Our top CDs
There are literally tens of thousands of classical recordings available, so many that it can be fairly daunting to choose. Here are some of our absolute top favourites, which we'd warmly recommend to you.
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Chopin - Piano Works (including the Waltzes) Dinu Lipatti |
This is piano music at its most magical: delicate, strong, alive, evocative of a hundred moods. Dinu Lipatti played the waltzes like no-one else before or since, transforming them from elegant miniatures into an emotional journey. It's the top album of any classical list that I can make. It's an old recording, but the quality is more than adequate for the performance to shine through. |
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Bruch Violin Concerto Jascha Heifetz (violin), Malcolm Sargent (conductor) |
One of the world's most popular classical music pieces (I've seen it at number one in some places). The music is extremely accessible: full of melodies, easy harmony, and structurally very straightforward - but it has that ability to carry your spirit to a different place. Heifetz combines the elegance of the masterful technician with the verve and attack of the Jewish or gypsy fiddler: it's an extraordinary performance. |
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Shostakovich Symphonies Nos 5 & 9 conducted by Bernard Haitink |
Symphony No.5 is the perfect introduction to twentieth century symphonic music: the work is demanding on the listener, but hugely rewarding: there is a richness of material that carries you through at speed. Haitink's sense of pace and dynamics are extraordinary, particularly through the whirlwind waltz in the second movement. This is not music for the faint-hearted: the work is complex both in structure and in harmonic construction, and it's by no means a cheerful piece: rather, it plays on the sense of darkness and the intensity of feelings. One caveat: the recording of the 9th symphony wouldn't be one of our top choices. |
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Elgar Cello Concerto Jacqueline Du Pré (cello), Sir John Barbirolli (conductor) |
The Elgar Cello Concerto is one of the best loved pieces in the English repertoire, and this recording made by Jacqueline Du Pré when she was just 20 is by far the most exciting. Du Pré's strength and youthful emotion shine through her play,gripping and holding your attention from the mournful beginning of the concerto through a rollercoaster of emotions that run through the piece. |
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Dvorák complete symphonies Neeme Järvi (conductor), Royal Scottish National Orchestra. |
The CD version is the most expensive recommendation on our list - because we couldn't find Järvi's recordings of these symphonies individually. The New World Symphony, No.9, suffers from the problem of the apocryphal critic who didn't like Shakespeare because it was "too full of quotations": every movement has several very famous themes. In Järvi's hands, even after many listenings, every one sounds fresh and exciting, as if you're hearing it for the first time. Our other favourite is No.8, where the scherzo is particularly entrancing, waltzing you away to a fairytale world. A treat. |
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Dvorák Cello Concerto (and many other works) Mstislav Rostropovich |
In 1968, as Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, Rostropovich was scheduled to play the Dvorák cello concerto. He couldn't refuse to play, and in front of an audience prepared to boo and jeer a Russian performer playing one of the pieces of music most strongly associated with Czech nationalism, he gave the performance of his life, with tears rolling down his eyes. It's one of the most emotive recordings of anything anywhere, and is included on this recently re-issued retrospective with a collection of other goodies. |
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Beethoven Pathétique and Moonlight Sonatas Emil Gilels |
I played the start of the Pathétique recently to a well-respected concert pianist and maker of hi-fi equipment. I was only intending to play a few bars, but we couldn't stop listening, and our meeting was suspended while he listened, rapt. Gilels is in complete technical control of the piece, which enables him to give a performance full of variety and vivacity without ever sounding strained: a performance to satisfy the purists and the romantics alike. And this is one of the best technical recordings I've ever heard: if you listen on good equipment, you can hear the soft muffling of the felt as Gilels releases the pedals, and every detail of the reverberation at the end of the crashed chords. |
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Mahler Symphony No.3 conducted by Benjamin Zander |
This an exceptional performance of Mahler 3, although it's got a lot of stiff recent competition from Rattle, Ghergiev et. al. However, this recording has one particular winner going for it: the additional CD in which Zander discusses the work. Mahler symphonies aren't the easiest music to get to grips with - anything with a 34 minute first movement has got to be pretty challenging - and Zander's lucid explanations are fascinating and easy to grasp, even for those without a heavy musical education. It's a great way of getting to understand this very subtle and complex composer, and when you've got there, the rewards are rich. | |
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Mozart Requiem conducted by Peter Schreier |
There's little that hasn't been said about this piece (I loved the movie Amadeus  as an easy introduction, even though it's probably historically all over the place). To my mind, it's the most moving of all religious music: calming, uplifting and consoling to the soul. If you're ever in Budapest, go and see it live and in its proper context at one of the many churches where it is often played, free, as part of a memorial service. Schreier doesn't put a foot wrong, and the CD is available at a bargain mid-price.
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Verdi Rigoletto Joan Sutherland, Cornell MacNeil, Renato Cioni, conducted by Nino Sanzogno |
We had to include at least one opera recording in this list, and this one is very special. The opera's suitably improbable melodramatic plot is lit up by an endless stream of memorable melodies, including the famous "La Donna è Mobile". This recording features two exceptional performances. Gilda is sung by a young Joan Sutherland, who was already sufficiently accomplished to dazzle the listener with the high notes and trills on "Caro Nome" while sounding credibly young and innocent (which simply doesn't happen on her more critically acclaimed later recording with Pavarotti). MacNeil is an extraordinary Rigoletto, alternately mocking, swaggering, violent and desperate: his ending to the first act as he discovers Gilda's kidnapping, and the scene where he tries to find her in the palace amongst the throng of courtiers must be two of the dramatic moments in any opera. The other performers (Cioni as the rakish Duke and Siepi as the evil Sparafucile) don't disappoint either, and Sanzogno conducts the Accademia della Santa Cecilia with wonderful Italian verve. |
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