How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 (Prelude)

This is a reposting of an article that George A. Pieler and I wrote for Forbes.com, back in 2013. Who knows, how much longer these articles will be available on Forbes (for now, they still appear here, here, and here, although the formatting is already off), in uncorrupted form, so I wish to give them a slightly longer potential lease on life here. (Part 1, Part 2) Not the least as a humble little tribute to my friend George. George Pieler, with whom I collaborated on many articles covering all kinds of subjects, died of a heart condition at his Washington, D.C. home on September 30th, 2021. I still received his annual birthday-whiskey - but he did no longer receive my thank-you card. It was returned "addressee unknown". Though certainly not lacking definite opinions, on matters of politics, liberty, economics, but also his passion, classical music, he would graciously defer to me in picking the recordings for this lists. Still, they reflect his tastes in that he approved my choices, tempered some of my biases, and made sure I would include Szell's Mozart.

These two lists started with this preliminary musing which was, in turn, prompted by a post of Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution, who had done the same thing a few years earlier – asking, along the way, how music could actually be measured anymore, both as regards cost and medium (length), given the proliferation of “free” music and the changes in consumption of music as online bits & bobs. That this question, 13 years after our pondering it superficially, has not yet been definitively answered, despite the dominance of streaming services of one kind or another as our primary music-conduits, is interesting in and of itself. The measure as to what “$100” in music might be, probably has been further softened. The idea how best to look at music as units, meanwhile, remains the traditional album. That’s certainly true in classical music which is (not surprisingly) a somewhat more traditional corner of the music-appreciation niche. Our lists, therefore, retain some value as general “introduction to classical music” essays – and if they bring a few people closer to the genre, we feel we’ve done our job. (Incidentally, we probably did: For years, if you clicked on any one of the albums especially of the first list, Amazon would show you, under the rubric “Frequently bought together”, all the other albums we listed. But here we go, with the first of the three articles:

Two Cents About Classical Music For $100

ByJens F. Laurson and George Pieler

The Grammys (see full list of winners) put classical music in a ghetto of its own, an afterthought following folk, reggae, and spoken word. Is that because classical music, once culture-defining beyond its actual household reach, isn’t a market-driven, profit-potential line of entertainment and culture anymore? Recently on Forbes.com, Connie Guglielmo pondered iTunes’ Top Ten classical music picks, part of an Apple campaign that promotes “essential” classical music (which constitutes about 12% of sales, though heavy on crossover and light classics). A few years ago, Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution) took a more sophisticated look at what kind of starter-kit classical music collection could be put together with $100.

The way these two surveys approach classical music, beautifully frames two key aspects of the classical music world today: availability and affordability. Classical (ditto jazz) is a fascinating niche industry annually pronounced dead but more alive than ever. It’s just changing in all possible kinds of ways, at different speeds, in different countries. Pricing, production, distribution, listening and purchasing habits, even the very medium itself and its long-accepted norms (like album playtime, the concept of ‘album’ itself etc.) change or vanish.

Let’s focus just on what Cowen and Guglielmo touch on: price, medium, and the idea of “essentials”.

Now that Tower Records and the HMV Shop are history, how do we consumers determine price? By the cost of a CD on ArkivMusic.com, the specialty on-line seller of classical music owned by Steinway & Sons? [Note: Once a great resource for research and checking on what was available and new – but now quite useless.] Or Amazon, taking an average of prices offered and considering shipping? By the album cost on iTunes, or dedicated classical download sites like [Ed. Long defunct] The Classical Shop (which was run by Chandos, offering Digital Rights Management-free, high audio-quality downloads), Classics Online (Naxos, Ed.: also defunct), or (for the francophone) Qobuz? [Ed. A survivor and definitely not just for the francophone anymore. Arguably the best and most fair source for purchasing/streaming classical music online!]

