About four years ago in these pages, several of us Tribune writers put together what we hoped would be a useful, interesting and reader-friendly project. We compiled two lists of recordings-25 basic albums for those beginning a classical collection and another 25 representing our favorite classical releases.
So many readers have since requested reprints of those articles that we thought it would be fun to compile another such list, this one containing 25 recommended recordings of music from the 20th Century.
The idea was to cite recordings that provide immediate access to significant modern composers, American and European, through a representative variety of musical styles and genres. Accessibility was the key word: We didn`t want to recommend music so jarring or arcane as to turn off many listeners.
Our guiding criteria were musical importance and quality of performance. Each of the selected recordings speaks to us in some deeply personal way; we would like to think other listeners will be similarly affected.
My colleague, Alan G. Artner, and I limited ourselves to compact-disc recordings that are available through domestic distribution or as imports;
recordings available only on cassette or LP are so noted. Despite our best efforts to avoid listing deleted recordings, a few may have escaped our scrutiny. Alert readers will notice a duplication or two. (We did compile our lists without consulting each other; trust us on this.) As before, we make no claims to omniscience or all-inclusiveness.
Although I was sorely tempted to include such modern neo-Romantics as Mahler, Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and Walton, I left them off my list partly because their idioms tend to reflect, in my view, the musical manners of the late 19th Century. Besides, with only 25 slots to fill, I had to be ruthless.
If you enjoy these articles, we welcome suggestions for future guides.
1. Bela Bartok: String Quartets (1908-39). Emerson String Quartet. DG 423 657-2 (2 CDs). The first half of the century produced no more impressive or influential body of chamber works than these six masterpieces.
2. Alban Berg: Wozzeck (1921)/Arnold Schoenberg: Erwartung (1909). Soloists, Christoph von Dohnanyi/Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna State Opera Chorus. London 417 348-2 (2 CDs). One of the greatest 20th Century operas is harnessed to an Expressionist monodrama by the composer`s teacher and mentor; achingly beautiful performances.
3. Luciano Berio: Sinfonia (1969)/Eindrucke (1974). Pierre Boulez/New Swingle Singers, Orchestre National de France. Erato ECD-88151. One of the most consistently impressive of European modernists turns the symphony-as-idea (and Western orchestral music in general) on its head in an absorbing near-masterpiece that is at once static and densely allusive.
4. Benjamin Britten: Serenade (1943)/Nocturne (1958)/Les Illuminations
(1939). Soloists, Benjamin Britten/London Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra. London 417 153-2. Definitive readings of three major song cycles by the ideal interpreter of Britten`s music, tenor Peter Pears.
5. John Cage: Works for voice and prepared piano (1943-52). Joshua Pierce, piano; assisting artists. Wergo CD-60151-50. Cage`s pioneering forays into the random, nonstructured properties of sound are perhaps best appreciated through these brief, delicate, often remarkably charming early pieces.
6. Elliott Carter: String Quartets 1 (1951) and 4 (1986). Arditti Quartet. Etcetera KTC 1065. Astonishing, syntactically gnarled, fiercely compelling works from the master quartet builder of our time.
7. Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3 (1946). Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic. DG 419 170-2. The Great American Symphony? Here it is, in a suitably grandiloquent reading from the composer`s most loving interpreter.
8. Henry Cowell: Pulse for percussion sextet (1939)/other works for percussion and strings by John Cage, Lou Harrison and Ruth Crawford Seeger. New Music Consort. New World NW 319 (LP only). The reemergence of the pioneer spirit in the musical descendants of Charles Ives can be traced via this terrific anthology.
9. Jacob Druckman: Prism (1980)/George Rochberg: Oboe Concerto (1984). Joseph Robinson, oboe; Zubin Mehta/New York Philharmonic. New World NW-335-2. Two striking examples of where the New American Eclecticism of the `80s has taken us: One score looks backward, the other inward.
10. Morton Feldman: The Viola in My Life (1970)/False Relationships and the Extended Ending (1968). Various instrumentalists. CRI SD 276 (LP only). Two important chamber works from one of the leading lights of the postwar American avant-garde (1926-87), an abstract expressionist who seldom raises his voice above a whisper, even at his most emotionally intense.
11. Philip Glass: Akhnaten (1984). Soloists, Dennis Russell Davies/
Stuttgart State Opera Orchestra and Chorus. CBS M2K 42457 (2 CDs). This third of Glass` ritualistic operas loosely based on the lives of great historical icons may be his finest contribution to the lyric theater thus far. It loses little in translation to the opera house of one`s mind.
12. Roy Harris: Symphony No. 3 (1938). William Schuman: Symphony No. 3
(1941). Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic. DG 419 780-2. No collection of 20th Century American music should be without these archetypal symphonies; strong, stirring performances.
