I would not invite my favorite composers like Bach and Haydn. They had obviously a rich inner life in terms of musical ideas, but were probably not much interesting otherwise (for entertainment purposes, that is). Handel, Mozart were more urban figures, but I doubt if any of us would understand their jokes. Everybody is child of his time and surroundings.
To cut it short, it would have to be Stravinsky! He was a brilliant fellow who had interesting opinions about everything and who had lived a very rich life, including being pupil of Rimsky Korsakov in pre-industrial Russia, then having lived in Paris and the US, having met all the contemporary famous people one could think of,  chatting w Lenny Bernstein and conducting his own works in stereo in his later years.

Since I have studied Russian and understand the language quite well (being a rather lousy speaker of it though ) I would like to hear him tell in his native tongue about his younger years, say.

The meal: 1. Russian borsch (soup) to bring him in the right mood.. 2 A Uzbek plof with all the right spices (it is a kind of pilaff) + a rather heavy red wine, and 3  Well tempered ice cream. (Why do all people I know serve ice cream too cold and hard?!)

 The music:

1.After the meal I would play Stravinsky’s “Symphony in 3 Parts”, conducted by Klemperer (on EMI), partly to his honour, partly to hear his opinion of Klemperer, partly for my enjoyment.

2. Bach The Well Tempered Clavier with Daniel Ben Pienaar. This is the pianist for people who do not feel comfortable with Glenn Gould , but still want a very personal and original way of playing Bach. Inspired interpretations, almost incredible..

3. Haydn: Any of  the 6 “Paris” symphonies conducted by Hugh Wolff on Teldec. The conductor does everything right!!!!!!!! (very rare). Good sound.. (some of these symphonies are on spotify btw).

4. Mozart. My favorite “Jupiter” symphony with Hermann Scherchen and a French orchestra from the 50s. The combination of  masculine rhythmic drive and Mozartean magic and beauty is perfect. Mono, but who cares. Posted on youtube, BTW, in reasonable sound.

5. Rimsky: Scheherazade. Scherchen/Olevsky/Vienna SOO. Not for the faint of heart. The travels of Sinbad become trips to the abysses of the soul (so to speak). A far cry from Beecham and Reiner etc (who are good in their own way with the colorful elegance they bring to it).
This was one of the many great Westminster stereo LP records. Unfortunately many CD issues do not give an idea of how great they could sound. The LP sounds glorious. It is very early stereo. Interestingly it can be downloaded as a high res file from a site i stumbled across recently: https://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/product.php?pid=8141

Many great sounding and legendary recordings are available from this site. I look forward to look closer and try it out sometimes ( even if I have LP versions of some of the stuff).

6. Another famous recording on the same site is Mahler’s  2.symphony with Scherchen and the same orchestra, it was always very sought-after in its LP stereo version. I will include it in my list.

(what? Yes, you guessed it, Hermann Scherchen is one of my favorite conductors, even if he can disappoint from time to time).

7. Bruckner. My favorite symphony, the 5th.  I have far from heard every performance on record, but my favorite so far is Kurt Eichhorn live from st Florian church 1990 on the Capriccio.label. Original version of the work. I would play the Scherzo for my guest Igor Fyodorovich. It is after all “dansante”  music w spicy harmoni cs, he would enjoy it! (even if you could not imagine a bigger temperamental contrast than between these two composers)..

8. The most stunning performance of any Beethoven sonata I have heard. Cziffra plays the Appassionata. It was unfortunately hidden away in a 40CD Cziffra box last time I looked.
Curiously, this was not the typical repertoire of the pianist, he was more famous for super-virtuos performances of Liszt and Chopin. But I get a feeling that this is the performance of his life. It has a somewhat austere mood, and there is clearly no brilliance for the sake of brilliance (as some would perhaps expect), but rather -as a friend of mine said when he heard it- “you can hear the tragedy of Beethoven here” ( the tragedy of a  composer gradually loosing his hearing).
When I first listened to it, at the beginning of the 1.st movement I wondered if it was possible to sustain such an incredible level of balance and subtlety throughout the 3 movements while keeping everything in proportions. No problem! Unfortunately only the 3. movement is available on youtube – a cruel amputation- but still worth listening to. Notice the leather strap. Wikipedia: “He always performed with a large leather wristband, to support the ligaments of his wrist which were stretched while being tortured in prison, and also as a memento of his years in labour” (he had tried to escape from Soviet dominated Hungary).
.



9. Gubaidulina, one of the greatest contemporary composers. Offertorium (on BIS)

10. Back to Mozart: My favorite string quartet no 18 how could I forget it. Salzburg Quartet, found sometimes on cheap labels, one of the best I have heard.

Have to stop here, and the Pienaar set was several discs anyway…

9. Gubaidulina, one of the greatest contemporary composers. Offertorium (on BIS)

I came across this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlFx7g_r1C4, pretty impressive performance IMO.

12. Stereolab - Double Rocker
I really like her voice, there's something strangely soothing about it.

Yes, Laetitia Sadier is one of my favorite vocalists. Tragically, Stereolab's backing vocalist Mary Hansen was hit and killed while bike riding in London. They made several more albums after that, but they were never quite the same without her.

Quote from: Kunlun on August 16, 2014, 06:09:54 PM

Thad, could you please start a new thread where you share your carnatic (and western classical) favorite albums, no desert island needed? Thanks!

About Western Classical

Somehow I was always a late developer or living in a different time bubble completely. I was listening to Western classical when everyone else was having fun with the Beatles et al. So it was a thing of my teens, that then got put aside for other genres and other things. I have reconnected only recently, first with Mahler, second with Beethoven, and I am slowly finding out others I have forgotten. It's evident from posts on this thread that there are some very well-informed classical buffs here. Much more so than me.

About Carnatic

Re carnatic classical, the classical music of Southern India, I have to credit it with probably being the reason that I am where I am now, living here in Chennai where there are concerts almost every day and most of them are free!

I so much prefer the live experience that I do not listen to much at home (although there is a CD/Tape collection) where you are more likely to find me with The Grateful Dead in my headphones. I don't know much about the music, even though I went to percussion classes for a few years (hint: that's where my name comes from). Wait until December, when life here turns into a huge music fest with thousands of concerts, and I'll "blog" a few days of Chennai Music Season experience

About Stephen Stills

Back in the day (well, every day I suppose) youngsters wrote about life, love and relationships and pretended to be wiser than their years. Much of it is tosh, but Stephen Stills' songs are not. They age well, and seem as good now as they did 40 years ago. Did I include Joni Mitchell in my list? No? Damn.

About de-railing threads

I haven't been thrown out of a forum ...yet.   

Interesting derailments are worthy derailments. Be it a fart joke or a sublime phenomenon on the horizon of life. I mean after checking out Stereolab I feel like listening to Can again. When people are not interested you will be ignored anyway.

May your future derailments be interesting