Each month at BBC Music Magazine we receive hundreds of recordings, and hundreds of thousands have been made since the advent of recorded sound. But which are the very greatest recordings: those legendary moments of musical lightning-in-a-bottle that no collection should be without?
We asked the BBC Music Magazine critics to vote on the top 50 recordings of all time. And here are the results. Enjoy!
Contents
Best classical recordings of all time: 50 to 41
Best recordings: 40 to 31
Greatest recordings: 30 to 21
Best recordings of all time: 20 to 11
Greatest recordings: 10 to 2
And the greatest recording of all time is..
The best classical recordings of all time: 50 to 41
50. Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Fritz Reiner (1955) RCA
Fritz Reiner persuaded Serge Koussevitsky to commission Bartók in 1943 to write his orchestral masterpiece, and it was Reiner who went on to make the ultimate recording in 1955 with the Chicago Symphony. Expertly juggling the music’s wry humour, despair and sense of shattered dreams, this version is a crisply recorded wonder of an analogue age.
49. Schubert: Fantasie Op. 103 / Mozart: Sonata K448
Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu (pianos) (1984, 1990). Sony SK 39511
Aldeburgh, Suffolk was the backdrop for this superlative recording, which brings together two of today’s greatest pianists. Murray Perahia was director of the Aldeburgh Festival for several years in the 1980s, during which time he and Radu Lupu brought their incomparable artistry to Mozart’s quasi-orchestral Sonata K448 and Schubert’s sublime Fantasie.
48. Berg: Lulu
Teresa Stratas et al; Orchestra de l'Opéra de Paris/Pierre Boulez (1979). Deutsche Grammophon 463 6172
Alban Berg never completed the orchestration of his second opera Lulu, a lurid three-act drama with a tragic anti-heroine. His wife Helene banned its completion, only allowing its two-act version to be performed. But after her death, composer and conductor Friedrich Cerha took on the task of finishing the opera: this is the version immortalised here under the baton of Pierre Boulez. Teresa Stratas is an unforgettable Lulu.
47. R Strauss: Four Last Songs
Gundula Janowitz; Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan (1971). Deutsche Grammophone 447 4222
Even among the remarkable number of first-rate recordings of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs currently in the catalogue (and there are over 40) Gundula Janowitz still excels. Her performance is wistful and nostalgic, of course, but Janowitz also bewitches and enchants like no other as she interweaves her soprano line around Karajan’s sublimely paced and immaculately played orchestral accompaniment.
46. Schumann: Humoreske, Op. 20; Studies for Pedal Piano, Op. 56 (arr. Anderszewski), etc
Piotr Anderszewski (piano) (2011). Virgin 948 6252
'It is to be hoped that virtuoso Piotr Anderszewski’s ravishing and exceptionally clever new arrangement will finally deliver these enchanting, graceful, deeply touching pieces into the pianistic mainstream,' said Jeremy Slepmann in his review of this revelatory disc of solo piano music by that great Romantic composer, Robert Schumann.
Jeremy was referring here to Anderszewski's own arrangement of Schumann's Studies for Pedal Piano, Op. 56. Have a listen to this bewitching performance below.
The performance of the Op. 20 Humoreske, however, was equally spellbinding. 'His account of the beguiling Humoreske is Schumann playing of the highest class, as indeed is the rest of this recital. Bewitchingly compelling.'
45. Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge (1963). Stockhausen Edition No. 3
Composed in 1956, this ground-breaking electronic music work – the first to blend a recorded human voice with electronic sounds – was not commercially released until 1963 when it was issued by Deutsche Grammophon on LP. The recording had a widespread impact not only in the world of ‘classical’ music but also in pop, most famously in the work of Lennon and McCartney (hence featuring Stockhausen on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper’s).
44. Janáček: Jenůfa
Elisabeth Söderström (Jenůfa) et al; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Mackerras (1982). Decca 475 8227
A recording that, like Mackerras’s 'Kátya Kabanová' (see No. 13) did so much to bring Janáček operas into the heart of the repertoire worldwide. Elisabeth Söderström plays the title role, but this recording is all about the tour de force that is mezzo Eva Randová’s terrifying, yet somehow tender, Kostelnicka.
43. Beethoven: Fidelio
Christa Ludwig, Jon Vickers et al; Philharmonia/Otto Klemperer (1962). EMI 966 7032
Otto Klemperer had a close affinity to Beethoven’s only completed opera, a tricky work to perform. This, his 1962 recording in collaboration with the legendary producer Walter Legge, is typically statuesque and majestic. Christa Ludwig, a mezzo rather than true soprano, brings dark colours to the role of Leonore, while tenor Jon Vickers is a superb Florestan.
42. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro
Cesare Siepi, Hilde Gueden et al; Vienna Philharmonic/Erick Kleiber (1955). Decca 466 3692
Erich Kleiber’s Vienna recording of Mozart’s comic opera The Marriage of Figaro, with Cesare Siepi in the title role and Hilde Gueden as a uniquely charming Susanna, remains matchless for its unfolding drama and sheer musicality. The brilliant Austrian conductor’s sense of timing is almost uncanny, keeping the action moving with tremendous pace throughout, but knowing just when to let the music linger awhile.
We named The Marriage of Figaro as one of the best Mozart operas.
41. Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor; Carter: Cello Concerto; Bruch: Kol Nidrei, Op. 47
Alisa Weilerstein (cello); Staatskapelle Berlin/Daniel Barenboim (2013) Decca 478 2735
'This is a bold, not to say counter-intuitive coupling: I can’t imagine all lovers of Elgar’s intimate, elegiac Cello Concerto will have as keen an appetite for late, knotty Elliott Carter (and maybe vice versa),' noted our review. 'But they shouldn’t be deterred: each concerto is a masterwork in its own terms, and together they add up to a superb showcase for the talents of a gifted soloist.'
In the Elgar, 'Weilerstein avoids nostalgia and produces instead an account that is full of passion, grief and nobility of feeling. Just the way she articulates the opening chords and brief recitative before the strings’ first entry has an authority and poetry that demands our attention from the outset, and the eloquence of her playing ensures that she holds it throughout.'
The disc ends with a meditative account of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, the melody presented without an ounce of excess sentiment.
Best classical recordings: 40 to 31
40. Josquin: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, etc
The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips (2020) Gimell CDGIM051
This was the recording with which the Tallis Scholars and their conductor Peter Phillips completed their monumental nine-disc project to record all of the Mass settings of the French or Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521). They chose to conclude their journey with three suitably monumental works, including the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, into which Josquin smuggled the name of his patron Ercole, Duke of Ferrara.
'Phillips’s reading of the Ferrarese work is fluid and supple, and there’s a gentle momentum even in the more contemplative sections, such as the hushed Sanctus or the sublime Agnus Dei,' notes our review. 'The Scholars’ sound is lean and clear: every strand of the musical web is beautifully illuminated, and the text is carved with a sculptural sharpness.
'A mesmerising final chapter to this unforgettable musical odyssey.'
39. Chopin: Nocturnes
Claudio Arrau (piano) (1978). Philips 464 6942
The great Chilean pianist was 75 when he made this revelatory recording. It’s a profoundly moving reading of the 21 Nocturnes – the result, no doubt, of many years of performing and reflecting on them. In Arrau’s hands, the emotional worlds of these Romantic miniatures are absorbing; his spacious tempos and overarching sense of line adding weight and grandeur.
38. Verdi: Requiem
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf et al; Philharmonia/Carlo Maria Giulini (1964). EMI 631 8212
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Nicolai Gedda and Christa Ludwig join the Philharmonia Chorus for this intensely personal performance of Verdi’s masterpiece under the strangely underrated Giulini. The fire and brimstone of the Verdi Requiem famous Dies Irae is there, of course, but so is a thread of human compassion which raises this recording to the extraordinary.
37. Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
ROH Chorus, LSO/Pierre Monteux (1961). Decca E475 7525
A mere 47 years after conducting the ballet’s premiere, the indefatigable Pierre Monteux headed into the studio for a recording of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé – scored for orchestra and wordless chorus – that is unrivalled for power and intensity, variety of colour and immaculate attention to detail. As with most Decca discs of this era, the superb recorded sound can be taken as read.
36. Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Vienna Philharmonic/Carlos Kleiber (1981). Deutsche Grammophon 457 7062
The handful of orchestral works the elusive Carlos Kleiber conducted included Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. His classic 1981 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has polish and fire in equal measure, displaying that characteristic Kleiber blend of intellectual rigour, passion and perfectionism. It was the last studio recording Kleiber made with the mighty Vienna Philharmonic.
35. Bellini: Norma
Maria Callas (Norma) et al; Teatro alla Scala/Tullio Serafin (1960). EMI 966 7092
Soprano Maria Callas’s voice may have been in finer fettle for her 1954 recording of Bellini’s bel canto opera Norma conducted by Tullio Serafin, but her 1960 version, again with Serafin at the helm, is packed with oodles more drama. Callas aside, the dream supporting cast, including Christa Ludwig, Franco Corelli and Nicola Zaccaria, makes this a crucial addition to any library.
