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Home (/) » features (/features) » 250 greatest recordings of all time: chosen by 35 of the world's leading musicians

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Here we reveal the 250 greatest classical recordings, as selected for

Gramophone by more than 30 leading musicians. Below, contributing
editor and reviewer Rob Cowan muses on why artists and critics might
choose differently...

"Do you play yourself?” There can’t be a music critic in the land who hasn’t
at one time or another been asked that very question. As if it matters. Do
crime novelists need to be criminals, or theatre critics playwrights? I pose
the question because so often lay listeners assume that performers and
critics hear music in the same way, and very often they don’t. Being a (https://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink
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musician is not the same as being a performer: there are many competent
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amateur players who lack even an iota of musicianship, while attentive e389499a9216;itime=124954101;)
listeners who aren’t endowed with the technique or the coordination
necessary to achieve an adequate performance often feel the music more Sign up
acutely than those who actually play it. OK, this may sound high-handed to for our
a fault, the defensive credo of a musically ungifted scribe, but search the newsletter 
back issues of Gramophone and you’ll find that virtually all the most The latest news,
perceptive commentary on music has been written by “musicians” who features, blogs and
reviews delivered
either don’t play, or if they do, don’t play in public.
weekly to your inbox!

Listening itself is an art, and when, as a music journalist or critic, you set
(https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/sign-up-
out to interview performing musicians about repertoire or about other
to-the-free-gramophone-newsletter)
performers, you will very quickly be shown the door if your own musical
intuition is found wanting. And a musician doesn’t need to agree with you
on specific performers or recordings. The common ground that musical The all-time
performers and critics share concerns the basic essentials of interpretative greats
genius, not least a discernible musical personality, respect for – rather than Read about the artists
slavish adherence to – the score, a musical sense of timing, a feeling for who changed the world
of classical music.
period and appropriate style and, more vital than anything, that indefinable
(https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus
quality that signals a symbiotic rapport between the performer and the
/gramophone-hall-of-fame)
composer. That’s an area where sensitive critics and musicians nearly
always agree: you sense the glow of recognition at the mere idea of (to
mention just a few of the miracles chosen by our artists) Schnabel’s or (https://twitter.com/GramophoneMag)
Gramophone Gramophone Print The Gramophone The Gramophone Gramophone Gramophone
(https://twitter.com/GramophoneMag)
Furtwängler’s
SubscriptionsBeethoven, Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert’s Winterreise
Club Digital Club Reviews Digital Edition
or the Callas/de Sabata Tosca. Tweets by @GramophoneMag
Some choices are rather telling, or at least they seem so to me. For Gramophone
example, Hilary Hahn opting for Jascha Heifetz’s earlier, pre-war recordings @GramophoneMag

of Saint-Saëns and Sarasate showpieces rather than his more pungent, Gramophone’s Editor Martin Cullingford
and Editor-in-Chief James Jolly discuss
post-war versions. The reason I say that is because to my ears those some of the main features and most
Print Edition
Thirties 78s more approximate Hahn’s own predominantly lyrical style than significant releases covered in the
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Heifetz’s later recordings are pushed up a rung or latest issue of Gramophone.
Digital
two. And
Edition (#)what of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet choosing Carlos Kleiber’s Tristan Little snippet right here
over, say, Furtwängler’s? Could that be something to do with the (#) (#)
Digital
bit.ly/2qYsy1o
(#)
performance’s
Archive (#) combination of rarefied atmosphere and textual
transparency,
Reviews edging Tristan just a little in the direction of Debussy’s (#)
Database
Pelléas?
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Yefim Bronfman mentions Beethoven’s (#)
string quartets with the (#)
Events &
Budapest Quartet and, yes, there too I imagine parallels: tonal solidity,
Offers (#)
interpretative directness and an obvious respect for musical form. That’s (#)
(#)
one of the bonuses of talking to artists who are eager to share their
responses to great recordings: £64
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But “musicians as critics” is also at times a rather complex issue. I’ve
Subscribe (https://www.magsubscriptions.com/music-gramophone-gramophone-fullclub?utm_source=Gramophone
sometimes wondered whether when certain musicians review recordings,
either privately or in print, they harbour an unconscious agenda, justifying
their
If youown
are technical weaknesses
a library, university or by promoting
other the idea
organisation thatofwould
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be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here
“that matters so much more than technique”. Which might
(https://institutions.exacteditions.com/gramophone)for explain
further the
information.
occasional oddball recommendation. No accusing fingers, I promise!

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Past conversations Contact
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Christopher
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Advertise (/featuresrecordings of Willem
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Mengelberg (Bernard Haitink’s
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sharing is much the same as
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performer
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we have to write
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about them, though there are plenty of verbally eloquent
(/page/website-terms- musicians around
(http://www.qobuz.com
– Alfred Brendel, for example. Which brings me to one/gb-en/page
and-conditions) final point; what
artists experience when they Twitter
read critics on their own/gramophone)
performances and
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whether that in turn colours their attitude to the writings
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Julian Anderson composer; Marin Alsop conductor; Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
pianist; Yefim Bronfman pianist; Iain Burnside pianist; Semyon Bychkov
© MA Business and Leisure Ltd. 2018
conductor; Sarah Chang violinist; Harry Christophers conductor; Natalie