Needless to say, the diffrences are huge. When I was getting into orchestras, my polcy was to buy Pierre Boulez renditions, and also, as Iwas modtly buying Stravinsky, his own recordings. It's a policy I'm still happy with, although Abbado, Ozawa, Sinopoli, Bernstein, Gardener and others have also delighted me. I think you should think more in terms of conductor then orchestras.

As for chamber pieces, I do not have that much experience. My girlfriend has a recording of the Messiaen I like very much - I forgot who playes on it, it's some french ensemble, the disc is on Erato. It's very joyful and abstract, and I like it very much.

----- Original Message -----

From: Kris Visser

Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 7:51 PM

Subject: classical orchestras

Again a question from me. but really, it's just a small one. I was thinking of buying some classical music, but as I don't buy classical music frequently, I realize that there are a lot of different renditions of the same piece by different orchestras. For example: I saw Messiaen's Quartet pour le fin de temps for really cheap. I was thinking that maybe the reason why it's cheap is because it's a performance by a bad orchestra (2nd hand instruments maybe?). To the people on this list who do listen to classical music frequently: does it matter which rendition I choose? Maybe it's different for each person. Or should I buy the earliest recorded performance of a piece? Or maybe there is an orchestra that you recommend, or disrecommend? Is there an orchestra that I can always trust on? Or should I just buy the cheapest cd? What should I do?

Any help is appriciated.