The NPR Classical 50 : NPR

Stravinsky's Most Raging 'Rite Of Spring'

Russian-born US composer Igor Stravinsky in 1955. AFP/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Stravinsky's Most Raging 'Rite Of Spring'

March 17, 2009 • Conductor Valery Gergiev's powerful, nearly maniacal interpretation of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is a lesson in controlled chaos. He emphasizes the angular savagery in the music, which still has the capacity to shock listeners today.

Ted Libbey & Fred Child Recommend Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring'

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Rhapsody In Blue: Gershwin At His Greatest

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Rhapsody In Blue: Gershwin At His Greatest

June 30, 2009 • Leonard Bernstein does full justice to the still racy and spontaneous score of Rhapsody In Blue in this 1959 recording. As both conductor and pianist, he brings a smoky, sultry jazziness to the piece.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue

Only Available in Archive Formats.

In the final movement of his Fourth Symphony, Johannes Brahms releases a pent-up tide of emotion. Getty Images hide caption

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Brahms' 4th Symphony At Full Strength

August 11, 2009 • Whenever the reclusive Carlos Kleiber conducted an orchestra, it was a major event. Hear him bring out all the pent-up emotions in Brahms' final symphony, with the help of the Vienna Philharmonic.

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Best Of Broadway: Bernstein's 'West Side Story'

Carol Lawrence (right) sings "I Feel Pretty," along with (left to right) Elizabeth Taylor, Carmen Gutierrez and Marilyn Cooper, in the 1957 original Broadway cast recording of West Side Story. Sony Music Photo Archives/Sony Music Photo Archives hide caption

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Sony Music Photo Archives/Sony Music Photo Archives

Best Of Broadway: Bernstein's 'West Side Story'

September 1, 2009 • The original Broadway cast recording of Bernstein's West Side Story was made only three days after the show opened. More than 50 years later, the performers' fresh vitality still shines through.

One Hand, One Heart

Only Available in Archive Formats.

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Bartok's Best 'Concerto For Orchestra'

December 1, 2009 • After all these years, conductor Fritz Reiner's 1955 recording of Bartok's music remains the best. He understood the poignant, brooding, mysterious and exuberant moods it explores, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays as if it has been set on fire.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra

Only Available in Archive Formats.

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Van Cliburn's Classic Tchaikovsky

June 2, 2009 • Hear the lanky Texan's iconic 1958 recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, made on the heels of his historic victory at the very first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Ted Libbey Recommends Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Cellist Jacqueline Du Pre, recording with Sir John Barbirolli. David Farrell/EMI Classics hide caption

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David Farrell/EMI Classics

Quiet Anguish In Elgar's Cello Concerto

November 10, 2009 • The concerto was the English composer's last major work for orchestra, as well as his most confessional. In this recording, cellist Jacqueline Du Pre gives one of her finest performances, exposing both gentleness in the pain and an edge to the tenderness.

Ted Libbey And Lisa Simeone Recommend Music By Elgar

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Liszt: Surmounting The Ultimate Piano Sonata

October 13, 2009 • Franz Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor demands the utmost from the performer in musical as well as technical terms. It's a piece that in the best performances can spark a powerful emotional experience in the listener.

Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178 (LW A179)

Only Available in Archive Formats.

The original poster advertising the premiere of The Magic Flute on Sept. 30, 1791, is on display at the birth home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Getty Images hide caption

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Mozart's Forward-Looking 'Magic Flute'

July 28, 2009 • Mozart's The Magic Flute, written in the last year of his life, was a forerunner of German Romantic opera. Critic Ted Libbey recommends a specific performance by a fabulous all-star cast.

Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute), opera, K. 620

Only Available in Archive Formats.

The Autumnal Glow Of Strauss' Four Last Songs

Soprano Jessye Norman. Carol Friedman hide caption

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Carol Friedman

The Autumnal Glow Of Strauss' Four Last Songs

September 22, 2009 • Jessye Norman's voice is built for Strauss' final songs, which sound at once intimate and grand. With impeccable control over phrasing, she sings long-breathed lines at the softest volume, yet with full tone.

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Monteverdi's Poppea. Wikimedia Commons hide caption

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Wikimedia Commons

Monteverdi's Pioneering 'Vespers'

December 15, 2009 • Monteverdi stood on the divide between two great musical periods, the Renaissance and the Baroque. His Vespers illustrates a mastery at blending the new with the old in a way that's coherent, expressive and moving, especially in John Eliot Gardiner's atmospheric recording made in Venice.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Monteverdi's Vespers

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Wagner's Overtures In Full-Spectrum Sound

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Wagner's Overtures In Full-Spectrum Sound

November 17, 2009 • The German composer utilizes powerful orchestral sounds, as well as silence, to elicit a psychological and emotional response from the listener. Who better than conductor Daniel Barenboim, a veteran of the opera pit, to pull it all off?

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Mahler's Apocalyptic Second Symphony

December 29, 2009 • Mahler's grand-scale "Resurrection" Symphony marked the real beginning of his career as a composer. It's the work with which he answered the metaphysical challenge of Beethoven's Ninth, with a turbulent beginning and a triumphant conclusion.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Mahler's Symphony No. 2

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Courtesy of VocalEssence

Handel's Miraculous 'Messiah'

December 22, 2009 • Handel's deeply felt musical setting of the life of Christ conveys the emotional tide of its story with almost miraculous insight. In the process, it's acquired a universality that is unique in the history of music.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Handel's Messiah

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Jeffrey Herman/courtesy of the artist

Steve Reich's 'Maximum' Minimalism

January 12, 2010 • The composer's Music for 18 Musicians was a breakthrough work in the history of minimalism and a watershed moment in Reich's career. Its lush textures and expansion of a static harmonic situation make for a dynamic work, bringing elements of "maximalism" to minimalism.

Ted Libbey And Lisa Simeone Recommend Reich's Music for 18 Musicians

Only Available in Archive Formats.

Beethoven's Carefully Choreographed Violence

Portrait of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven by German painter Joseph Karl Stieler, circa 1820. Kean Collection/Getty Images hide caption

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Beethoven's Carefully Choreographed Violence

September 15, 2009 • Beethoven pushed the piano as far as the instrument could go — it was his instrument. Pianist Emil Gilels gives intense, powerful performances of three of the master's greatest sonatas.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Only Available in Archive Formats.

John Dowland's Art Of Melancholy

January 5, 2010 • Dowland was an important and beloved composer at a time when there was no dichotomy between popular and classical music. He was, in effect, an Elizabethan-era pop musician. The dark, wistful mood that pervades Dowland's lute music was, in its day, a sign of maturity and intelligence.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Dowland's Lute Songs

Only Available in Archive Formats.

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Schubert's Desolate 'Winter Journey'

December 8, 2009 • The song cycle Winterreise stands among the masterpieces in the art of song. Schubert conjures up harmonic twists and melodic turns, conveying emotions with remarkable simplicity and force.

Ted Libbey And Lisa Simeone Recommend Schubert's Winterreise

Only Available in Archive Formats.

The Brooklyn Bridge in 1884. Dvorak would arrive in New York only six years later to head the National Conservatory of Music. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

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