Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Although in education and often dealing with students and staff, I am also frequently at my desk. I have a personal laptop with iTunes sitting there and just rip discs when I can, whilst working. 130
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Very nice! It’s an excellent performance. 010
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 07/10/20261. Ashkenazy Concertgebouw, Svetlanov last one, Noseda, Kocsis, Slatkin Naxos, Pletnev 2. Rozhdestvensky, Previn LSO, Pletnev, Zinman, Temirkanov RPO 3. Ashkenazy Concertgebouw, Jansons, Litton RPO 110
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 07/10/2026#NowSpinning some very fresh and characterful Ravel from Robert Trevino and his Basque players. This is music making to really open the ears and the mind. The Orchestra is very refined, yet somehow edgy at the same time. 3240
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Well, this is a good deal better than the Symphonies. The Philadelphia strings are very much the sumptuous, romantically-sweeping bunch they normally are. These soprano is rather fluttery, but there’s a lot to love here. 040
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Oh yes. Fabulous. But there are a few good ones. Järvi is excellent, Kondrashin, Rozhdestvensky on BBC, Slatkin, Pletnev…. 020
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 05/10/2026#NowSpinning the high spot in an otherwise pretty disappointing Rachmaninoff series. Dutoit’s recordings of the three Symphonies were generally dull and half-hearted. But he finds autumnal warmth and dramatic sweep in The Bells. The strings are incredible in first minutes of the second movement. 5181
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Good to know this box is coming later on in November! It’s really the only corner of his discography left to cover. Some of the Concertgebouw recordings in here are exceptional, including the Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker. Can’t wait. 0151
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 04/10/2026#NowSpinning Mozart Piano Concerto No.25 with Alicia de Larrocha and Colin Davis. I’ve really enjoyed these discs so far - 9, 20 and 21 already done - and can only lament that it didn’t turn into a full set with this particular partnership. All of these musicians are fabulous Mozartians. 2240
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Hell yes. But I have his complete RCA recordings and will listen to them all. 010
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026…Karajan had unilaterally appointed Sabine Meyer as principal clarinet and this was to lead to an uprising within the orchestra during the remainder of 1982. Yet the Karajan Berlin partnership still had great discs to come, even if he increasingly moved to Vienna to record. 070
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026#NowSpinning a true classic. There are clearly other great Mahler 9s, but this one remains an extraordinary testament to the relationship between conductor and orchestra. As it happens, the live performance took place 44 years ago today. Of course, earlier in the month… 2234
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Yes loads! I’ve only heard one Toscanini recording!!! 130
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I’m afraid I don’t yet know the Toscanini, but I do generally like Klemperer’s dark, scowling way with Beethoven. 130
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026#NowSpinning Karajan’s digital DG Beethoven Fifth. I am much more familiar with the earlier versions Karajan made in Berlin and London, so it’s good to hear this again. 2212
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026It’s annoying it has taken me so long to actually listen to this recording. With superb sound and crisply assured orchestral playing Jurowski is able to set the score out with terrific detail, poise, and energy. A cracker for sure. 090
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026#NowSpinning Jurowski’s Firebird from this live disc of Stravinsky. We were so fortunate to have this marvellous conductor in London and discs like this remind me why. The crisp clarity of articulation is a wonder unto itself, but Jurowski brings an inner life to the music and really makes it dance. 1221
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026More controversial is something like Dave Hurwitz’s YouTube channel. Many people are totally allergic to his style, but his wealth of knowledge and experience is very deep. I would actually recommend it, but take some of his more provocative comments with a large pinch of salt! 020
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026As @afteroctavian.bsky.social says below, there is no ‘best’ though there are sometimes key reference recordings with some kind of consensus that they belong in a select group. Guides are unreliable, but can still be source. The Penguin Guide was notoriously unreliable, but has useful stuff in it. 121
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 29/09/2026That’s a marvellous version for sure. 020
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I don’t think this Karajan represents the music as it can be. Petri Sakari is infinitely more emotionally engaging. 010