34. Shostakovich: Preludes & Fugues
Alexander Melnikov (piano) (2010). Harmonia Mundi HMC 902019/20
This is a remarkable album (A BBC Music Magazine Award winner in 2011) which rescued a Shostakovich work previously more respected than loved, in part due to the turgid style of a celebrated recording by Tatiana Nikolayeva. Melnikov reveals a kaleidoscope of colours and moods, as well as brilliantly demonstrating its dramatic cohesiveness. An exhilarating experience.
33. Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), Julius Patzak (tenor); Vienna Philharmonic/Bruno Walter (1952). Decca 466 5762
Bruno Walter, who conducted the premiere of Das Lied von der Erde in 1911 and knew first-hand the depths to which the composer had sunk at the time, described the work as ‘the most personal utterance among Mahler’s creations’. Here, 41 years later, the same conductor performs the composer’s six-movement masterpiece with tenor Julius Patzak and contralto Kathleen Ferrier, Walter’s friend and protégée who, at 39, had been diagnosed with cancer. The sense of pathos is almost unbearable.
32. Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
Jacques Jansen, Irène Joachin et al/Roger Désormière (1941). Cantus 500268
This 1941 recording captures the elusive nuances and mystery of Debussy’s symbolist masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande like no other. The trio of singers in lead roles – Irène Joachim as Mélisande, Jacques Jansen as Pelléas and Henri Etcheverry as Golaud – had all performed the opera many times together under the direction of Roger Désormière.
31. Elgar: Violin Concerto
Yehudi Menuhin (violin); LSO/Edward Elgar (1932). EMI 566 9792
A 74-year-old Edward Elgar joins teenage violinist Yehudi Menuhin at the recently opened Abbey Road studio – a passing of the musical baton from one generation to the next if ever there was one, and a very moving one at that. Elgar’s reading is an aptly broad, reflective one, while Menuhin’s playing still astonishes for its technical ease and maturity of insight.
Best recordings of all time: 30 to 21
30. Chopin: Etudes Opp 10 & 25
Maurizio Pollini (piano) (1972). Deutsche Grammophon 413 7942
Chopin’s Etudes present considerable challenges to the pianist, but Maurizio Pollini’s masterly 1972 recording ensures the listener isn’t remotely aware of them. And there are few pianists that can manage that. There’s something refreshingly straightforward about his playing too – he presents all the magical ebb and flow without getting over-emotional. The perfect performance.
29. Mozart: The Magic Flute
Nicolai Gedda, Gundula Janowitz etc; Philharmonia/Otto Klemperer (1964). EMI 966 7932
The cast of Otto Klemperer’s 1964 recording of Mozart's The Magic Flute reads almost like a who’s who of the opera world of the time. The brilliant Nicolai Gedda and Gundula Janowitz lead the way as Tamino and Pamina along with the likes of Lucia Popp, Gottlob Frick, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry. The result is a Flute full of joy and wisdom, with characters who are both unearthly yet recognisably human.
28. Allegri: Miserere
Alison Stamp (soprano); Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips (1980). Gimell GIMSE 401
The 1980 recording of Allegri's Miserere that not only made the Tallis Scholars a household name, but effectively led the way to today’s great wave of exceptional mixed-voice choirs. Alison Stamp is faultless in the exceptionally testing soprano solo – top Cs and all – while, with the choir and solo quartet placed some distance apart, the perfect acoustic of Merton College chapel is captured to perfection by Gimell.
27. Handel: Messiah
Judith Nelson, Emma Kirkby etc; Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood (1980). L’Oiseau Lyre 430 4882
Stodge no more. In Christopher Hogwood’s hands, Handel's legendary Messiah was no longer a ponderous and portentous work, but something tightly sprung and which demanded your attention. The period instrument specialist was spring-cleaning well-loved pieces even as his pioneering contemporary Roger Norrington had barely launched the London Classical Players.
26. R Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig et al; Philharmonia/Herbert von Karajan (1956). EMI 966 8242
In 1956, a dream cast assembled for a recording of Strauss’s operatic masterpiece that, today, remains unbettered. The Philharmonia is on sparkling form and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf gives the performance of her life. Karajan’s passion for the music leaps from the speakers, with producer Walter Legge’s warm stereo recording giving the whole a beautiful sheen.
25. Mozart: Horn Concertos
Dennis Brain (horn); Philharmonia/Herbert von Karajan (1953). EMI 965 9362
With this disc, Dennis Brain rewrote the French horn rulebook. No one before had performed Mozart’s concertos with such effortless grace, such variety of dynamic and phrasing and such affable banter between soloist and orchestra. When Brain died in a car crash aged 36 three years later, he left a gap that many say has never been filled.
24. Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
Steve Reich; Musicians (1978). ECM 821 4172
All of Steve Reich’s experiments came together in this tour de force of ultra-disciplined bliss. The structure is tightly logical as ever: human breaths (voices, wind) measure against heartbeats (mallets) and longer wave forms. You can feel the sheer force of the composer driving this performance of almost superhuman finesse; every note glistens in a perfectly balanced, glowing recording.
We named Steve Reich as one of the best living composers.
23. Britten: Peter Grimes
Peter Pears (Grimes) et al; Royal Opera House/Benjamin Britten (1958). Decca 467 6822
This was the first complete recording of a full-scale Britten opera, based on a superb stage production of Peter Grimes and vividly recorded in a ground-breaking production. Taking full advantage of new stereo technology, members of the cast moved around the stage in dramatic fashion, giving the recording a sense of being ‘live’. More than any other opera recording, this helped launched the fortunes of Britten’s operas and remains one of the most exemplary ever made.
22. Mozart: Complete Piano Concertos
Daniel Barenboim (piano); English Chamber Orchestra (1967-74) EMI 572 9302
In the 1960s, while still in his twenties, Daniel Barenboim joined forces with the English Chamber Orchestra to record a groundbreaking set of the complete Mozart Piano Concertos, conducting from the keyboard.
Later, he recorded them again with the Berlin Philharmonic, but the English Chamber Orchestra version still has the edge for its bite and beauty, operatic mellifluousness offset by apparently boundless energy and an atmosphere of inspired and intimate music-making from start to finish.
Barenboim brings us Mozart in all his many guises, from enfant terrible to founding father and, ultimately, avatar in the term’s original sense.
21. Chopin: Sonata No. 3 etc
Martha Argerich (piano) (1965) EMI 556 8052
‘Argerich plays Chopin’ is the emphasis on a recording where the interpreter sometimes comes before the composer, but this brilliant disc deserves its legendary appellation.
Only 24 when she was captured playing at Abbey Road, shortly after winning the 1965 Warsaw Chopin competition and shortly before she signed to Deutsche Grammophon (hence it taking EMI almost 35 years to allow it to appear), Martha Argerich performs with such white-hot intensity that it scarcely feels like a studio recording.
Her volcanic energy can leave you scrambling to keep up, but the Third Sonata is breathtaking in its spontaneity, and the Mazurkas are richly imbued with Polish spirit.
The best classical recordings of all time: 20 to 11
20. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 4; Ravel: Piano Concerto
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (piano); Philharmonia/Ettore Gracis (1957) EMI 567 2382
Reclusive Italian virtuoso pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, one of the greatest pianists of all time, remained a notoriously reluctant recording artist, feeling unable to commit his performances to disc for fear that they would not match his self-imposed high standards. Yet there were a few occasions on which he managed to overcome such qualms.
The most notable took place in March 1957 at No. 1 Studio in Abbey Road where, after giving a successful performance of the then rarely-heard Rachmaninov Fourth Piano Concerto at the Royal Festival Hall, Michelangeli readily agreed to record the work for EMI alongside the Ravel Piano Concerto.
The results were inspired. In the Rachmaninov, the heroic virtuosity of Michelangeli’s playing banished any doubts that this composition was a poor shadow of its predecessors, while the cool demeanour and exquisite subtlety of the Ravel slow movement remains peerless.
19. Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610
Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner (1989) Archiv 429 5652
John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir have had a long and special relationship with Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 going all the way back to their groundbreaking recording of the mid-1970s.
When they recorded the work again in 1989 they travelled to St Mark’s, Venice – Monteverdi’s spiritual home – where the glorious acoustics and intricate architecture provided a sumptuous stage for the performers.
Their approach is high-octane – dramatic, sensual and highly inflected – and in their balance between theatrical excitement and glittering grandeur they capture the very essence of Venetian flamboyance. One of the most thrillingly atmospheric recordings of Baroque choral music ever made.
18. Hildegard von Bingen: A Feather on the Breath of God
Emma Kirkby (soprano); Gothic Voices / Christopher Page (1981) Hyperion
This was the 1981 disc, from Christopher Page’s pioneering Gothic Voices group and the incomparably pure-voiced Emma Kirkby, that launched interest in the medieval visionary and composer Hildegard von Bingen. It remains the Hyperion label’s best-selling recording and helped generate a stream of medieval music recordings in the following decade.
While later groups made a feature of the ecstatic, rhythmically fluid nature of the music, Gothic Voices chose to perform the hymns and sequences with great simplicity, alternating a single voice with unison voices over drones.
