need good sounding classical

[daviethek]

Any recommendations on extremely well recorded Brahms 1 or a good box set of all 5 LVB Piano Concertos? Both of mine are lost. thanks dk

[Pat D]

Any recommendations on extremely well recorded Brahms 1 or a good box set of all 5 LVB Piano Concertos? Both of mine are lost. thanks dk
The best recording of the Brahms First I know of is with Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, now reissued on Sony SMK 64 470. The couplings are a very nice Haydn Variations and that old warhorse, the Academic Festival Overture. The sound is quite good, but whether it will meet your standards, I can't say.

The recording with Jascha Horenstein and The London Symphony Orchestra is another good one, though I find it somewhat idiosyncratic, now reissued on Chesky CD19. This is one of those recordings produced by Charles Gerhardt with recording engineer Kenneth G. Wilkinson, and the sound is excellent.

I always liked the set of the 5 Beethoven Piano Concertos with Vladimir Ashkenazy with Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It has been reissued on Decca (IMS) 443 891-2. I have the LP version which has excellent sound but I haven't heard the CD version, which the Penguin Guide says can get a little fierce. Others like Fleischer/Szell, Perahia/Haitink, Brendel/several versions, and Backhuas/Schmidt-Isserstedt.

[daviethek]

Thanks Pat. I presume the Ashkenazy/Solti set was from the late 70's and probably sounds incredible on vinyl. I will look them up on CD and take my chances. It is my observation that classical is where the music was compromised the most in the LP/CD conversion. I can remember burning my classical albums to CD using sound forge, sitting back enjoying the lush dynamics of the records (even though they were scartched) when I was reducing them to wave files. I hardly play the CD converted albums now because they don't even approach vinyl dynamics. I'm pretty much stuck in the CD medium because of all the damn discs I have accumulated. I rant.

thanks again dk