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 29/09/2026#NowSpinning Sibelius’s Suite from the music he wrote for Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Wonderful music, for sure, but I’m not sure this is Karajan’s Sibelius at its best. Immediate comparisons with Petri Sakari on Chandos reveal how much more inner life the music can have. 2211
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 27/09/2026#NowSpinning a rather lovely disc and of Ravel. The Introduction and Allegro is especially gorgeous. Not quite as misty as the wonderful Decca version with Ellis/Melos, but a cracking recording its own right. 4210
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 25/09/2026#NowSpinning Berlioz Symohonie Fantastique with Ormandy in Philadelphia. Well the cover certainly makes reference to the drug-induced content of the work. Let’s see if Ormandy found the trippier corners of the score. 0101
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 25/09/2026#NowSpinning the two Grieg Peer Gynt Suites, in Karajan’s last-of-many recordings in Berlin. One of those moments where all his previous versions seem better. It’s amazing how easy it is to undermine the drama of the Mountain King by playing it too fast from the start! 0192
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 22/09/2026If that one is mono, then likely yes. 201
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 22/09/2026#NowSpinning Rachmaninoff Symphony No.2. It’s cut - composer-sanctioned excisions - but it’s totally luscious. Some of the phrasing is quite indulgent, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it! 1180
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 22/09/2026I’ll look back through and let you know which I like. Need to remind myself. 010
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 20/09/2026I think he cared less about himself than he did his music. 110
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 20/09/2026“Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.” Remembering the great Jean Sibelius, who died 69 years ago on 20 September 1957. 2334
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Ooooh I love Britten’s Piano Concerto. 121
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026It’s a pretty work, for sure. But hardly profound! 110
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Well the main issue here is that it’s an English libretto that’s really totally different from the German when translated. The story is the same, as is the music, but no attempt has been made to make the words anything like similar! 010
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026#NowSpinning Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, with Ormandy and some very interesting soloists and the Metropolitan Opera Association. I hardly know this work so I’m following with the vocal score, which helpfully has English and German printed together. Clever! 3181
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026#NowSpinning Bruckner Symphony No.9, live in Hamburg, under Wand in 1993. I do wonder if this might be more dramatically contrasted than the Berlin Philharmonic version he made later. 1170
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026New acquisition. Bruno Walter Complete Warner Classics Remastered Edition, on 30 discs. I also really need to get going properly on his Columbia box. So many treasures await. 2230
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Hmmm. Lots of energy but strangely passionless. Phrasing is cold. 150
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 17/09/2026#NowSpinning Solti’s Chicago Tchaikovsky Fifth. I haven’t heard Solti conduct this composer’s music much at all, so it’s time for an open mind. The opening is slow and lugubrious, which I like. 2290
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 16/09/2026#NowSpinning Strauss’s Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, with Doráti in Minneapolis. Through the mono years box it was obvious that Doráti was shaping this orchestra into something very distinctive. As we emerge into the stereo era, the benefits of that development are clear! 1210
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I did with the first movement if this performance, though I did feel it warmed up. 110
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I suspect this will not end up being one of my favourites. 110
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026#NowSpinning Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the steely, hard-edged Krystian Zimerman and the voluptuous Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan. First impressions point to a lack of sentimentality in the solo part. 2140
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026#NowSpinning Sir Thomas Beecham with Sibelius Symphony No.7. It’s good to hear this conductor’s finely-spun magic again. He has a truly winning way with Sibelius. 1250
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 14/09/2026#NowSpinning Mussorgsky in Ravel’s clothing, with Zubin Mehta in New York. Recorded in November 1979, at this point Mehta had only been at the helm of this orchestra for a year or so, but band and baton seem to have been in lock step. 0180
Love Your Classical Music Geek @loveinner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026That’s a wonderful Brahms cycle. 000
