Here’s a book for music-lovers
who would like to expand their experience
of music through CDs. It is especially
valuable if they are comparatively new
to classical music.
There’s the hint of
a lofty promise in the title. Is this
really some short-cut to the nirvana
of the perfect collection? The press
release that came with it rams the point
home by saying that it will ensure readers
do not ‘waste money on less accomplished
performances’. This is a tough assignment
where fortune favours only the bold.
There’s no accounting for taste so be
aware that you are not onto a sure-fire
route to the very best. You may yet
find yourself apathetic or antipathetic
to these recommendations. By all means
make a start with this book. Keep your
own counsel and be ready to disagree
if you find yourself unmoved by some
or all of these recommendations. You
are not necessarily at fault for not
liking the recommended performances.
Look again at the title:
1001 Classical Recordings You Must
Hear Before You Die. There’s no
promise that you are going to like them
but that they are important enough for
you to seek out and hear. In that sense
the list is akin to an answer to the
question about which CDs you would try
to rescue if your house was on fire
(after saving your family and others
first!) or which CDs you would take
to a desert island. It’s just that here
the choice is of 1001 recordings rather
than the handful you would be able to
save from the flames or carry with you
to the island.
On the other hand you
could do much worse than start here
on your journey of discovery. Refreshingly
the large team of distinguished writers
includes a large contingent not associated
with Gramophone or the Penguin Guide.
There are 35 names in all and they include
Jan Smaczny, Peter Quantrill, Erik Levi,
Tully Potter, David Nice, Stephen Pettit,
Anthony Burton, Colin Anderson, Jessica
Duchen, Max Loppert, Stephen Johnson
and Malcolm MacDonald. The writer is
identified by initials at the end of
each review.
This weighty slab of
a book is extremely well presented.
Its format is to present recordings
grouped chronologically into the eras
in which the music was written. It starts
with the Harmonia Mundi disc of the
original Carmina Burana and ends
with Julian Anderson’s Book of Hours
on NMC. Entries vary between two
pages with one full page occupied by
the review, the label and catalogue
details, a pull-quote about the performer
or the music and a panel of other Recommended
Recordings. The other facing page
is a photo of the performer or composer
concerned. That’s the major display
format. These are interspersed with
pages on which there are two reviews
side by side.
You soon notice that
money must have been lavished on licensing
a fresh set of photographs of artists
and composers. For the most part the
tired old suspects are discarded and
new illustrations used. There’s a glorious
new (to me) photograph of Puccini, his
face lit mysteriously as his hands cup
a cigarette. Also I do not recall seeing
that particular Bax studio photo before.
There are plenty of examples and the
pictures are one of the joys of this
book.
Just to emphasise that
this book does not set out to provide
a mass of reviews and make recommendations
in passing. In that sense it is not
like the annual Gramophone or Penguin
guides. It is what it says: a very personal
listing of 1001 Classical Recordings
You Must Hear Before You Die.
As for the choices
made there is no end to the scope for
argument but it is as good a list as
any. I agree emphatically with much
of it but disagree in others. Irritations
speak of my own musical prejudices so
here are a few: There’s way too much
Britten here – entry after entry distributed
through the last section of the book.
Maybe five items but this many?
Karajan gets a lot of space too,
especially in areas where I feel his
versions, though good enough, are not
a patch on others. His good Sibelius
is included but there are better and
more inspirational and humanely imaginative
versions that should have been preferred.
I was disappointed
that certain recordings never made it
into this list. Horst Stein’s vivid
Sibelius En Saga on Decca is
to be preferred to most versions and
certainly to Karajan’s. No space was
found for Moeran’s G minor symphony
conducted by Boult and reissued this
year on Lyrita. It would have been a
quirky choice for the top 1000 but it
would have been my choice. For The Firebird
the Rattle/CBSO version is preferred
over so many others including the Dorati/LSO
on Mercury – now the Dorati is
a recording to hear before you die.
While Mravinsky’s stereo Tchaikovsky
4-5-6 are included – and rightly so
– his incandescent Sibelius Seventh
is not. Oistrakh’s Sibelius Violin Concerto
with Rozhdestvensky is there but only
because it is ‘on the flip-side’ of
Oistrakh’s Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
Bax’s Third Symphony is the for me somewhat
tired first choice among Bax’s seven
– and then in the Handley version as
part of his Chandos box of the Seven
Symphonies. It is for me amongst the
last of the Bax symphonies I would recommend
to the adventurous listener. Rather
start with a work studiously neglected
here. For that go to Norman Del Mar’s
Bax Sixth on Lyrita. Unaccountably no
space is found for Nystroem’s Sinfonia
Del Mare (Stig Westerberg on Swedish
Society Discofil). I could go on but
the fact is that we could all come up
with our own lists and leagues. The
value of such books is that they inform
and provoke … and if they stimulate
listeners to explore then all to the
good. This book fits the bill.
This book is part of
a Cassell series which also includes:
1001 Albums, 1001 Natural Wonders, 1001
Golf Holes, 1001 Movies.
An idiosyncratic book
that deserves to do well at Christmas
and in the new year.
Rob Barnett
General Editor Matthew Rye
