If you liked Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, it is a transcription of music from his ballet Pulcinella for orchestra and 3 voices that you should enjoy as well. The most performed version is an instrumental suite, but I especially enjoy the complete, original score with voice.
Ernest Ansermet conducted the premier of Pulcinella and recorded it for Decca (available on streaming services in a collection of his Stravinsky recordings).
Thank you for the Mozart and Stravinsky suggestions. I’ll add them to my library today.
@bill_perkins I think I discussed with Andreas or posted some Wagenseil a few years ago. I’ll have to listen again.
Meanwhile I’m listening to this. Mainly as I grew up listening to ELP, long before I listened seriously to classical music.
ELP, Moody Blues, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac, early Pat Metheny, Eric Dolphy, early Herbie Hancock, Weather Report when I wasn’t exploring harder to find classical music. Wonderful classical music accessibility now, thanks to (in my case) Qobuz and Roon. An embarrassment of riches. Occasional choice paralysis. The latter is one of the reasons I enjoy this thread so much.
Nice seeing the more accurate Musorgsky (Мусоргский) on the cover.
Your list reflects my listening history.
Qobuz or indeed any of the streaming services have transformed my musical listening. It’s like I live in the biggest record shop in the world. For £12.99 a month it’s remarkable value.
…are followed by great findings. Like a little border that makes a sweeter freedom.
Same as I did experienced yesterday and today. Maybe not the right thread to post this but since my story starts from classical… Starts from Takemitsu: November Steps; Viola Concerto; Eclipse by Seiji Ozawa / Saito Kinen Orchestra. Focused on the Eclipse track that is using 2 instruments: biwa played by Kinshi Tsuruta and shakuhachi played by Katsuya Yokoyama. For Biwa I had a semi long playlist but not beeing very found of wind instruments I did ignore the Shakuhachi until now.
I love this thread, it’s story and inserts so I’ll put an insert kindly asking for any recommendations.
PS: I had “an occasional Friday paralysis” = without digging the new releases.
Well put, Traian. These are wonderful recommendations of traditional Japanese music that I, unfortunately, cannot access. I have a friend that is an excellent pianist who also enjoys playing the shamisen. Wonderful meditative music. I have no recommendations to offer for such recordings, but am curious. A few years ago I tried to find good recordings of Classical Chinese music and was disappointed to find so little available. I also enjoy Kodo, a Taiko-drum ensemble. I’ve heard them perform live three times and it was one of the most moving (emotionally and physically) concerts I’ve ever attended.
The Jos Van Immerseel/Anima Eterna Ravel recording is a revelation (or should I write Ravelation?). Wonderful. Beautifully recorded on period instruments. Thank you @eclectic. He was such a particular and methodical (some say Swiss watchmaker) composer that I can’t help but believe he orchestrated to the instrumentation of the time.
I’m concious that I may post Muffat works too often. 
But here is a version of Armonico Tributo that I’ve not heard before by La Stravaganza Köln. Features Andrew Manze as leader on violin.
I normally listen to the Chiara Banchini version. I think the recording quality on the Manze may be better. Performances on both releases are good. Gunar Letzbor also has a release of this.
François Joubert-Caillet, L’Achéron: Marin Marais Livres des piecès de viole. There will be the 5th out, completing the full cycle (600 works, composed between 1686 and 1725).
Here’s her latest album. With the exception of the Toccata and Fugue she performs on violin, which seems a stretch, the album contains very nice performances of infrequently performed pieces by Westhoff, Vilsmaÿr and a lovely Tartini Piccole sonata(s). The performance recording in the Parish Church of St. Mary and St. Eanswythe in Folkestone UK may strike some as too high volume ambience, but I enjoy it. She’s an amazing artist.
Re: The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, read on Classic FM that some believe that this was not composed by Bach and was composed for harpsichord or violin. To quote the article fully
“In fact, there are strong reasons to suggest that Bach’s celebrated Toccata and Fugue was not originally in D minor, nor written for the organ. It might have been written for violin or harpsichord, and some scholars believe it’s too crude a piece to have been written by Bach at all! The earliest score contains many un-Bach-like dynamics and markings, in a copy made by Johann Ringk (1717-78), who was a student of one of Bach’s students. No original manuscript survives, so perhaps we’ll never clear up the mystery.”
