Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, Conductor Rca Victor Lsc 2608

Boston SO, Charles Munch - Claude Debussy & Maurice Ravel: Orchestral Works (1962/2006) Japanese Blu-Spec CD, 2009

Claude Debussy: Prélude À L'Après-Midi D'Un Faune; Nocturnes; Printemps
Maurice Ravel: La Valse; Boléro
Boston Symphony Orchestra; Charles Munch, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 297 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 149 Mb | Scans ~ 52 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: BMG Japan | # BVCC 20008 | Time: 01:05:26

There could be no better introduction to the sound of the Boston Symphony, in the repertoire in which it became most famous, than this French collection with Charles Munch. Sometimes wild and unpredictable in concert performances, Munch's conducting here is both visceral yet elegant, full of mystery when called for and unbridled in its passion at other times. 1962 Recordings.
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3; Debussy: La Mer; Ibert: Escales (2004)

Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3; Debussy: La Mer; Ibert: Escales (2004)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 357 Mb | Total time: 73:04 | Scans included
Classical | Label: BMG RCA | # 82876 61387 2 | Recorded: 1956, 1959

There is an enormous amount to admire in Munch’s reading of Saint-Saëns’ ‘Organ’ symphony, right from the glowing strings of the opening through to the truly superbly articulated first-movement climax. Munch gets real delicacy from his Bostonians in the Poco adagio, and the organ’s entry in the finale is certainly highly impressive. Perhaps the Scherzo could be more on-the-ball, though. This remains one of the top recommendations for this piece.
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (1959/2016) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/192kHz]

Charles Münch, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Beethoven: Symphony No.9 (1959/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time - 62:11 minutes | 2,12 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time - 62:11 minutes | 1,27 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Charles Munch's isn't the most subtle Beethoven around, but it certainly is exciting, and that counts for a lot. In particular, this Ninth has what has to be one of the angriest, most fiery first movements ever recorded. It's worth hearing for that alone, but there are other attractions as well, including a perfectly paced Adagio, and a very well-sung finale with some stellar names among the soloists…
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch - Beethoven: Overtures (1956) [TR24][SM][OF]

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch - Beethoven: Overtures (1956)
FLAC (Tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Front Cover | 00:47:00 | 1,97 Gb | 5% Recovery
Classical, Orchestral | © 2016 Sony Classical

A genial conductor with a particular gift for French music, Charles Munch extended the Boston Symphony's glory years (begun under the baton of Serge Koussevitzky) into the early 1960s. Munch was so venerated that conservative Bostonians even declined to fuss over rumors that he was having an affair with his niece, pianist Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer; they wrote it off as part of his romantic French nature. Paradoxically, Munch was not precisely French. He was born in Alsace-Lorraine, which at the time (1891) was controlled by Germany and has long hovered between two cultural worlds. Munch himself benefitted from both French and German musical training, and his first important musical posts were in Germany…
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch - Ernest Chausson & Cesar Franck (1962/2016) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch - Ernest Chausson: Symphony in B-Flat / Cesar Franck: Le Chasseur maudit (1962/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time - 45:41 minutes | 1.86 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front Cover

It was in 1881 that a young man of twenty-six entered the class of Cesar Franck at the Paris Conservatoire. He had had a not too congenial teacher in Massenet. Franck, then fifty-nine and known as the organist at the Church of Sainte-Clotilde, was attracting young pupils to his side (d’Indy, Duparc, Ropartz, Pierne). His own attempts at composition were as yet almost unknown. Yet Franck at once inspired Ernest Chausson with hopes of becoming a composer.
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (1962) [Official Digital Download - HDTT 2012]

Charles Münch, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (1962/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time - 49:01 minutes | 1,92 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 49:01 minutes | 1020 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: CD Artwork

Charles Münch and his orchestra are utterly persuasive in their view of the work and thanks to HDTT, they are with us again in wonderful, near-analogue sound. Incidentally, this 1962 version is rarely seen on a reissue, the 1956 version is the one thats almost always used.
Viktoria Mullova, Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Sibelius, Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos (2001)

Viktoria Mullova, Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Sibelius, Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos (2001)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 281 Mb | Total time: 66:34 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Philips | # 464 741-2 | Recorded: 1985

This is the seemingly unavoidable Sibelius/Tchaikovsky pairing, one that has launched many a young career. Itzhak Perlman recorded these very same pieces for his own debut album on RCA, and with this very orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf. That's a fine disc, but Perlman would later surpass those efforts in later recordings. Nor do I find Leinsdorf an ideal partner, with the comically booming percussion in the Sibelius perhaps the biggest audible gaffe. These current readings are much more satisfying overall. Mullova has not redone these pieces, nor is she prone to recording much at all, so these early efforts deserve credit for holding up so well.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa - Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20 (1979) 2CDs, Reissue 1996

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Ballet In Four Acts, Op. 20 (1979) 2CDs, Reissue 1996
Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 658 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 343 Mb | Scans ~ 52 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 453 055-2 | Time: 02:30:04

Swan Lake was the first of Tchaikovsky's three great ballets– works which added a new level of depth and sophistication to what had been a purely superficial art form. Today the music is so well-known and popular that it's impossible to comprehend the difficulties the composer experienced at early performances. Audiences found the music "too symphonic," and the dancers were put off by the prominence given to the orchestra which, they felt, distracted ballet fans from the action on stage. Of course, all of these supposed "defects" are precisely what we admire about the music today, and this elegant but exciting performance reveals the music in all of its glory.
Andris Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1, 14 & 15, Chamber Symphony in C minor (2021)

Andris Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1, 14 & 15, Chamber Symphony in C minor (2021)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 671 Mb | Total time: 157:23 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 4860546 | Recorded: 2018-2020

The newest addition to Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's award-winning survey of Shostakovich's orchestral works takes on symphonies from the opposite ends of the composer's life. Shostakovich's first symphony, composed when he was only 19, announced his presence to the world, while his 15th seemingly grapples with his impending mortality. The Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10, was written as a graduation piece for his composition class at the Leningrad Conservatory. The composer's youth and the influences of Stravinsky and Prokofiev are evident in the work, but there are plenty of allusions to his later style. Slightly on the slower side overall, the emotion and forward motion of the music is not lost. The Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141, written a few years before the composer's death, though not programmatic, seems to present a look at the cycle of life.
Sergei Koussevitzky, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5; Francesca da Rimini (2022)

Sergei Koussevitzky, Boston Symphony Orchestra - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5; Francesca da Rimini (2022)
WEB FLAC | Tracks ~ 333 Mb | Total time: 2 h 14 min | Cover
Classical | Label: Archipel | # ARPCD 0750 | Recorded: 1945, 1946, 1949

Koussevitzky’s early biographer Lourie reports that in his salad days Koussevitzky–like his mentor Arthur Nikisch–“based his performances of Tchaikovsky on the emotional side of the music… (but in later years) after undergoing a great and serious evolution… [Koussevitzky] adopted a correct and entirely new method of treating this composer”. While that new method may have emphasized the music’s symphonic structure and Beethovenian dynamism, Koussevitzky never slighted the seething emotions that permeate this composer’s scores. Ever the showman, Koussevitzky deftly portrays the composer’s shifting moods, from the ink-black darkness and devastation of the Pathetique to the incredible resilience of the human spirit captured in the closing moments of the Fourth Symphony, immediately following the last and most disturbing appearance of the fate motif.