Robert Tilendis' Music Picks

Every year about this time, our esteemed Editor and Publisher starts e-mailing staff with hard questions. This year he started out with "What was the best music reviewed at GMR in 2007?"

Sheesh.

OK -- time to dive into the Archives. (A pastime I heartily recommend, by the way -- fascinating to see the range and number of things we have discussed here.) As unwieldy as my music collection has gotten, I sometimes forget just when things were reviewed. I do find myself going back into our music, however, and listening again. In fact, many of these CDs become regulars on my personal playlist. (No, I don't just download them -- that's not the way the reviewing game works.)

One of these constant companions (or close enough to constant) is Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, not a new release, but one we did review here this year. The Ring has always been one of my favorite works, and the 1953 Bayreuth Festival live recording under the direction of Clemens Krauss is stellar. It's not perfect -- I don't think there is such a thing as a "perfect" Ring -- but it is magnificent. I've listened to it, and parts of it (the Forging Scene is still incomparable), several times in the past year, and it loses none of its luster. Compelling drama, amazing cast, and firm, clear-sighted direction. How can you go wrong?

Another on my list is Boiled in Lead's Songs from The Gypsy. I've been listening to that one again recently, too, and "Blackened Page" still brings a catch to my throat. Like any exceptional work, I constantly find new things in it, enough to keep me coming back again and again.

My third choice this year is one that surprised me a little: Gary Graffman's recordings of the Tchaikovsky piano concertos, et al. I think it's a good lesson for us to have our settled opinions assaulted every once in a while, and this recording certainly did that to my comfortably ensconced thoughts on Tchaikovsky. Graffman reveals the great Russian as a strong, tough writer, adventurous and demanding. His rendering of Mussorgky's Pictures at an Exhibition is equally revealing. Altogether a top-notch effort.

There's other good music, but these three really made a memorable impact on my year.