#LYICMGat50 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #39 we get to the first disc that might upset traditionalists. I listen to lots of historic classics, but believe they can be superseded. I am not claiming this is the greatest Eroica, but it is my favourite now.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · 2d ago

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #40 we have Neeme Järvi’s glorious set of Rimsky-Korsakov opera suites. A huge, colourful treat.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #40 we have Neeme Järvi’s glorious set of Rimsky-Korsakov opera suites. A huge, colourful treat.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · 3d ago

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #41 we have one of my favourite opera recordings of all time. Mackerras’s Decca Jenůfa is desperately moving and emotionally devastating.

Coming soon. On 21 August in the UK, to be precise. Haitink has his detractors, but I am not one of them. The next question is whether or not Warner will do the honours with a box. And then Profil, for his excellent Dresden live relays.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #41 we have one of my favourite opera recordings of all time. Mackerras’s Decca Jenůfa is desperately moving and emotionally devastating.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · 4d ago

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #42 we have Soile Isokoski and Strauss songs. It was tough not to choose Norman, but I find this extraordinary disc almost unbearably moving from start to finish.

#NowSpinning Dorati’s Minneapolis Stravinsky Rite of Spring. Yes it’s mono, but the sound is surprisingly transparent and well-balanced. The playing of Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra is razor sharp here. And what a cover!

#NowSpinning Copland’s Third Symphony with Doráti in Minneapolis. This box is replete with a sense of discovery, with the orchestra giving it everything at every stage. This particular performance opens with wide-eyed wonder and a remarkable sense of freshness.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday. At #42 we have Soile Isokoski and Strauss songs. It was tough not to choose Norman, but I find this extraordinary disc almost unbearably moving from start to finish.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · 5d ago

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, at #43 we hear our first Mahler. Abbado’s Chicago Seventh still strikes me as incredibly cogent, otherworldly and enchanting. It’s a very special example of Abbado’s finely nuanced art.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, at #43 we hear our first Mahler. Abbado’s Chicago Seventh still strikes me as incredibly cogent, otherworldly and enchanting. It’s a very special example of Abbado’s finely nuanced art.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · 6d ago

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, for #44 is Haydn, from Szell. His 93 and 94 are heartwarming. And 93 has the biggest musical fart anyone could possibly wish for.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, for #44 is Haydn, from Szell. His 93 and 94 are heartwarming. And 93 has the biggest musical fart anyone could possibly wish for.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · 6d ago

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, for #45 weeks turn to Bryson Thomson’s stupendous account of Bax’s Second Symphony. This is a windswept and dramatic account of a stormy, primal work.

#NowSpinning Debussy and Dukas with Ormandy in Philadelphia. These two performances are from 1947 and show just how good the engineers were by then. And the Debussy has enormous fluidity and warmth.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, for #45 weeks turn to Bryson Thomson’s stupendous account of Bax’s Second Symphony. This is a windswept and dramatic account of a stormy, primal work.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · last wk.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #46 is Sir Colin Davis’s second recording of Sibelius’s glorious Kullervo. If you can ignore the dry recording - your ear will adjust! - this is a performance of dramatic and emotional intensity.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #46 is Sir Colin Davis’s second recording of Sibelius’s glorious Kullervo. If you can ignore the dry recording - your ear will adjust! - this is a performance of dramatic and emotional intensity.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · last wk.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #47 Moeran’s Symphony in G minor, with Vernon Handley and the Ulster Orchestra. I also love the Boult, but this is a touch tighter and more exciting. And it’s stunningly recorded.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #47 Moeran’s Symphony in G minor, with Vernon Handley and the Ulster Orchestra. I also love the Boult, but this is a touch tighter and more exciting. And it’s stunningly recorded.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · last wk.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #48 is a real corker and almost made it to the top 5. Martha Argerich’s astounding debut for Deutsche Grammophon, with the Liszt B Minor added for good measure! Outrageous technique!

#NowSpinning Rimsky-Korsakov’s multi-coloured Piano Concerto. A very fine instalment in the fabulous Hyperion box and on of the few I actually bought at the time of release. The work is fabulously orchestrated, unsurprisingly, but I think it also gains from the compact brevity!