But even downloading, which opens the intriguing question of whether you own or lease a digital file (more on that in a future column [Ed. That didn’t alas, happen]), may be a thing of the future past: left in the dust as streaming becomes ever more available, reliable, and cheaper. Your tunes are in the cloud, ready when you want them, where you want them. Assuming the internet isn’t down and that you can live with—as yet—modest sound quality or little clicks between tracks (because we can send people to Mars but struggle with Gapless Playback, apparently).

If you are serious about music, it’s a rough transition, though. Catch-all services like Spotify and Rhapsody make finding specific recordings hard, thanks to sloppy meta data and limited catalogs, and can frustrate the inquiring listener and overwhelm the newcomer. [Ed. Also, they aren’t all that great for the participating artists.] For a full dose of Beethoven Symphonies, Haydn String Quartets, or Bach Cantata streaming, they’re quite practical, however. If a standard bearer like Herbert von Karajan suffices, Spotify has all four of his complete cycles. But if you don’t know how the cover of the zesty 60s cycle looks, or which edition contains the savvy 70s recordings, and which box the mannered, digital 80s run-through (all with the Berlin Philharmonic), you will be left guessing. And if you want the sprightly punchy, historically informed musicianship of Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna (Zig Zag Territories), you are out of luck altogether.

The [wonderful] Naxos Music Library (and versatile Qobuz) offers a well-honed, classical-only streaming experience with plenty of relevant information, and Immerseel on both services, but on the Naxos Music Library only select early Beethoven recordings of Karajan (made for HMV with the Philharmonia Orchestra, now EMI, just sold to Warner as part of the Parlophone auction) are available, and early post-war broadcasts from Berlin (Audite). [Ed.: ALL the standard Karajan Beethoven is now available on the Naxos Music Library.] Only Qobuz emerged from this random test with all five cycles available. [Ed. The two live Japanese cycles and the two for-video-cycles are still out of reach for streaming.]

All this is by way of suggesting that the very idea of what $100 worth of music means, is changing by the day, if not the hour, and impossible to define. You could probably get the complete works of Mozart or Beethoven as downloads for that money. You would get fine music, too, though probably not all quality performances or snappy interpretations, which is what makes classical music so different from other genres. And for most, the bulk approach won’t yield the most memorable experience.

For our own list of how a relative newcomer might most satisfactorily invest $100 in classical music, we turn to the anachronism of the familiar CD—a medium that will be with us for decades to come, however outdated it may already seem. Certainly as a unit of price and music, CDs remain a trusty standard, perhaps akin to the way horses still define how we measure rail gauge and the engine power of an aircraft carrier. (Ed.: See list here: How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 Part I & Part II)

Amazon is currently merging the two worlds of hard copy (satisfying the collector) and digital availability (for immediate gratification and portability) with a function called ‘auto rip’. This delivers a free cloud–version to your Amazon cloud player when you purchase a hard copy of the CD from Amazon. Selection is limited so far, especially in classical, but fast expanding [Ed.: OK, that didn’t take off, massively, but it is still alive and available to consumers with billing addresses in the United States who have a U.S. bank-issued credit card] and it does include two of the Karajan cycles (1950s EMI and 1960s DG, if you find the right one among various editions of just that particular set [Ed.: I don’t think it does, anymore].

For skeptics who still think this kind of music is a dead-white-male cultural relic, we suggest the very profusion of listening options—in repertoire, medium, and listening mode—tells us classical is not just very much alive, but a great case study in market evolution. We hope to offer a glimpse into that (from our alive-white-male point of view) when we put together a sophisticated introductory list, available across various formats. We might ignore vinyl, though, which is making its own fascinating niche-within-a-niche comeback.

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#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 021 - Who is Afraid of Franz Schre(c)ker?

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or, in a nod to Bruckner, "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Comments on YouTube directly are even more appreciated, as they will help the visibility and reach of the podcast - and because they make us feel like what we are doing is not completely in vain.

Now here’s Episode 021, on that weird, marvelous, wondrous composer of - mainly - operas: Franz Schreker, ex Schrecker.