17. Vikíngur Ólafsson: Bach Prelude and Fughetta in G; Organ Sonata No. 4, etc
Víkingur Ólafsson (piano) (2018). DG 483 5022
Our reviewer Michael Church found this album of Bach keyboard works by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson to be little short of revelatory. 'Intermingling celebrated transcriptions with some of Bach’s preludes, fugues, inventions, sinfonias, partita movements and with the A minor Variations BWV 989 which form the structural heart of this performance, Ólafsson creates a ravishing musical sequence.
'Every track has its own allure, and many reflect a virtuosity which is never flaunted; he treats the preludes and fugues as though they had been conceived as tone-poems or études: his fleet, slightly détaché account of the C minor prelude from Book I of the 48 is a miracle of delicate control, and his account of the Fugue in A minor BWV 904 has austere grandeur.'
16. Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas
Artur Schnabel (piano) (1932-8) EMI 763 7652
Artur Schnabel was the first pianist to record the complete Beethoven Sonatas, undertaking the mammoth project for the Beethoven Society in the early 1930s. Today he has innumerable competitors in an overcrowded market, yet his interpretations have never been supplanted. It’s hard to imagine a more magnificent mingling of power and humility, of mystical reflection and ready wit or of structural awareness and spontaneous statement.
There are cleaner performances around, but few that offer quite the same feeling of absolute unity between composer and performer. Schnabel could trace his musical heritage back to Carl Czerny and thence Beethoven himself – this is as close to the Beethovenian horse’s mouth as we can get.
15. Art of the Prima Donna
Joan Sutherland (soprano); Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Francesco Molinari-Pradelli (1960) Decca 478 3071
This ambitious set of 16 arias associated with past coloratura legends came out in 1960 at the beginning of Joan Sutherland’s career as an international recording star. Her incomparable technique, stylistic virtuosity and full-bodied tone were captured at their peak, without any trace of subsequent mannerisms.
Although Maria Callas may have started the bel canto revival, here and in subsequent recordings, Sutherland laid almost the entire history of vocal music before our delighted ears.
Her dazzling presentation of ‘Let the Bright Seraphim’ from Handel’s Samson alone played a huge role in demonstrating the artistic and commercial viability of reviving vocal rarities from the past, immeasurably enriching the recorded repertory.
14. Janáček: Kátya Kabanová
Elisabeth Söderström etc; Vienna Philharmonic/Charles Mackerras (1977) Decca 475 7518
Released in 1977, in the years when Decca was at the height of its powers as an independent label, this recording opened up new dimensions in Janáček performance, and its success launched Charles Mackerras’s complete cycle of the operas that was to follow.
Having applied his superb musicological skills to produce a definitive score of Kátya Kabanová from the composer’s near-illegible manuscript and multiple drafts, Mackerras then conducted this most moving of operas with consummate artistry.
Fabulous, surging Vienna Philharmonic playing, Elisabeth Söderström’s poignant performance in the title role, and matchless Decca sound all combined to produce one of the truly classic opera recordings.
13. Beethoven: The Late String Quartets
Busch Quartet (1930s) EMI 509 6552
It’s nearly 80 years since the Busch Quartet made their legendary recordings of Beethoven’s Late String Quartets, and it’s frequently stated that they have never been bettered.
With justification: there’s an extraordinary lack of self-advertisement in the playing, a sense of complete immersion in the composer’s intentions that is totally compelling.
These aren’t ‘interpretations’ as such, or even ‘performances’ in the modern sense – more acts of communion mediated by the amazingly self-effacing artists doing the playing. The sound is 1930s mono, but potently communicative.
12. JS Bach: Cello Suites
Pablo Casals (cello) (1936-9) EMI 965 9212
It was a chance discovery in a Catalan junkshop that ultimately led to the making of one of the 20th century’s truly great recordings. When the 13-year-old Pablo Casals came across the dusty scores of Bach's Cello Suites he described his find as ‘the great revelation of my life’.
But only after living and breathing them for almost half a century, did he then feel ready to set them down in the recording studios in London and Paris between 1936 and 1939. It’s the thrill of an uncharted musical odyssey that sets these performances apart.
Their greatness is difficult to describe but easy to hear – technical brilliance, eloquence, glowing tone, dancing rhythms and complete identification with Bach’s masterpiece make analysis redundant.
We included Bach's Cello Suites in our round-up of the best cello music of all time.
11. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Willard White, Cynthia Haymon etc; Glyndebourne Chorus, LPO/Simon Rattle (1988) EMI 234 4302
Glyndebourne’s production of Porgy and Bess in 1986 confirmed the work’s status not merely as Gershwin’s masterpiece, but as one of the great operas. Two years later, EMI revived the production, turning Abbey Road into Catfish Row.
