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What Are Your Top Five Tchaikovsky Symphony Cycles?

2.8K views 14 replies 11 participants last post by  Orfeo  
1 Markevitch / London SO (Philips)
2 Jansons / Oslo Phil (Chandos)
3/4 Muti / Philadelphia & Philharmonia (EMI)
3/4 Haitink / Concertgebouw (Philips)
5/6 Mehta / Los Angeles Phil (Decca)
5/6 Pletnev / Russian National (DG)

I don't know the Jurowski and Petrenko cycles though.
And I have only no. 4-6 of the complete Lorin Maazel / Wiener Phil (Decca) cycle, and those performances are very good. So I expect his integral is also pretty darn good.
Same goes for Antal Dorati. I like his set of the orchestral suites very much, so... his Mercury Living Presence symphonies set could well be a gem, too.
 
I could name a few half cycles - the last three, "big", symphonies: Mravinsky, Celibidache (Munich), Gergiev for example. But for the earlier three I prefer different sources for each of the symphonies.
No question, Mravinsky is awesome in 4-6.
Haven't heard any recording of his 1-3 (yet?).

Gergiev's Pathétique with the Kirov/Mariinsky orchestra is a very exciting recording imho. The later one with the Wiener Phil... less so.

But this is a bit off-topic, cuz it is an 'integral' thread.