The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: iTunes lists its Top 30 classical albums. See if you agree and tell us what changes you would make. | February 17, 2013
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is something of interest I just happened to stumble across: iTunes has chosen and published its list of the Top 30 – or Essential 30 – classical recordings of all time.
Mind you: These are not the most popular recordings or the bestsellers.
Apple’s opinion might not matter so much. But right now, digital downloads outsell real CDs, and the trend looks to continue for a very long time. So that gives the list even more relevance and force. (Below is the iTunes logo.)
Here is a link, and be sure to read the comments as well as the link to the other Top 50 list that is provided:
See what you think of their list.
What criticism would you make? (Does anyone detect a bias towards British music? Towards Romantic and early modern music)
What would you change? Delete or add to the list?
And what do you think of iTunes musical judgment?
The Ear wants to hear.
And just maybe Apple does too. (Its logo is below.)
Tags: Apple, Classical music, Compact Disc, ICloud, iTunes, ITunes Store, Jacob Stockinger, Music, Music download
6 Comments »
Thanks, floral design, I am glad that someone else is on the same wavelength as myself, and that you thought well of the content and style of my posting. If one is going to post about culture, one ought to display a bit of it, if just for credibility’s sake.
Our collective attention span grows ever shorter, but as Life gets more concentrated, sort of like old-fashioned frozen orange juice in a can, our dollops of cultural whipped cream on the desserts of Life might get a little smaller as well. We’ll all have to cope, and we might find out some new likes and dislikes as a result.
MBB
Comment by Michael BB — February 19, 2013 @ 11:31 pm
Good day! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this write-up to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!
Comment by floral design — February 19, 2013 @ 7:13 pm
I thought the case for a pro-British bias was not that strong until saw the Elgar Enigma Var’s at the end. THAT tipped the cart over for me. Brahms is one composer, being part of the proverbial Three B’s that CANNOT be neglected. Haydn’s hits are hard to pin down. Mahler is SOOOO long all the time. As I have said before I am not really a Schubert fan, but I am also not much of a Vivaldi fan. A Shostakovich symphony or quartet would go a long way towards erasing the errors or biases.
I thought that Mr. Hewitt’s idea of 50 short classical pieces was quite a bit more interesting than a simple Top However-Many List. This puts a time limit on how a long-form culture can be represented to a short-form consumer world. A very good idea, and one that will generate a LOT more new titles (for Everyone!) than I-tunes top 30.
MBB
Comment by Michael BB — February 17, 2013 @ 11:18 pm
Haydn is absent. Elgar is represented twice. No Mahler. No Shostakovich. No Schubert. No songs, no violin concerti except Vivaldi, and no Brahms. I’d say this list is worth about as much as the paper it’s not printed on.
Comment by Mikko Utevsky — February 17, 2013 @ 12:49 pm
Hi Mikko,
And I would say you are 100 percent right.
Apple should hire you!
Jake
Comment by welltemperedear — February 17, 2013 @ 12:54 pm
There is a lot of cynicism here. The latest version of iTunes (11) has the Composers field almost completely suppressed which makes the program unusable for classical music.
There are complaints through Apple’s feedback system but not enough. Please, ask Apple to keep classical music in mind when they ‘update’ iTunes:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html
Comment by jgysenbergs — February 17, 2013 @ 4:59 am