u/Little_Grapefruit636

Born in Leipzig. The piece I return to first on his birthday is the Siegfried Idyll — composed in 1870 as a private gift for his wife Cosima, performed by musicians on the staircase of their home near Lucerne on Christmas morning while she slept. Glenn Gould's piano arrangement is worth hearing alongside the original.

What I'm listening to today, though, is what I consider the greatest recording of Tristan und Isolde: Carlos Kleiber conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden (released 1982), with Margaret Price, René Kollo, Fassbaender, and Fischer-Dieskau. For something more visual, the 1983 Bayreuth stage performance with Barenboim and Ponnelle's direction holds up very well.

Siegfried Idyll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmrkE3\_1tHQ

Glenn Gould arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIjesjmMq\_g

Kleiber/Dresden Tristan (1982): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzrPQkGjuII

Barenboim/Ponnelle Bayreuth (1983): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT2phfhIr00

Belgian composer and conductor from Aarschot who studied with Edgar Tinel at the Lemmens Institute. He composed more than 350 works, including fifteen symphonies. He served as conductor at Belgian Radio from 1930 to 1942.

Meulemans – "May Night": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDfyBQSeav0

Born in Frankfurt to French parents, François spent his career in France — chain-smoking, jazz-influenced, incapable of a conventional performance.

Here he is, cigarette in hand:
Bach: Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foX7KR5-FAE

Both Chopin piano concertos, filmed in the 1960s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoTd470VkHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TM8teAy7r0

High-quality stereo recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97-rqmCMR6M

François in a jazz club setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhrHzuGZyB8

When I want to hear Chopin nocturnes, I still turn to him. That icy tone — like a blue flame — never fades.
Chopin: Nocturnes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xx5VDoyRsM

German composer and organist who trained under Frescobaldi in Rome and served as court organist to Emperor Ferdinand III in Vienna. The central keyboard composer of the mid-17th century — the link between the Italian tradition he absorbed from Frescobaldi and the German Baroque that would follow.

His introspective Tombeau: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuquXH\_MxaI

Also recommended: Afanassiev's piano version — delicate and deeply meditative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC2v7yqQCXE

I first met Satie as a high school student, through Yuji Takahashi's delicate Gymnopédie. Listening to it now brings back the air of the room where I once played that cassette tape.

Gymnopédie No. 1 (Yuji Takahashi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBpbIZGZm28

A college friend once said, "When I listen to Satie, my room seems to clean itself." That comment stayed with me. After all, Satie himself described some of his works as musique d'ameublement — furniture music, meant to blend into a room rather than demand attention. The concept anticipated ambient music by half a century.

Musique d'ameublement – "Wallpaper in the Governor's Private Office": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU2mDkZoYsc

He is, without question, one of my top five favorite composers.

For many years Monteverdi was considered the composer of the earliest surviving opera — but Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600) predates L'Orfeo by seven years. Orfeo still stands as the first work in the form to reach lasting artistic significance.

The recording that shaped my sense of this music: Harnoncourt's 1968 account with Concentus Musicus Wien — the first complete, unabridged recording with original instruments. It is music within music.

L'Orfeo — Toccata (Opening): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru-YZcb1B4c

L'Orfeo — complete (Harnoncourt, 1968): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GrnwzEhi\_E

There's a 1960 recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto with David Oistrakh and the ORTF National Orchestra that became my gold standard for this piece.

I've bought this CD more than once. The Japanese pressing brings the soloist startlingly close; the European version captures the hall's acoustic space. Ever since, I tend to look for releases closest to the original master — though in the streaming age, that might be a relic of the past.

Brahms: Violin Concerto — Oistrakh / Klemperer / ORTF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ\_z9l9bbY4

Beethoven Complete Symphonies — Klemperer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am11UppJGs8

The first few bars have always reminded me of a horse race gate flying open. Mendelssohn was twenty-four and conducted the premiere himself at the Hanover Square Rooms in London.

Symphony No. 4 "Italian" — Paavo Järvi / hr-Sinfonieorchester: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_HX\_jF1\_Tgc

This is the version I've asked my family to play when my own time comes.

Fauré's Requiem closes not with judgment but with the In Paradisum — a quiet departure. The Pie Jesu appears midway as a solo movement, not a crowd. The structural choices have left traces in a lot of subsequent choral writing. He also wrote some of the finest chamber music in the French repertoire, and composed most of his late work in near-total deafness.

Sicilienne from Pelléas et Mélisande: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybfffKpirNo

Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-j6LLkpQYY

Requiem, Op. 48: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flboe048gn4

Lyadov is one of the great might-have-beens of Russian music. In 1908, Diaghilev approached him to compose the Firebird ballet. When Diaghilev asked how the work was going, Lyadov reportedly said he had only just bought the manuscript paper. Diaghilev turned to the twenty-seven-year-old Stravinsky instead. The Firebird premiered in 1910.

Lyadov's actual output is mostly small-scale — piano miniatures and orchestral tone poems like this one. It's worth the time.

The Enchanted Lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_OdW-zcDalo

One of the most important Baroque violinists, and his death is one of classical music's unsolved mysteries. On October 22, 1764, Leclair was found stabbed to death in his Paris home. Three suspects were investigated: his estranged wife, his nephew Guillaume-François Vachon, and a gardener. None was ever charged. The case has never been closed.

His Violin Concertos Op. 7, performed here by Fabio Biondi (playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL51GoNe8xFNoK9uhldxk8SNc9OccAlpCN

Paisiello composed his Il Barbiere di Siviglia in 1782 while serving as court composer to Catherine the Great in Saint Petersburg. It was enormously popular across Europe for decades. When Rossini set the same Beaumarchais text in 1816 — the year of Paisiello's death — audience members loyal to the original reportedly disrupted the premiere. Rossini's opera eventually won.

Il barbiere di Siviglia (Paisiello): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzlrkidYS58

French organist and composer. Organist of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont since 1996 (succeeding Duruflé), and since 2024, principal organist of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

I first heard his Towards the Light — for mixed choir and orchestra — in a Japanese broadcast of Fauré's Requiem conducted by Kazuki Yamada, and was captivated. Here is another piece worth hearing:

Violin Concerto No. 2 "Au delà du rêve": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4A9QF1rqNk

This recording was practically embedded in my childhood soul — Kremer with Maazel in the Violin Concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JakKOKC50tg

And the unforgettable Sanderling / Staatskapelle Dresden — a live 1973 Tokyo performance of Symphony No. 4. A staggering interpretation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAhhqLq76fY

There's a quote attributed to Brahms that I keep coming back to. When praised for his own music, he reportedly replied: "There aren't so many people who truly understand the greatness of Bach or Mozart. That's why someone like me becomes popular."

That, from someone who waited until his forties to write a symphony—says so much about his character.

Impossible to pick just one, so here are two:

Glenn Gould — Brahms Intermezzi (recorded in his twenties): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az9c8Skylhk

Kurt Sanderling conducts Symphony No. 2, Staatskapelle Dresden. Massive, profoundly deep, and astonishingly clean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tc6Cv2Xp8w

The premiere took place at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna. Beethoven stood at the podium but could not hear the performance; Michael Umlauf conducted from within the orchestra. At the end, a soloist had to turn Beethoven toward the audience so he could see the applause.

Beethoven — Symphony No. 9, conducted by Jordi Savall (period instruments): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwDo7MdaxhA