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #48 is a real corker and almost made it to the top 5. Martha Argerich’s astounding debut for Deutsche Grammophon, with the Liszt B Minor added for good measure! Outrageous technique!

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · last wk.

The music is largely English Pastoral in tone, but there are great moments of rambunctious fun. The performance is spectacular, with glorious singing from Yvonne Kenny, Robert Tear and Stephen Roberts. And the actual sound recording is stupendous.

#LYICMGat50 Continuing the countdown of 50 recordings, ahead of my 50th birthday, #49 may shock some. But these recordings were all pivotal in the development of my musical taste. Hickox’s account of Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims was one such release from my university years.

Love Your Classical Music Geek@loveinner.bsky.social · last wk.

#LYICMGat50 In one month I will turn 50. Between now and 26 August I’s going to thoroughly indulge myself, playing 50 favourite recordings and, yes, posting about them mercilessly, with no shame and only the top 5 in order. #50: Jiří Bělohlávek’s magnificent Chandos Martinů 4.

#LYICMGat50 In one month I will turn 50. Between now and 26 August I’s going to thoroughly indulge myself, playing 50 favourite recordings and, yes, posting about them mercilessly, with no shame and only the top 5 in order. #50: Jiří Bělohlávek’s magnificent Chandos Martinů 4.

New acquisition. The Zubin Mehta ‘Philharmonic Edition’, which is naughty because it doesn’t include the Los Angeles Philharmonic recordings, which occupy a separate box. But Vienna, Berlin, Israel, London and New York are there. 57 discs in total.

#NowSpinning A fresh Dvořák Symphony No.8 with Libor Pešek in Liverpool. It’s wonderful to hear just how well this conductor and orchestra partnered up for Czech music. There’s a nice spring to this performance. It’s sunny and vital.

#NowSpinning music that doesn’t get anything like enough exposure. The two DaCapo discs of Holmboe’s Preludes for Sinfonietta presents them out of order. The first listed is No.10, ‘To the Unsettled Weather’. This is music with infectious zest and glorious transparency. Something very special.

#NowSpinning this sumptuous but oddly soft-centred and un-impactful version of the SS Organ Symphony. Recorded in 1980, it appears to have been the conductor’s only Telarc effort and one of his very few digital recordings. Even the piano barely registers in the finale. Strange!

#NowSpinning two suites from Ravel’s Daphnis at Chloé, with Ormandy conducting in 1949 and 1950. The care lavished on these mastering is astonishing. But even more impressive is the care lavished on these mastering performances themselves.

#NowSpinning Beethoven Symphony No.8 from Kubelík’s complete DG box. This is an interesting cycle, taking in many of the World’s finest orchestras! The different characters bring a lovely sense of variety in sonority, though the conducting itself is pretty consistent.

#NowSpinning Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole, with Ormandy in Philadelphia. More interesting artwork. I used to be allergic to mono sound, but there are so many treasures that sit out of reach of you don’t try. This is most definitely one of them!

#NowSpinning Virgil Thompson’s rather enjoyable Louisiana Story Suite. This is wonderfully evocative music, whilst not being particularly challenging at all. Just the kind of interesting repertoire choices Ormandy made so frequently.

#NowSpinning from the Ormandy Columbia Legacy mono box. An oddity, in that both the Stern Tchaikovsky and the Piatgorsky Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No.1 appear to be conducted by Anders Hilsberg. I assume it was included for the orchestra. No Ormandy in sight!

Absolutely effing fabulous effort Spain. We love you. Congratulations you absolute heroes.

#NowSpinning the wonderful absurdity that is Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre. This is next up in the big Salonen box and what a Sunday treat it is. How many works begin with an entire prelude for…car horns? Well, we have at least one!

#NowSpinning Madetoja’s wonderfully dark, strange and slightly edgy Okon Fuoko. Just the Suite today, but I would recommend the whole work, under Volmer on Alba.

#NowSpinning Eduard Tubin’s fabulously heroic Symphony No.3. Another work that should be far more popular than it is. It’s highly characteristic of Tubin’s music, which is generally distinctive and highly involving.