In this episode, Jens & Joe tackle Franz Schreker, the missing link between Schoenberg and Zemlinsky – and a composer of wildly Freudian fairy-tale operas that were all the rage between the wars. Deemed too modern in his time, and shocking in Vienna – but loved for both – Schreker was one of the most widely performed opera composers before World War II, along with Richard Strauss and Walter Braunfels. But the curse of the Nazis and the subsequent shunting of much of the romantic repertoire saw him largely forgotten, occasional resuscitation-efforts notwithstanding.

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#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 020 - Johann Strauss II and his Contemporaries

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or, in a nod to Bruckner, "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Comments on YouTube directly are even more appreciated, as they will help the visibility and reach of the podcast - and because they make us feel like what we are doing is not completely in vain.

Now here’s Episode 020, cunningly released around the New Year to ride the Johann-Strauss-train of popularity to its full extent, as we talk about said composers, the whole business of Waltz-writing in Vienna, his rivals and successors and his Danish counterpart, Hans Christian Lumbye!

If you wanted to dance with somebody, in 19th century Vienna, Johann Strauss was your best bet to provide the soundtrack. But he wasn't alone in churning out the waltzes and polkas and operettas - continental "light music" - that the city consumed at such a rapid rate. In this episode Jens and Joe explore some of these composers, the history of the genre, and even visit Copenhagen by way of twirling musical entertainment.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 283 (Martin Fröst’s maudlin’ mushy B.A.C.H.)

Martin Fröst B.A.C.H. (Sony, 2024) US | UK | DE

Martin Fröst and his album of Bach Transcriptions. You have been warned!

Martin Fröst is truly a generational musician who has pushed his instrument places it had not hitherto gone, a paragon of quality in established repertoire and bold, glad explorer of all things new. Occasionally, as with his penchant for dance intruding into his performances, I found that he could be “a bit much” for me, watching his gyrations. But it never affected the quality of the output.

Because he is the kind of artist where you would assume that every release of his must be stupendous (a fairly rare category also occupied by the likes of William Youn, Manfred Honeck, Marc-André Hamelin, Mitsuko Uchida, Pygmalion), this album, “B.A.C.H.” comes as a bit of a surprise and might be worth the warning, for a warning it is.

Regular ionarts-readers will know I have more than just a penchant for Bach… and moreover Bach-transcriptions of all kinds. Add a favorite artist into the mix and the assumption may well be made that we have an absolute winner at our hands here… and somehow, we just don’t. But what went wrong?

Well, for one, the selection of bits and bobs from Bach’s oeuvre, appears as perfectly haphazard. A collection of the most memorable tunes, strung together without little more rhyme or reasons than that they might be tempting to play on the clarinet, if one happens to be a Bach-loving clarinetist. They are, as per Sony’s marketing blurb, “Fröst’s favourite pieces that have been with him constantly throughout his own musical expeditions.” But the result is not, as might be ideally hoped for, some sort of exotic-sounding new Suite of Bach, it’s the output from a randomizer – and one that did not appear to take key-relationships much (if at all) into consideration. The brevity of the pieces (just under two minutes on average) and the resultant number of grating gearchanges don’t help.

Nor is the adaptation for the clarinet particularly fortuitous. Even a wizard like Martin Fröst can only play one line – usually a melody. But in Bach, it’s about counterpoint. The missing parts are thus entrusted to other instruments, most prominently among them the bass. Not inappropriate, generally speaking. But double bassist Sebastien Dubé can play as delicately as he wants to, the nature of the music pushes him to the forefront quite often. For a third of the disc, the album sounds like a solo double bassist with clarinet accompaniment. For another third like a lame imitation of the Jacques Loussier Trio (try the Prelude in D minor for size), and for the rest like a book of Bach-style Etudes for clarinet.

We get Fröst crawling through the Goldberg Variations Aria. Naturally, we get the Air from the third Orchestral Suite, though lugubrious, is probably one of the more successful pieces – if it doesn’t come across as painfully obvious. Truly beautiful on its own is the arrangement for clarinet and of “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” from the Matthew Passion for Clarinet and Cello (Anastasia Kobekina). When it isn’t bass or cello supporting the clarinet, it’s Jonas Nordberg’s theorbo. The “Ave Maria”, a “Mediation on the Prelude” for dominant cello and undulating clarinet sounds, alas, shlocky as if it was re-arranged by a lesser Saint-Saëns. Oh, and ABBA’s Benny Anderson tinkles along on the piano to the closing track.

Clunkers and gems as are included on this disc, the whole comes out as much less than the sum of its parts. A friend, moderately versed in classical music, who listened with me, not knowing what was playing, or why, said, once I had voiced some criticism of the disc myself: “Yes, I was wondering why you were listening to such a… childish album.” Thereby hitting the nail on the head.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.

#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 019 - Alexander Zemlinsky, the Opera Composer

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or, in a nod to Bruckner, "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Comments on YouTube directly are even more appreciated, as they will help the visibility and reach of the podcast - and because they make us feel like what we are doing is not completely in vain.

Now here’s Episode 019, which tackles the operatic side of Alexander Zemlinsky and his development throughout. Or as the blurb states: "Once upon a time, there was a tiny little man in Vienna, who composed the grandest operas..." Chronologically correct, we start with the alluded-to Once upon a Time, and work our way to the Ouverture to a Grand Opera.

A little note on the discography of the Florentine Tragedy, Zemlinsky's one-act opera that's the only one that has had a lot of love lavished upon it, by the record industry: Beyond the two accounts below, you can also choose from: Gerd Albrecht/RSO Berlin/1983/Schwann, James Conlon/Gürzenich/1997/EMI, Vladimir Jurowski/LPO/2012/LPO Live, Armin Jordan/ORTF/2003/Naïve, Marc Albrecht*/Nethelands PO/2021/Pentatone, and Patrick Hahn/Munich RSO/2024/BR Klassik (w/Christopher Maltman!)

Once upon a time, there was a tiny little man in Vienna, who composed the grandest operas. What started out with fairy-tale works of musical theater did, alas, take a tragic end for Alexander Zemlinsky in the New World. In their latest podcast, Joe and Jens track this wildly underrated composer’s operatic career from Vienna via Prague and Berlin to a premature death in New York.

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Critic’s Notebook: Beethoven Tradition with the Vienna Symphony and the Singakademie

Also published in Die Presse: Flüssig und nie überhitzt: Beethovens Neunte im Konzerthaus

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Fricsay, BPh (1957) (DG, 2001) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Abbado, BPh (1996 live) (Sony, 1996) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Böhm, VPh (1970) (DG) US | UK | DE

Annual LvB9 from Vienna; Slobodeniouk-Edition

To round off the year, the beloved tradition of Beethoven’s Ninth returned to the Konzerthaus – with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Singakademie

After a year like this one, it is hard not to view the lofty wishes articulated by the Schiller–Beethoven team in the latter’s Ninth Symphony with a measure of skepticism. How much reason is there, really, for fire-drunken exultation? What can the gentle wing of joy – music, whether Beethoven’s symphony or, say, Straussian waltzes – actually accomplish? Not all that much, to be honest. But what makes the text that Beethoven choose and adapted so appealing is that, almost immediately after stating its ambitious ideals, it concedes that not all men must become brothers right away – however desirable if somewhat naïve that aspiration may be. It’s perfectly fine to start small with a New Year’s resolution or glimmer of hope: Being a friend to a friend, for example, would already be reason enough for jubilation. Heck, even grumbling a little less, being a little kinder in moments when it is most difficult, would be a step toward that famous “embrace, ye millions.” Friedrich and Ludwig both knew: all good greatness begins small.

