Help Choosing Classical and Ragtime Surround Titles

There are more knowledgeable folks on this board who can address most of your needs better than I, but for Bach I will highly recommend E. Power Biggs' The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues played simultaneously on the four organs at the Cathedral of Frieburg. This recording was done in quadraphonic format and so you get a 4.0 mix on the SACD. If your surround speakers are up for it, this is a great SACD experience with a different organ in each speaker.

Hopefully Kal Rubinson will stop by and offer some recommendations as I believe I have seen several of those compositions mentioned by him before. He is sure to have some favorites and you could do a search for posts by Kal and possibly get some recommendations.

Chris

Heh, I was just about to post a similar question here myself. Other than the very limited sites for reviews of hirez music, I haven't found many suggestions outside of SA-CD.net, but of course that's limited to the one format.

Check out kal's reviews at:

stereophile.com/musicintheround

Note, there are both hardware and title reviews.

I'll give it my best shot to give you some recommendations. All of these that I am recommending are in my collection, so I can vouch for their quality. But I won't necessarily be able to give you comparisons to other versions. These will be a mix of DVD-A and SACD, as I have a universal player and just buy what is best in a specific title, although there are many more SACD's in my list than DVD-Audios. And almost all are multichannel.

And whatever you do, please look into the Living Stereo SACD series, which may not be the titles you listed here, but they are almost all outstanding.

Hope this helps.

1. The 1812 Overture

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/2593

2. Vivaldi's The Four Seasons

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinf...m=frooglemusic

3. Carmina Burana

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/197

4. Beethoven's 6th Symphony

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/3822

5. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/2330

6. Any collection including Chopin's Polonaise No. 6 in A flat, -"Heroic"

??

7. A collection of Bach's organ toccatas and fugues

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/908

8. Holst's The Planets

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/2214

9. Beethoven's 9th Symphony

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Symp.../dp/B000IZJ1O8

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/3985

10. Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/228

11. The Goldberg Variations

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/225

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/235

12. Any Scott Joplin, particularly any collection including "Solace"

??

Many of the references provided by JeffryR are not multichannel.

Actually, all should be multichannel except maybe the Goldberg Variations and the Stravinsky. I own all of the titles I recommended, and can vouch that they are multichannel (again except for maybe the Goldberg Variations and the Stravinsky). Can you point out any specifically that you think are not multichannel.

Oops, just realized I linked to the stereo 1812 Overture. I have both the stereo and the multichannel. Here's the multichannel:

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/190

And the Stravinsky. Haven't looked at them all but two out of the three I hit were stereo only. Perhaps a general link to SA-CD.net would have been better.

As I mentioned upthread, that's the most extensive site. Unfortunately, the only other good sites I could find were yours, and Flexx's, and there doesn't seem tp be a similar site for DVD-A. Even Highfidelityreviews.com seems pretty sparse.

In any case, this "Rite of Spring" seems to be very highly rated, and I believe Kal reviewed and recommended the Mercury Presence "Firebird". I can personally recommend the Mobile Fidelity "Planets", although I've only compared it to one other recording. As for the Telarc "1812", a lot of the personal reviews say the cannons are too fake and too loud, but I'd love to hear Kal's recommendation on that version or any other.

Tells us something about the market penetration of these media, doesn't it?


Yes, the Mercury Firebird is outstanding but, of course, it is only(!) in three channels. As for the 1812, I can offer no recommendations, especially with regard to the cannons. Too little music there for me.

I found the following sites have pretty good reviews on Hi-Rez titles as well:

http://www.classicstoday.com/index.asp
http://www.audaud.com/
http://www.classicalcdreview.com/sursreviews.htm

As far as the list of music OP asked for, I owned some of the following and enjoy them, but in most cases I haven't compared them to other versions to say they're the best.

Beethoven 6th & 9th: Abaddo DVD-A, Berlin Orchestra by DG
Holst Planet: Mobile Fidelity version as recommended above.
Vivaldi 4 season: Moscow Chamber Orchestra by Delos http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/140

I have the Telarc 1812 disc, but haven't listened to it yet.

Have fun!

I was amazed at the sheer number of releases those links provided. I am trying to find information on several Silverline classical DVD-A titles since a local record store just got in a bunch. I bought the Peter and the Wolf with narration by Boris Karloff and although sonically it seems ok, the narration has an odd sound. I loved that one as a kid and probably should never buy anything based on childhood memories. Some of the titles the record store has are shown here:

http://www.classicalcdreview.com/MCDVD24.html

I can't find much information and that may be because Silverline classical DVD-A is to be avoided just as much of their popular music DVD-A catalog should be.

Chris

Wow. Thanks for those. Of course, I now curse you for giving me more reasons to spend money.


Having mostly listened to the 1960s Karajan in my formative listening years, how does this compare, performance-wise?


I currently have the CD version of the Telarc, and recently purchased the Pentatone SACD with Sir Colin Davis and the Boston Symphony. The BSO version really is as good as the reviewers say. It's a quad mix, and I much prefer the "Romeo and Juliet" and Sibelius' works from Davis to "Marche Slave", "Cappricio Italien", etc.. I'd also take the warnings vis-a-vis the cannon seriously. While drums stood in for cannons on the BSO version, they were deep enough to make me jump. Although the Telarc multichannel apparently uses the LFE channel as a "height channel" I would still be concerned about the much deeper range that SACD and DVD-A provides. Yes, it's on both, and I suggest you read all the reviews for both at Amazon for add'l info if you're considering them.

You're welcomed


I have a Karajan Beethoven 9th CD by DG. I haven't listened to it for long time as the CD just sound bad on my system. So I really can't compare. All I can say is I really enjoy the Abaddo DVD-A. The recording is superb, especially in surround mode. I thought the performance is 1st class as well. I enjoyed it much more than the life performance of the 9th I had with Phoenix Symphony last year, but I didn't have a good seat then. Its one of my favourite hi-rez title.

I just listen to the Telarc 1812 overture the other day. The performance is rather incoherent and lack of emotions. The digital canon sounds like amplifier clip. Not recommended.

Is it........for you?