The resulting discs recreate the heady, hard-hitting atmosphere, with not a weak moment of playing or singing thanks to an ideal blend of careful preparation and spontaneity.
Simon Rattle paces events perfectly, and every character is entirely convincing vocally and dramatically – and don’t even try to resist the tears as Willard White’s ever-hopeful Porgy heads on his way at the end.
The best classical recordings of all time: 10 to 2
10. Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos 4-6
Leningrad Symphony Orchestra / Yevgeny Mravinsky (1960) DG E4197452
At the height of the Cold War, the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under its legendary principal conductor Evgeny Mravinsky visited Britain in September 1960, giving sensational concerts in Edinburgh and London which drew ecstatic responses from both press and public.
Initially released on three separate stereo LPs, these Tchaikovsky performances convey a highly-strung raw energy that remains undimmed up to the present day.
Since this virtuoso orchestra was then poorly represented in Western record catalogues, Deutsche Grammophon’s engineers astutely seized the opportunity to capture their playing in far superior sound to anything that could be produced by their Soviet counterparts. Among the most notable sessions taped in Wembley Town Hall was Mravinsky’s blazingly urgent account of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.
Ever the perfectionist, the conductor was so pleased with the quality of this recording that two months later he and the orchestra agreed to record the last two symphonies for DG, this time in Vienna’s Musikverein. Initially released on three separate stereo LPs, these Tchaikovsky performances convey a highly-strung raw energy that remains undimmed up to the present day. The Finale of No. 5, delivered at a manically swift pace, is one of this set's high points, guaranteed to take your breath away.
9. Ravel: Shéhérazade / Berlioz: Nuits d'été
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande / Ernest Ansermet (1963) Decca
Escapism is what Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Berlioz’s Nuits d’été have in common. Régine Crespin knew that, which is why her performance of these two song cycles practically seems to exist out of time and space.
Does the nitty-gritty of the text suffer, as some Crespin heretics have asserted? Not when the French soprano is so gloriously idiomatic in the shape of the phrasing, the sensual ebb and flow of the verses – whether Tristan Klingsor’s perfumed poems for Ravel, or Théophile Gautier’s more allusive text for Berlioz – and able to float a Wagner-sized voice down to a seductive whisper or up to a gloriously full-throated cry of ecstasy, sounding utterly in the moment all the while.
The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, under Ernest Ansermet, take things slowly and headily, finding plenty of detail along the way, particularly in the Ravel.
8. Mahler: Symphony 3
Gerhild Romberger (mezzo-soprano); Augsburger Domsingknaben; Bavarian Radio Womens' choir; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink (2018) BR Klassik BRK 900149
At the age of 89, the legendary Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink took home the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Year with this magnificent reading of Mahler's vast, panoramic Third Symphony with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Haitink had already lived with the work for over half a century (his first recording, with the Concertgebouw, dates back to 1966), and his immense storehouse of Mahlerian wisdom shones throigh in this radiant performance.
'A perfect beauty of a performance, natural sound matching natural evolution and every solo perfectly intoned; too often we forget that the Bavarian orchestra is up there with the best in Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam,' noted our review.
7. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Ludwig Suthaus (Tristan), Kirsten Flagstad (Isolde), Blanche Thebom (Brangaene), Josef Greindl (Konig Marke), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Kurwenal) et al; Philharmonia Orchestra, Chorus of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Wilhelm Furtwängler (1952) Documents 223061
This superlative recording, made in London in 1952 and never out of the catalogue, was the first complete one of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, and contains several lengthy passages from the love duet in Act II and Tristan’s delirium in Act III that many lovers of the work had never heard before.
With the greatest Isolde of her time, Kirsten Flagstad, radiant despite being 57, and a Tristan, Ludwig Suthaus, whom Wilhelm Furtwängler inspired to extraordinary heights, the two leads have never been equalled. The Philharmonia Orchestra is at its absolute peak, too; and, working in long takes, the result is that the unique intensity and continuity of this score is caught as it has never been again.
Furtwängler, who had notoriously loathed recording, was converted overnight to the process when he heard the test pressings – and said that he had never before realised what a supreme work Tristan is.
6. Elgar: Cello Concerto
Jacqueline du Pré (cello); London Symphony Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli (1965) Warner Classics 2564607600
Some say it’s the red-hot personality, others that it’s the du Pré-Barenboim love story, still others that the tragic emotions evoked in the music foreshadow the tragedy that later befell the performer. Whether there’s a rational explanation or not, Jacqueline du Pré’s recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto has a magic that has made it legendary.
