Classical CD Library: A Music Lover's Guide to Great Recorded Perfomances Dhun H. Sethna and William C. Stivelman

This book's choices for excellent recordings are great!

Sethna and Stivelman have composed a text for the novice, one which neither intends to be exhaustive nor comprehensive. The content is limitied principally to symphonic literature, and the histories of each work depicted are sufficiently brief and yet broad-spectrum enough to allow the new introductee to classical music to glean a feel of the work. Stivelman's contribution, the recommended performances, indeed are hardly dangerous, but are, rather, well educated recommendations based on my 65 years of listening. His choices are apt, desert-island issues, and his recommendations are rather mainstream. He does identify willful performances which are worthy but by and large his choices are well engineered, acutely performed, educated interpretations by major artists and orchestras, so they will be readily available to the public in North America. Indeed this is a home-spun effort, but it is one, contrary to our Idaho-friend below, which is an excellent point of departure for the new listener. I could not recommend it more highly.

PICK IT UP! Ironically, the dilemma with books of this nature is that even experts disagree widely, and when experts disagree so widely there are no experts. At best, there are guides, and the difficulty is finding a guide to suit your taste. The key is not necessarily picking up the latest book on the subject and following its suggestions, but choosing a favorite recording of your own, say a particular version of Scheherazade or the Unfinished or whatever first got you interested, and checking to see which guide agrees with you - and then adopting that guide for other recordings. I remember buying Martin Bookspan's book, 101 Masterpieces of Music and Their Composers, and chucking it in disgust when I read he prized a recording of the Brahms Double Concerto by Francescatti/Fournier/Walter for its elegance and polish over the Heifetz/Piatigorsky/Wallenstein recording which he found hectic, rushed, and ragged. I'd found the H/P/W gutsy, guttural, and individualistic, and the F/F/W a performance by numbers, a corporate effort - in short, uninspired. Sethna and Stivelman's Classical CD Library practically fell into my lap during the Christmas season as I was in the process of replacing records of favorite works with CDs. Brahms is still my touchstone, the composer I know and like best, but looking through the selections for his Violin Concerto I found no mention of my favorite interpretation - by Perlman/Giulini. Instead, among other recommendations, two recordings by Anne-Sophie Mutter were listed, the earlier with Karajan recorded when Mutter was still a teener, the later with Masur. To the second Stivelman grants a dazzling technique, to the first incandescence, but what roused my curiosity was the particular nature of his enthusiasm: "[Mutter] is truly overwhelming in the guttural tone that she obtains from her instrument ... [and has] a concussive effect upon me equivalent to that of the San Andreas Fault!" I was reminded of my affection for the guttural Double by H/P/W and searched for the teen version - which amply rewarded my search. I listened to it three times back-to-back the first day and was reduced each time to a breathless state. The cliché's true: I was listening to it again for the first time. An added bonus: the teen version is paired with the Mendelssohn Violin, no less enjoyable though hardly as thrilling as the Brahms - but that's Mendelssohn's fault, not Mutter's, not Stivelman's, not Sethna's. The book's become, as you may imagine, an indispensable reference. I would say more, but my time's better spent listening yet again to Mutter's violin - but let me recommend instead that you pick up the volume and check it out for yourself.

I offer another point of view. Stivelman and Sethna have written a book from their hearts. This is not an academic text--nor should it be. It is admittedly subjective and that's GOOD, because the intelligent discussions are what make appreciation of classical music so delicious! I found it informative as well as humorous.

Although I have never written a review such as this, I felt compelled to present a differing slant from the person whose words I find dangerous.....the term he uses to describe the book. For all of us who are not professionally involved with classical music, but include it as a part of our everyday nourishment, the sadness we carry because of the state of classical music in the United States is palpable. Radio stations dumbing down, fewer recordings being made and of course, less employment. Classical music is rarely taught in public schools anymore, where the football, not a whole note, is the ovoid shape. We who care deeply for the artform need many easily digestible books, such as this, to START the process by which our new listeners learn.......and eventually get to Groves.Right!! Some people have no interest in going that far--okay; all the more reason to have a well written, newly published accessible volume for them! Let us try to keep all the arts alive through reading, museums, listening, going to theater, symphony, etc. With this book in hand, listening to a selected piece....and explaining it to your child as well as yourself makes up much for the loss of public school music education.