That insight applies, in a way, to music-making as well. No grand sweep, no overwhelming interpretation can succeed if the basic ingredients – the details – are not right. With the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, guided through the Ninth this year by Dima Slobodeniouk, they were. Engaged, fluent, without exaggeration and never overheated, the performance moved through the familiar work from the opening bars onward. The strings were in fine form, repeatedly finding their way back to a genuine pianissimo between the regular outbursts; the winds were lively; and the horns, for the most part, issued a faultless, even burnished sound. The slow movement unfolded in a gentle, calm atmosphere without grinding down to a halt. And in the Allegro assai of the finale, the bassoon's contribution was delightfully brought to the fore – or at least not pushed aside – bySlobodeniouk.

The details also aligned where the soloists were concerned: a well-balanced, evenly matched quartet singing from the organ loft. The young bass Alexander Grassauer opened proceedings with a large, aptly heraldic voice. Tenor Julian Prégardien sang brightly and naturally into the vast space of the Great Hall – especially welcome for the absence of violent attempts to be heard at all costs, everywhere. Much the same can be said of the women, Christiane Karg (pointed) and Beth Taylor (velvety), whose relative inconspicuousness in this work was probably more a virtue than a fault. The final vocal quartet, which had gone completel off the rails the year before, came off well this time. The Singakademie sohwed up in full force and contributed its share – particularly the energetic tenors – to the starry musical canopy this symphony is. Or can be.

With all these fine ingredients, one must be careful not to grow numb to the sheer stature of the work: to remember that a solid, unflashy interpretation – one that does not clamor for attention – can still ignite the Beethoven spark within us, rather than producing refined boredom. Slobodeniouk managed this very respectably, and fittingly, at the close of the year.


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Critic’s Notebook: An Orgy of Musicality with Ollikainen, Larcher, Strauss, Widmann

Also published in Die Presse: Unbekanntes von Großen – und Großes von einem lebenden Komponisten

T.Larcher Kenotaph H.Lintu, Finnish RSO (Ondine, 2021) US | UK | DE

R.Strauss Violin Concerto / Aus Italien M.Poschner, R.Kowalski, O.d.Svizzera Italiana (CPO, 2017) US | UK | DE

New Wine in Old Wineskins

The Bruckner Orchestra shone, from filigreed to ferocious, under Eva Ollikainen in Larcher and Strauss

Welcome back! Almost ten years have passed since Thomas Larcher’s Second Symphony, Kenotaph, was premiered in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein to mark the Austrian National Bank’s 200th anniversary. (My Forbes.com review of the premiere.) On Sunday afternoon the Bruckner Orchestra Linz brought it back to the same spot. It’s a grand piece (and not only es regards length); an “extraordinary coup”, as Wilhelm Sinkovicz put it at the time, or (as I put it) "a brilliantly entertaining symphonic tour de force". Larcher pours new wine into old skins – and although it occasionally rattles and strains at the seams, nothing bursts. The classical symphonic shape, unabashedly modern yet consistently consonant and traceable in its musical narrative. And that refers not to the lament over drowned refugees embedded in Kenotaph, but to music written for the listeners rather than against them. Even when the ten-armed percussion squad bangs its way through the punchiest moments with all tentacles flailing, none of the numerous sonic effects feels overused or gratuitous. Kenotaph never turns into a percussion orgy, and no glissando-flood washes over the – at times quite rough, inventive, and varied – music.

A few walkouts after the first movement, and again in the third – somehow fitting, seeing how the movmeent is about refugees – there were anyway. Even in the slow movement, which could be called conciliatory lyrical… although there's also a threatening element to that lyricism, no doubt. The pizzicato-bubbles of the violins that foamed up in the spray of sound were not enough for some. Under Eva Ollikainen, the work sounded swifter, more propulsive, with more energy drawn from motion than from the sheer piling-up of sonorities – than under Bychkov, assuming memory serves. Back then the ensuing Heldenleben that was also on the program became a footnote. This time, thanks to Ollikainen – one of the most heartening podium presences of the year (she has come to our attention at ionarts in 2016 already!) – and Carolin Widmann, neither the accompanying Strauss nor Bruckner became an afterthought – even though both pieces were early works, and are not counted among the finest either composer produced.

