretty good. I recall chatting with him after an Ulster Orchestra concert when I was in Belfast as a mature student.
The Naxos cycle is also pretty decent. I forget the conductor: it might be David Lloyd Jones.
I don’t know the Handley cycle (saw him conduct in Belfast too), but I have it Qobuz so shall explore.
But my introduction to the Bax symphonies came via the excellent Lyrita recordings, conducted by Myer Fredman, Raymond Leppard, etc: superlative. Pity they didn’t include the third and fourth.
Managed to catch the second symphony at the Proms a few years back.
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This is a stunning album in every way, superbly recorded and magnificently rendered by artists at the top of their game.
Lucy Ballard is ethereal in Vivaldi’s Gloria. Try Domine Deus, Rex coelestis. Soaringly beautiful.
In Handels Dixit Dominus, Rory O’Conner displays superb singing with great brio and attack from the orchestra and choir.
My favourite classical album.
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Cheers
EJ
Dona Nobis Pacem. A neglected masterpiece which deserves to be far better known and maybe it will be in this 150th anniversary year of RVW’s birth.
And so appropriate for our current times.
Written in the run up to the Second World War and in the light of his First World War experiences and losses, it is a very moving work. The central “Dirge for Two Veterans” section can be shattering.
The 1973 Boult recording is also recommended.
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That’s the version I have and very good it is too.
The BBC did Dona Nobis Pacem in one of their Record Review programmes a few years ago and chose the Matthew Best performance on Hyperion as their top modern recommendation. I’ve not heard it and it’s not available for streaming, but Best’s disc of choral Vaughan Williams, including Serenade to Music is one of my most treasured discs, so his Dona Nobis could be worth tracking down.
The composer himself recorded it and I’d definitely like to hear that some time.
Rgoer
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