5. Puccini: Tosca
Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Franco Calabrese; Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan / Victor de Sabata (1953) Warner Classics 2564634103
It was the legendary recording producer Walter Legge who brought the 29-year-old Maria Callas to the EMI stable in 1953, thereafter recording with her between two and four operas each year until the end of the decade. She was already a rising international star and an experienced performer of Puccini's Tosca: she had first sung the role in Athens in 1942 when just 18.
The set marked her first collaboration with the baritone Tito Gobbi, who himself sang the role of Scarpia on stage more than 800 times, though he and Callas did not perform the opera together live until 1964 at Covent Garden; a single performance of the same production the following year would mark Callas’s last appearance on the operatic stage.
But in 1953 she is caught at her peak, her voice perfectly under control and the characteristic insights she brought to its tiniest details fully developed. Giuseppe di Stefano, too – another artist who would suffer a premature vocal decline – had recently sung Cavaradossi with Callas in Mexico City, and his voice here is at its most lyrically graceful and refulgent.
The conductor, Victor de Sabata, is both under-recorded (this Tosca is his only studio opera set) and to a degree under-valued. But his career in the concert hall and especially as Toscanini’s successor at La Scala (where this recording was made) was of the first order, and his combination of fire and clarity make this the most exciting Tosca on disc. Opera sets rarely get absolutely everything right; this one does.
4. JS Bach: Goldberg Variations
Glenn Gould (piano) (1955) Glenn Gould Anniversary Edition 88725411822
Given this is now such a historic landmark, it seems strange to recall that executives at Columbia had misgivings about Glenn Gould recording Bach's Goldberg Variations.
Just months earlier the director of Columbia’s Masterworks Division, David Oppenheim, had attended the 22-year-old pianist’s New York debut on 11 January 1955, when Gould had played a typically eclectic programme of Orlando Gibbons, Alban Berg and Beethoven. Oppenheim was so impressed by Gould’s ‘mesmerising’ performance that he contacted his manager, Walter Homburger, who cannily negotiated a contract in which Gould had artistic freedom of choice what to record.
Gould then proposed to record not any of the works he had played at his New York debut, but an epic set of variations which even the Bach scholar, Albert Schweitzer, had said was ‘impossible to take to at a first hearing’. Columbia executives gently tried to dissuade him. Such was Gould’s enthusiasm for the Goldbergs, though, which he had loved since his teens that Columbia relented. Sessions were arranged for one week in Columbia’s East 30th Street studio.
Even in June weather Gould arrived in winter clothing, armed with several towels, two large bottles of spring water, five different bottles of pills and his own low chair. First warming his hands in a basin of hot water, he proceeded to record a performance of often unprecedented speed yet precision, all the contrapuntal details presented with miraculous clarity. Gould’s international career was launched, and Bach’s music was brought to life for a wide audience.
3. Britten: War Requiem
Benjamin Britten (spoken word), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Galina Vishnevskaya (spoken word and soprano), John Culshaw (spoken word), Melos Ensemble of London, Peter Pears (tenor and spoken word), Bach Choir, London Symphopny Orchestra and Chorus / Benjamin Britten (1962) Decca Originals 4757511
‘I thought Mozart and Verdi had said it all: I was wrong.’ So spoke the usually sceptical Ernst Roth, Benjamin Britten’s publisher, after the momentous 1962 premiere of the composer's War Requiem at the consecration of Coventry Cathedral. You can read more about the extraordinary story of how Britten came to compose and premiere this masterful work in our story of Britten's War Requiem.
2. Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 5 & 7
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Carlos Kleiber (1975-76) DG Originals 4474002
The reclusive Carlos Kleiber – voted the most inspiring conductor of all time in a poll of eminent current practitioners in BBC Music’s April 2011 issue – was a rare visitor to the recording studio. But his LP of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic, issued in 1975, was recognised as a classic.
The same team’s Seventh Symphony, which followed the next year, was of similar distinction. And the pairing of Kleiber’s interpretations of these two masterpieces on one recording has become an essential recommendation for any collection. These are performances which seem to present a Beethoven ‘for the ages’, a distillation of a long interpretative tradition, without concern for historical accuracy in text or performance practice.
The sense of something monumental is enhanced by the imposing Vienna Musikverein acoustic. But that doesn’t blur Kleiber’s superfine attention to detail, with perfectly balanced textures and subtly graded transitions, clearly obtained through lengthy and painstaking rehearsal. And the 1970s Vienna Phiharmonic was a band capable of an equally detailed response.
