(western) classical music discussion

[Rev. Rye]

What a service. You dont intend to allow any excuses it seems. Mozart now just one click away (if they have AutoRip that is)

There are no good excuses for not loving Mozart. Of course, one ought to also love Bach and Beethoven. And for opera, aside from Mozart, there is Rossini, Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner, and Delibes' Lakmé and Bizet's Carmen. But for now, we should focus on getting you to love Mozart.

If you wanted to take a big plunge into Mozart for little money per disc, you could buy one of the versions of the complete works of Mozart put out by Brilliant Classics. One then would get many fine performances, often from relatively unknown performers, as well as some dreadful performances (the Requiem, at least on the original release, is the worst recording of that piece that I have ever heard). Both because it is a bit of hit and miss, as well as the fact that it is a substantial investment for someone who doesn't love Mozart, I am not particularly recommending it, at least not yet for you. It is worth buying for the good performances, but there are some bad ones that are not going to help with my present goal of getting you to love Mozart.

Here's a method I personally like to use to select the best (for the money, at least) recordings of a certain work.

[Warning: This will involve quite a bit of math, and, if this work is very popular, it will likely be time-consuming. But it is worth it.]

1. Go to Allmusic.com
   
2. Search for a certain work or, if you're either dealing with a relatively non-prolific composer or completely mad, a certain composer.
   
3. Go to the work in question, say, Vivaldi's Four Seasons and scroll down to the "appears on" section.
   
4. Here is where it gets really time-consuming: Open up tabs for as many discs that contain complete recordings as possible. Feel free to ignore any that simply seem like compilations focusing on a certain conductor or performer or label. I have learned that, if, as soon as a tab for a certain recording is fully loaded, but does not include any sign of a review, feel free to close it.
   
5. If a page does contain an excerpt from a review of the recording in question, set that tab aside for later.
   
6. When the only tabs left are ones with recordings that have been given star ratings, make a list of them, making note of the most notable performers on it [Soloists, conductors, maybe even years recorded], the time of the album in question in seconds, and the star rating Allmusic gave it.
   
7. In some cases, there are few enough great (or even good) recordings that the choice is obvious. In other cases, there are a number of recordings that are excellent. For Instance: a total of six cycles of Beethoven's complete symphonies have been given a perfect score: Krivine's, Immerseel's, Gardiner's, Solti's, Jochum's, and Klemperer's studio recordings. This is not including others that recieved excellent, but not perfect scores, or even recordings of individual symphonies. In this case, a further narrowing may be in order.
   
8. Find a reputable site that cells CDs new. If you can find it, note down the list price for each recording. If not, eliminate it.
   
9. Here is one Sample.
   Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Neville Marriner). Length: 74:23 (4463 seconds), 5-star rating, Price: 11.99
   
10. Now plug it into the following Formula: [Time in Seconds*Star Rating*4*Number of Discs]/[100*price*price]. The number you get will be its score.
    Case in point: [4663*5*4*1]/[100*11.99*11.99]=93260/14376.01=6.487
    
11. Repeat this for the other recordings whose stats you put down. Ideally, the best recordings should have higher scores than the worst ones. Take the mean of the scores you get. The highest ones, particularly the ones above the mean, are the ones you should focus on getting.
    
12. While doing this process for the collected works of composers like Mozart (one of the most popular composers, and one whose collected works fill up 170 CDs) is, at best, time-consuming, and, at worst, completely insane (Try doing it for individual works instead), it is significantly less daunting for other, either less prolific or less popular, composers.
    Here is an outline of the scores for albums of the works of Steve Reich:
    
    
    

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    7. Four
    1. .311 Music For 18 Musicians (Ensemble Modern)
    8. Three
    1. .517 Different Trains/Piano Phase (Duke)
    2. .276 Music For 18 Musicians GVSU
    9. Two
    1. .821 Drumming Original
    2. .795 Tehilim/Desert Music
    3. .270 Different Trains (LSRO)
    4. .162 Variations, Six Pianos Qc.
    5. .154 Drumming (So Percussion)
    10. One
    1. .881 Music For 18 Musicians Original
    2. .602 2x5/Double Sextet
    3. .469 Music For 18 Musicians Live in Budapest
    4. .453 Desert Music/3 Movements (Jarvi)
    5. .394 Different Trains (Smith SQ)
    6. .381 Electric Counterpoint/ Different Trains Original
    7. .301 Music For 18 Musicians Redone
    8. .204 Tehillim/3 Movements
    9. .025 Daniel Variations
    11. Zero
    1. .979 Phase Patterns/Pendulum/Piano Phase/4 Organs
    2. .976 WTC 9/11; Mallet Quartet, Dance Patterns
    3. .764 You Are (Variations)
    4. .651 4 Organs, Phase Patterns
    

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Now, I know what you're thinking. This is completely insane, isn't it? Why, yes. Yes, it is. But experience has shown that doing has helped me pick out the best recordings and even let me know what works I should hear before I really can make my mind up about a certain composer.