New Classical On Spotify This Week: Beethoven & Mahler Symphony Cycles & 6 Other Box-sets

From Afront's New On Spotify page I discovered that Spotify just added in some awesome classical box-sets this week, including probably the best HIP cycle of Beethoven symphonies from John Eliot Gardiner, he is the only one I know that finished the 9th in one hour, and it still sounds very convincing. His 4th is my favourite of the set, neat and energetic. Bernstein's Mahler remains one of the best for the beginners, though now I mainly listen to Abbado, Bertini, Boulez and Michael Gielen's Mahler recordings.

Leonard Bernstein– Mahler: The Symphonies (Spotify Link)

Valery Gergiev – Prokofiev: Operas (Spotify Link)

John Eliot Gardiner – Beethoven: The 9 Symphonies (Spotify Link)

Simon Preston – Bach, J.S.: The Organ Works (Spotify Link)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau & Daniel Barenboim – Wolf: Lieder (Spotify Link)

And some relatively smaller box-sets, Antal Doráti – Kodaly: Orchestral Works, Bernard Haitink – Liszt: Tone Poems, Witold Rowicki – Dvorak: The Symphonies.OK the Dvorak set is actually bigger than Beethoven's CD-number wise, though many considered his first 6 symphonies of lesser importance, I'm just being lazy here not to put a image for it. At least his 3rd and 6th are classics. By the way, one of my favourite joke on LvB:

Teacher: How many symphonies did Beethoven write?

Student: Three. The 3rd, the fifth, and the ninth.

Great to see so many classical warhorses coming into Spotify this week, and happy listening:)