13. Paul Hindemith: Symphony, Mathis der Maler (1934)/Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943)/The Four Temperaments for Piano and Strings (1940). Paul Hindemith/Berlin Philharmonic. DG 427 407-2. For an academic fuddy-duddy who`s supposed to be hopelessly passe, Hindemith has demonstrated remarkable staying power. These sturdy, composer-conducted readings show why.
14. Charles Ives: Holidays Symphony (1897-1913)/The Unanswered Question
(1906)/Central Park in the Dark (1906). Michael Tilson Thomas/Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. CBS MK 42381. Orchestra, conductor and recording engineers do full justice to Ives` dense, evocative soundscapes of Americana.
15. Leos Janacek: Slavonic Mass (1927). Soloists, Karel Ancerl/Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. Fidelio CD-1855. No later recording conveys quite the raw power of Janacek`s choral masterpiece than Ancerl`s from the late 1950s.
16. Gyorgy Ligeti: Chamber Concerto (1969-70)/Ramifications (1969)/String Quartet No. 2 (1968)/Aventures (1962)/Lux Aeterna (1966). Pierre Boulez/
Ensemble InterContemporain; La Salle Quartet; other performers. DG 423 244-2. Micropolyphony, static sound blocks, frozen Expressionism-they are all here in this innovative Hungarian avant-gardist`s sound structures.
17. Olivier Messiaen: Turangalila-Symphonie (1948)/Witold Lutoslawski:
Symphony No. 3 (1983). Assisting artists; Esa-Pekka Salonen/Philharmonia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. CBS M2K 42271 (2 CDs). Two very different, but communicative, masterpieces from respected musical elder statesmen working at opposite corners of the European mainstream.
18. Krzysztof Penderecki: Cello Concerto No. 2 (1982). Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; Krzysztof Penderecki/Philharmonia Orchestra and Southwest German Radio Orchestra. Erato ECD 75321. A compelling example of Penderecki`s late neo-Romantic manner, played with properly manic intensity by its dedicatee.
19. Walter Piston: Symphonies No. 5 (1954), No. 7 (1960) and No. 8
(1965). Jorge Mester and Robert Whitney/Louisville Orchestra. Albany AR011. Why the musical power brokers continue to ignore this major American neoclassicist is a mystery to me, but Albany`s reissue of three lean, concise, Gallic-influenced symphonies at least shows that somebody out there cares.
20. Prokofiev: Sonata No. 8 (1944) and three Visions Fugitives (1915-17)/ Scriabin: Sonata No. 5 (1907)/Debussy three Preludes, Book 1 (1910). Sviatoslav Richter, piano. DG 423 573-2. Fiery, poetic performances of basic 20th Century piano repertoire by one of the century`s master pianists.
21. Giacinto Scelsi: Aion (1961)/Pfhat (1974)/Konx-Om-Pax (1969). Jurg Wyttenbach/Orchestra and Chorus of Polish Radio-Television, Cracow. Accord 200402. A reclusive Italian composer who died last summer in relative obscurity, Scelsi is perhaps best approached through his large-scale works. The three recorded here combine hermetic mysticism with a kind of intellectual minimalism, to extraordinary effect.
22. Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 (1953). Herbert von Karajan/
Berlin Philharmonic. DG 413 361-2. Karajan brings a finely modulated eloquence to this brooding, troubled and powerful masterpiece.
23. Igor Stravinsky: Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fee (1928)/Three dances from Petrouchka (1911)/Pulcinella suite (1920)/Le Sacre du Printemps
(1913)/Sergei Prokofiev: Love for Three Oranges suite (1925)/Pas d`Acier
(1924)/Scythian Suite (1914). Igor Markevitch/Philharmo nia, other orchestras. EMI Angel CZS 7 62647 2 (2 CDs). Markevitch knew Stravinsky`s and Prokofiev`s theater music intimately through his association with the impresario Serge Diaghilev; thus, these performances (recorded 1954-59) exert a strong claim as to stylistic and musical authority.
24. Kurt Weill: American and Berlin theater songs. Ute Lemper, soprano;
John Mauceri/Berlin Radio Ensemble. London 425 204-2. Fourteen gems of the lyric art-wistful, bitter, dipped in wry-sung in the original orchestrations by a marvelous singing actress who, at 26, already surpasses Lotte Lenya as a Weill interpreter.
25. ”Winter Was Hard” (works by Aulis Sallinen, Terry Riley, Arvo Part, Anton Webern, Alfred Schnittke and others). Kronos String Quartet. Elektra/
Nonesuch 9 79181-2. Why is the string quartet the hot medium for contemporary composers? The Kronos Quartet is one sensational reason why, and this irresistible collection represents their musical credo.