Lending plausibility to Rachel Podger’s performance on violin.
I don’t know who the scholars referred to above are. Perhaps one of the baroque mavens on this thread could comment? Count me as curious.
I did find this
Here’s another performance of the Vilsmaÿr Artificiosus Concentus pro Camera
An ancient music gem for the weekend:
Two ballets by Baroque reform composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. Very few conductors have recorded these. Probably because we are not used to the 18th century type of ballet suites being far from 19th century ballet traditions. Listeners who appreciate his epilogue dancing scenes in the revised version of ´Orfeo ed Euridice´ will love these 2 for sure.
Some might have to get used to Savall´s reading at first. Very rhythmic, dancing, dynamic, in a way even ´pseudo-medieval´ but at the same time following a tradition of historically informed baroque performances.
One of the scholars referred to in the article may be the French Bruce Fox-Lefriche, who in 2002 wrote a transcription of Bach’s BWV 565 in a minor for Maxim Vengerov.
Rachel Podger recorded a different transcription, and Manze recorded his own version. To me these versions for solo violin sound convincing enough to give some credit to the hypothesis that Bach’s version for organ was in fact a transcription from an (unknown or undocumented) sonata for solo violin.
The British violinist Vaughan Jones recorded in 2015 the six Vilsmaÿr partitas, and that’s the version I am still preferring over the few others (incomplete) recordings which have since been released:
The Tomita is not available on Qobuz UK. Discogs calls…
Impossible to mention Muffat too often… Your post made me discover the La Stravaganza Köln recording, thanks for that.
I don’t know if you enjoy listening to pipe organ music, but there’s another facet of Muffat’s output waiting to be discovered…
Interesting. I really enjoyed listening to Vengerov’s Bach, Shchedrin and, particularly, Ysaÿe performances. Going back to listen to his and Andrew Manze’s performances of the “Bach” toccata and fugue. Chad Kelly’s BWV 565 A minor transcription is easy on the ear and, after initial resistance to accepting it, have found Rachel Podger’s performance well-executed. I was unaware of the controversy re: BWV 565 among Bach scholars until reading the liner notes for Tutta Sola. Have decided to do some reading, including Christoph Wolff’s Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician.
Added Later: My, but Andrew Manze flies through this, not that it terribly hurts. I remember Maxim Vengerov’s version surprising me with its plausibility and find that assessment verified on my second listen. The Ysaÿe was superlative, as I also recalled.
Also found this, which is inconclusive, but again suggestive of a fifth higher A minor violin BWV 565 version.
Thank you, Andreas, for the Vaughan Jones recording recommendation. Greatly looking forward to listening to this.
Added later (2023.06.11): The Vaughan Jones Vilsmaÿr Six Partitas vivid and reverberative recording. I love this kind of recording and am surprised that St. Mary Magdalene Church, Milton Keynes, could give rise to it. An intimate church.
Rachel Podger’s Tartini performances put me in mind of the Devil’s Trill exchange earlier in this thread. A delightful exchange.
Pictures at an exhibition - a radical interpretation which especially works with the rhythm-laden pieces like ´Baba Yaga´ and ´Limoges marketsquare´:
Absolutely not recommended for people who consider classical compositions to be sacred in any way…
Although I really like these pieces being orchestrated, I have to admit that I do despise the popular orchestrations such as Ravel´s and Stokovski´s as they are very much focussing on timbre, dynamic shades and filigran nuances. Here is an alternative which in my humble opinion is transferring the idea of the composition much better into the orchestral sphere:
Again the rhythm-laden pieces like Gnomus and Baba Yaga make the difference being brutal, fast, impulsive and rough. Orchestration is very ´Mussorgsky-like´, some pieces (like Limoges, Bydlo and the Great Gate) are obviously inspired by the composer’s original orchestrations of ´Boris Godunov´ and ´Khovantshina´
Added the Philharmonia. Mekong Delta not availale on Qobuz. Thrash metal… too much for Qobuz. 
You are correct @eclectic. It is available on Tidal only and filed under ´progressive metal´.
They were recommended in this forum (fills my heart with joy to one of them back), I just happen to stumble on the new release:
And from those times I do enjoy Brahms Sonatas & Trio:
