Pictures at an Exhibition - Orchestrations & Arrangements for Other Forces

"Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite in ten movements composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists. It has become further known through various orchestrations and arrangements produced by other musicians and composers, with Maurice Ravel's arrangement being the most recorded and performed." - Wikipedia

This playlist consists of over 30 arrangements of Pictures, including over a dozen orchestrations, from Henry Wood, Leo Funtek, Maurice Ravel, Lucien Cailliet, Leopold Stokowski, Sergei Gorchakov (the RCA recording by Rickenbacher comes with colorful narrations), Lawrence Leonard (for piano and orchestra), Vladimir Ashkenazy (sounds much more Russian than Ravel's), Emile Naoumoff (for piano and orchestra), Leonard Slatkin (compendium version), Peter Breiner (for large orchestra). In addition, there's also arrangements for brass ensemble, piano trio, organ, trombone and piano, accordion, two accordions, cello and bass ensemble, wind orchestra, bassoon ensemble, piano and percussion, marimba duo... and yes, rock bands (ELP and metal band Mekong Delta). For solo piano, I included Kissin's performance of the original, plus Horowitz and Moiseiwitsch's own revised versions.

Get this collection in one playlist: Pictures at an Exhibition - Orchestrations & Arrangements for Other Forces (505 track, total time: 20 hours). Ctrl (CMD) + G to browse in album view. For complete list of arrangements, see Wikipedia.

35 Complete Sets of Beethoven Symphonies on Spotify

Recordings are sorted chronologically, click links below for reviews:

Weingartner 1927-38, Furtwangler 1942-44,  Furtwangler 1948-54,  Scherchen 1951-54, Karajan 1951-1955, Toscanini 1950s,  Jochum 1950s, Krips late 1950s, Szell 1957-67,  Walter 1958-63, Karajan 1963, Bernstein 1960s, Jochum, 1967-69, Solti, early 1970s, Bernstein 1970s, Karajan, 1975-77, Ferencsik 1970s, Hogwood, 1980s,  Wand 1985-88, Muti 1980-1992, Karajan mid-1980s, Abbado 1986, Solti 1986-89, Masur late 1980s - early 1990s Harnoncourt 1991, Gardiner 1994, Haitink 1990s, Davis 1990s, Barenboim 1999, Abbado 2000, Abbado 2001, Hickox, 2004, Nelson 2006, Pletnev 2007, Tremblay 2010, Krivine 2011.

Spotify is silently making huge progress on converting their library to 320 kbps, 27 of the 34 sets (one is not available in the UK)  are already available in HQ. See log file here.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Beethoven Symphonies Box-sets (35 tracks, total time: 9 hours). It features the opening movement of the Eroica symphony from every set. Use Ctrl (CMD)+G to browse.

I left out some low-budget, outdated recordings, there's no point to spend time on them when you can get most of the other "full price" recordings on Spotify. There's also numerous individual recordings of outstanding Beethoven symphony performances on Spotify, like Kleiber's 7th and Casals' 8th, but we cannot include them here in this index for complete sets.

For American users, only 17 sets are currently available in your place, please uncheck "Hide unplayable tracks" in preferences if you want to browse the full list.

Lastly, a great free ebook: On the performance of Beethoven's symphonies (1900) by Weingartner.

Chopin For Japan

20 great renditions of Chopin's e minor prelude, plus one more played by one Jack Nicholson.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Chopin E minor Prelude (20 tracks, total time: 41 minutes). Tracks are arranged in fast-slow sequence, so you may hear very different moods and characters in almost every two consecutive tracks. Also use this as an index of Chopin preludes recordings on Spotify. And do check out this Ted video of Benjamin Zander talks about music, passion and this prelude.

I dedicate this playlist to the Japanese people. You are, forgive me for quoting a scripture that bears no relation to most of you, the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.

The Most Significant Piano Work of the Millennium

At least the eminent Charles Rosen said so.

If you are interested in this magnificent composition, J.S. Bach's The Musical Offering, and Prussia history of Bach's time in general, I recommend this book: Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment.

Here's the Spotify playlist: The Musical Offering: Ricercar in 6 Voices (21 tracks, total time: 2 hours) It features the ricercar played on piano (by Rosen), organ, harpsichord, and by various kinds of ensembles, plus orchestra arrangement by Anton Webern, and a triple orchestra version by Igor Markevitch. Yes it's the same music played 20 times (one version is not available in the UK and one in Sweden), but this is probably the best example of a piece of music that bears, deserves and benefits from repeated listens. Enjoy.

The Greatest Opus One Ever?

Berg by Schoenberg

A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but the title may not be far off the mark,  provided we don't take Bach's last word on the keyboard suite, the Six Partitas as his Opus one as the composer intended. Glenn Gould argued that many composers's first works are their best, and he used the Berg sonata op.1 as a major example. It is also one of his favourite pieces, so we have three recordings from him in this playlist, placed at the beginning, followed by interpretations from fourteen other pianists, arranged alphabetically. At the end, two recordings of the string sextet arrangement and an orchestra version.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Berg Piano Sonata Op.1 (21 tracks, total time: 3 hours) And Analysis of Piano Sonata, Op. 1 (1907-8) by Andrew Kuster. Tomorrow is the first day of the Year of the Rabbit,  an especially great time to enjoy this great opus one :)

P.S. I recently updated my Schoenberg Op.1-50 playlist.

37 Ways to Play the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin

1720 Autograph of the Adagio

Naturally, after the WTC playlist, I compiled another one for the supreme masterwork for the queen of all instruments: Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. So far I found 37 recordings by 32 artists, from Schumann and Brahms' lifelong friend Joseph Joachim, who made the Bach recording in 1903, to the talented young Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, who was born 147 years later than Joachim. Just like the WTC playlist, this one can also function as an index of great violinists on Spotify. Only significant missings seem to be Joseph Szigeti and Adolf Busch.


I put the opening movement of the first sonata, the adagio from every recording to this playlist, you can compare the first notes of every recording at ease, or, much better than that, simply brower the artist names and pick up one recording for two hours of sublime music.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin (37 tracks, total time: 2 hours) You can find some useful notes and reviews here. My favourite recordings for now are Grumiaux, Mintz, Milstein and Szeryng's.

30 Ways to Play the Well-Tempered Clavier

Today's post is about a 30-track playlist of music's most fascinating and intriguing work, The Well-Tempered Clavier composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. I chose 30 different recordings of this work made by 30 distinctive artists, and put every C Major prelude BWV 846 in this playlist. The result is great fun, you can listen to 30 different interpretations of this profoundly charming prelude in a row, or simple browse the artist names and pick up one complete recording of the WTC and listen to the full album.


Most of my favourite recordings are on Spotify now, Edwin Fischer, Glenn Gould, András Schiff, Till Fellner, Sviatoslav Richter, and Rosalyn Tureck. And in the progress of compiling this playlsit I found a truly great recording that was unknown to me, the complete WTC by Australian pianist Roger Woodward, here's a very informative blog post about him. Another stimulating recording is from Olli Mustonen, who mixed the Old Testament of piano literature with Shostakovich's 24 Prelude and Fugue Op. 87. The only important missing recordings of WTC I can think of are Pierre Hantai, Kenneth Gilbert and Angela Hewitt's. I hope Spotify makes a deal with Hyperion soon.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Well-Tempered Clavier (30 tracks, total time: to infinity and beyond). You can find lots of helpful reviews on these recordings here. And this video below clearly demonstrates the importance of interpreters in Bach's music:)