What Kleiber also succeeded in communicating to the players, though, is what conductor Susanna Mälkki describes as his ‘incredible energy’. The Fifth Symphony moves in an unerring line from its famous opening, crackling with excitement, to its celebratory ending. And the Seventh, with all its repeated rhythmic units, generates so much momentum that the thrilling acceleration Kleiber whips up in the final bars almost seems the only possible outcome.
1. Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelung
Birgit Nilsson (Brünnhilde), Hans Hotter (Wotan), Régine Crespin (Sieglinde), James King (Siegmund), Christa Ludwig (Fricka), Gottlob Frick (Hunding) et al; Wiener Philharmoniker, Sir Georg Solti (1958-65) Decca 4786748
‘Very nice,’ sneered a rival producer, hearing that Decca were embarking on Wagner's Ring Cycle. ‘But of course you’ll never sell any.’ To him it was just an obscure, prestige project. But at a stroke – Donner’s awesome hammerstroke in Das Rheingold, to be precise, the loudest sound then recorded – Decca’s new venture was to galvanise classical recording, and usher in a new era of recording excellence.
In the 1950s records evolved from brief, clumsy 78s to LPs, with wide-frequency recording, half-hour sides – and stereo sound. Decca’s Vienna-based recording team, headed by John Culshaw, began to exploit these innovations to demonstrate that LP could carry major works, not just adequately but triumphantly. Rheingold (1956) proved that recordings needn’t be fragmentary substitutes for stage performance, but could generate their own legitimate dramatic life – and popular appeal. Rheingold not only sold, it soared into the pop charts.
Georg Solti insisted on an atmosphere of live performance
Rheingold’s stereo techniques, developed throughout Siegfried (1962), Götterdämmerung (1964) and Walküre (1965), defined a soundstage around which the singers moved as if in a real production. To maintain this sense of live performance, conductor Georg Solti insisted they sing longer takes, often without scores.
Decca’s earlier attempts to record the Ring at Bayreuth, notably Joseph Keilberth’s cycle, sounded relatively stage-bound – fine for aficionados but unlikely to make new converts. To raise the imaginative temperature, Culshaw’s team introduced acoustics and sound-effects – not randomly, like many imitators, but sounds that might feature in live performance, idealised to create the ‘invisible stage’ of Wagner’s soaring imagination.
These would have been pointless, though, without a correspondingly awesome performance. This, with the magnificent playing of the Vienna Philharmonic, Solti certainly provided. Arguments still rage about his interpretation, compared especially with the more flowing, homogeneous Wilhelm Furtwängler manner; but there’s no doubt about Solti’s dynamism and towering sense of scale. He illuminates Wagner’s imagery, especially the Ring’s crucial natural forces, with vivid power, yet there’s no want of warmth and tenderness, or clarity in the elaborate textures of motifs.
Solti's legendary cast is still unrivalled to this day
No less outstanding, of course, is his cast, still unrivalled – an amazing Wagner ensemble spanning three eras, from Kirsten Flagstad and Set Svanholm to Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson and a host of younger voices like Eberhard Waechter, James King, Helga Dernesch and Gywneth Jones.
Nilsson’s Brünnhilde is steely and untiring yet full of passionate femininity. Her father Wotan, sturdily sung by George London in Rheingold, matures in Siegfried and Walküre into Hans Hotter’s tormented, world-weary divinity – probably the finest and most nuanced on any recording, though by Walküre his voice had aged considerably. Wolfgang Windgassen’s Siegfried is captured late, but still youthful.
Gustav Neidlinger’s Alberich and Gottlob Frick’s soot-voiced Hagen remain benchmarks, unmatched for Satanic nobility, as do Christa Ludwig’s Fricka and Waltraute. Most controversial casting is probably Gerhard Stolze’s rasping Mime (struck by polio during Siegfried) but the force of his performance is undeniable. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s unusually heroic Gunther and Joan Sutherland’s striking if badly articulated Woodbird add extra star quality.
'It hasn’t been surpassed; it may never be'
Documented in books and television, Decca’s Ring raised the status of recording generally. Other versions have their virtues, but there’s little doubt that Solti and Culshaw opened the gates for the 40-plus recorded Rings we now enjoy. Most authorities agree that it’s still a great place to start. The sound has survived half a century well, though the present CD transfer isn’t ideal; a much-praised SACD edition appeared only in Japan.
Individually, the operas are scarcely less impressive, although Walküre, beset by problems and disputes, is the least good. But even Solti’s detractors have to admit the awesome stature of Götterdämmerung, in which performance and recording unite with seamless strength to evoke the power of cosmic, cathartic tragedy. It hasn’t been surpassed; it may never be. Michael Scott Rohan