Birmingham does remarkably well in a new survey of the world's greatest classical recordings, finds Terry Grimley.
After running the rule over everything from the world's best golf courses to its greatest paintings, Cassell's infuriatingly compulsive 1001 series of books has turned its attention to classical music.
1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die is a bulky guide to what should be on the classical music lover's iPod, and no doubt it is guaranteed to ruffle feathers among those dedicated to this performance tradition or that individual artist.
A team of well-known critics has compiled a list of 1,001 recommended recordings of individual works ranging from the12th century to the 21st.
Entries are arranged in chronological order by date of composition, beginning with Carmina Burana - not the familiar 20th century choral work by Carl Orff but the original medieval songs on which it was based, as recorded by the Clemencic Consort in 1975.
The most recent work to make the cut is Julian Anderson's The Book of Hours, written for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and premiered right here at the CBSO Centre in 2004, and recorded by BCMG the following year.
BCMG also makes the book for its recording of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony with Simon Rattle.
In fact, Birmingham recordings make a remarkably strong showing in this selection. A number of the CDs made by Rattle during his 18 years as music director of the CBSO from 1980 to 1998 have held their own against all-comers.
They take the laurels in Stravinsky's Firebird and Apollo, Schoenberg's Erwar-tung and Five Orchestral Pieces, Szymanowski's Violin Concerto no 1, Stabat Mater and King Roger, Percy Grainger's In a Nutshell, Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and two pieces they actually commissioned - Mark Anthony Turnage's Three Screaming Popes and Thomas Ades's Asyla.
Other CBSO recordings featured are Saint-Saens's Piano Concertos nos 2 and 5, from the award-winning complete set with pianist Stephen Hough and Sakari Oramo. Another CBSO recording with Hough, Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto no 1, with Lawrence Foster conducting, also makes the mix - as does Busoni's Piano Concerto with Peter Donohoe and Mark Elder.
As well as the CBSO, Birmingham chamber choir Ex Cathedra also gets an entry for Moon, Sun & All Things, its second collection of baroque music from Latin America, in particular for the Dixit Dominus by Juan de Araujo.
Of course, the choice of this recording over that one is ultimately highly subjective and potentially qestionable. For example, Jascha Horenstein's pioneering recording of Mahler's Third Symphony, recommended here, was summarily dismissed in a recent Radio 3 CD Review feature comparing all available versions as being simply outmoded by modern standards of Mahler performance.
Similarly, I was surprised to see one of my favourite symphonies, Nielsen's Fourth, represented by Jean Martinon's 1966 RCA recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I actually own a copy of this, but I would be much more likely to slip Herbert Blomstedt's San Francisco version - or, for that matter, Rattle and the CBSO's - into the CD player.
On the other hand, the book is spot-on in nominating Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic's even earlier (1962) version of Nielsen's Fifth. This is its first-ever stereo recording, but it still holds its classic status.
It's striking that many selected recordings date from the early days of stereo in the late 1950s, with several survivors from the pioneering Hi-Fi brands, RCA's Living Stereo (Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Munch) and Mercury Living Presence (Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Cockerel Suite London Symphony Orchestra and Dorati).
Some are even earlier. The nominated version of the Elgar Violin Concerto, for example, is the one made by Albert Sammons in 1929, which is recommended over the more celebrated Menuhin recording made three years later.
* 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die is published by Cassell at £20
