William Steinberg (1899–1978) was a conductor much loved and respected by musicians with a clear and concise beat and an unassuming manner who was much in demand from the world’s leading orchestras and soloists for much of the 20th Century. His recordings with Heifetz, Milstein and Firkusny are among the best to be found anywhere and have stood the test of time for over 60 years in the catalogue.

He held conductorships in London and Boston and founded the Israel Philharmonic with Hubermann, but it was as the successor to his earlier teacher and friend Klemperer in Pittsburgh which cemented his fame and reputation.

Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.

These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.

A few criteria:

Recording must be on Qobuz and/or Tidal HiFi.

It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.

No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is probably the most well known piece of classical music in the world, or at least the first four notes. It was used as a wartime victory sign and as the definitive idea of ”fate“ in a musical capacity knocking on the door. After this, however, the remaining thirty five minutes of it are sometimes glossed over and the effects and orchestration of the work which terrified listeners on its first hearing is now taken for granted in a world which has since heard The Rite of Spring and music of the Second Viennese school.

Greek conductor/actor Teodor Currentzis has a reputation for analysing and deconstructing the score to its component parts and has both exhilarated and generated the ire of audiences and critics around the world. However, many grudgingly admit to having a unique musical experience which some loudly protest they don't want again. This has resulted in record sales not seen since the days of Karajan.

Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.

These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.

A few criteria:

1. Recording must be on either Qobuz and/or Tidal HiFi.

2. It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.

3. No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.

The violinist Erica Morini was born in Vienna and made her debut in 1916 with both the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras under the baton of the legendary Arthur Nikisch. The critics hailed her as one of the best players before the public and she enjoyed a fifty year career appearing all over the world with every major orchestra and conductor of her day.

Morini retired from playing in 1975 and is reported to have never played the violin again. She died in New York City in 1995 aged ninety one having largely been forgotten by the musical world.

The Belgian-naturalized, French conductor André Cluytens occupies an interesting position in the pantheon of French maestros. He was the first French conductor to sell a million records and was also the first conductor after the war to record a Beethoven cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1957 when Cluytens commenced his performances, the Berlin orchestra was still very much under the influence of Furtwängler, who had died fours years before. Yet today it is Pierre Monteux and Charles Munch who are remembered as the great French conductors despite Cluytens making some very fine recordings and dominating the opera houses of Bayrueth and Paris for many seasons until his untimely death in 1967 at the age of sixty two.

His reputation suffered not because of his musical qualities but because he had been charged and convicted of being a collaborator during the World War 2 and this derailed him for some years despite being eventually exonerated of this crime and being allowed to continue his career.

The works on this CD cover over half a century of Ralph Vaughan Williams' (RVW) composing career and go a long way to explaining why he is probably the most international and well known British composer of the first half of the 20th Century.

RVW was happy to break boundaries and although he was taught by Bruch in Berlin and Parry and Stanford at the Royal College of Music, he rejected the straight jacket of German romanticism in favour of a more personal approach to composing. His time spent with Ravel in Paris crystallized his thinking and gave him his first major success with the Variations on a Theme of Thomas Tallis –  one of the finest string works to be written in the 20th Century.

The 1st World War also had a huge impact on his life and attitudes but before any of this happened he produced a number of works that showed a real talent for combining folk music with orchestral  development, not least the Bucolic Suite of 1900 with a middle movement of great beauty and style.

We take it for granted today that we can hear any type of music at any time but before the development of recorded music it was a struggle for many even well known composers to get their work heard if it required large orchestras.

Arnold Schoenberg admired Mahler and we have to thank his industry for arranging Leider Eines Fahrenden Gesellen and Das Lied von der Erde for small forces which give singers and players a chance to perform these masterpieces more regularly in a more intimate setting.