Bruckner’s rather Wagnerian "youthful" ouverture, written at 38, came across almost cheekily; it surprised with flashes of playful lightness and the occasional Weberian moment (Carl Maria von, not Anton). The whole thing was played with the kind of cleanliness, color, commitment, and precision one hopes for from an orchestra bearing the composer’s name.

Strauss’ Violin Concerto – likewise a rarity but a welcome guest on any program – is another of those pieces: not a masterpiece, but fascinating, and absolutely dependent on being played outstandingly well if it’s going to make any impression. No problem for these artists. Widmann’s rich, velvety, yet pointed, even sharp-edged tone brought exactly the intensity this post-pubescent work – Strauss was sixteen – needs. Anyone who had filed Widmann (despite a reference recording of the Schumann sonatas) into the “modern music” drawer was, at long last, corrected.




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Critic’s Notebook: Concentus Musicus and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir in Seasonal Bach

Also published in Die Presse: Feiern mit dem Concentus: Bach im Musikverein

J.S.Bach Christmas Oratorio N.Harnoncourt, Concentus, ASC (DHM, 2007) US | UK | DE

J.S.Bach Christmas Oratorio J.v.Veldhoven, Nederlandse Bachvereniging (Challenge, 2003gg) US | UK | DE

Bach and a Message for Contemplation

Stefan Gottfried is not Nikolaus Harnoncourt, but that's OK

In the winter of 2006/2007, Nikolaus Harnoncourt led and recorded the Christmas Oratorio in the Golden Hall with Concentus Musicus, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, and an incomparable line-up of singers (Christine Schäfer, Bernarda Fink, Werner Güra, Christian Gerhaher, Gerald Finley).

On Saturday evening, in that very same hall, Stefan Gottfried conducted the same forces in the first two of the six cantatas that make up the oratorio. Had Werner Güra not fallen ill, one of those original soloists would even have been back.

Anyone who’s carried either the recording or the memory of it in their inner ear and compared the two would not have failed to notice that the twenty-year-old interpretation sounded fresher, brisker, more spontaneous: colourful, warm, heartfelt, yet crisp.

It would have been a pity to let such an—admittedly unfair—comparison keep one from appreciating the beautiful things offered here. Must everything always be a chase for superlatives, for “events”, for the sensational? Must every concert be earth-shattering? Must we, just because a performance may not eclipse everything previously heard, immediately grumble and go excavating for tiny blemishes to justify our disappointment? “Aha! The continuo organ wasn’t always in rhythm. There—those trumpets squeaked. An oboe was flat. Or the stand-in evangelist sounded heraldic rather than urgent or particularly text-attuned. And the soprano’s mordents and trills were more of a wobbled vibrato.” Can’t something simply be good?

Yes. It can, and it should. Especially in this reflective season, when one might consider not letting the best become the enemy of the good. Why not, then, delight in the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, in sensational shape, singing their choruses and chorales with precision, point, and an impressive dynamic span: “Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light!” — what a radiant line, that alone. Or take Olivia Vermeulen’s tenderly delivered “Schlafe, mein Liebster”. Or, in the Advent cantata of the first half, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”: the delicately sustained recitative “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür”, sung by bass Manuel Walser. Or again the choir, in the instructive chorale “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele, und vergiss all Not und Qual” from Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!

And then there was the Concentus itself, playing with commitment and good spirit — even if the exuberant timpanist, alternately whispering and metaphorically (and literally) hitting the big drum, almost stole the show in the first cantata, which proclaims to us the joyful news of Christ’s birth. In short: It was beautiful.

Concentus Musicus Wien

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