bought on recommendation

Like Naupilus I tend to use my (good) instinct paired with reviews when buying records.

You also learn to distinguish between your critics. I don't even read Bryce Morrison since Hatto gate, I think he is discredited.

I think however that VicJay is underestimating the value of acquiring a good (the best, as is sometimes claimed) performance of a particular work. Personally, I have too many examples of works which I initially, sometimes for years, found boring, until I came across the right recording by accident, on the radio, from friends, etc.

To give a few examples, I used to think that Haydn's Symphony no 94 was the poorest of his London symphonies. Until Szell taught me how it should go (in particular the minuet). I had been putting my faith in Bernstein.

Similarly, Harnoncourt, Karajan and Kubelik had taught me that Dvorak 9 was a reasonably pleasant work if you don't listen to it too often - until Ancerl blew me out of the water. Critics keps telling me to listen out for the famous slow movement but I later discovered that anybody in front of Concertgebouw or BPO can do this - these distingished players know how to play their instruments - but only Ancerl can give the Scherzo and the finale the swagger which brings this symphony  a level above the usual national romantic fuddle-duddle.

The berated Viennese classics is another example. Why waste your time?, I always thought. Until Fricsay showed me how they should go.

Sviatoslav Richter taught me everything about Schubert's piano music. Paul Lewis' 17 min of a first movement D894 leaves me longing for the end. Richter's 24 minutes, I don't notice.

The Karajan recording has the huge organ of Notre Dame recorded separately and added over the orchestra in almost comically unrealistic fashion. You might want to sample this before buying. Levine's DG recording is a safer bet with the same orchestra.  

Probably the most classic recording that you don't have is Munch/Boston SO on RCA Living Stereo. Swift, exciting and it still sounds pretty good for its age. 

Ted

In my system, it doesn't sound "comically unrealistic" and the BPO is in top form under the very polished and refined conducting of Karajan, in very impressive sound. However, I can understand it may sound differently in other systems.

From the old ones, I still believe one of the Martinon recordings is a safe bet. He was a very good exponent of Saint-Saens. Munch, of course, was a great exponent of French music, in general (see his Berlioz).

Parla

For whatever it's worth I'd second the recommendation of the Munch recording. With Saint-Saens less is very often more, and Munch exercise a beautiful restraint which adds to to the music.

I find that Camille's music along with that of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky (and without doubt other composers) is so tuneful that restraint works better than the deliberate exposure. So, when I read usually glowing reviews of Davis' Berlioz or Pletnev's Tchaikovsky I tend not to heat them (this is where the good instinct kicks in). It may be for some, but I instinctively know that it isn't for me. The tuneful music speaks for itself, it doesn't need promoters. Munch, Ansermet, Markevitch work in Berlioz, Mravinsky, Fricsay or Markevich display similar qualities in Tchaikovsky.

Christmas before last it was Rossini and I received as gifts or bought a shedload of the stuff.

This included the Gramophone Award winning Ermione.

Last Christmas I decided to repeat the exercise but, this time, with Donizetti.

Odd, or not, that, in both cases, I end up with mostly Opera Rara, God, or in the case of there not being one, simply, bless them.

In passing, I had the Boult/Lyrita/Elgar 2nd on LP, sorry:vynil. Not only do I think that this was Boult's best recording of the work but the best recording of the work.

HWV

I understand your general point (the non-interventionist apporach) but I am not sure I would put Mravinsky in that category. While he does not pull around the tempos too much his does display use effects, such as the trick of pulling back just before climaxes (Jansons does much the same on his Chandos recordings, but somehow it just comes across as mannered to me - a case of the pupil not having the magic of the master, just the tricks). It does help of course the 1960's Leningrad Philharmonic is just one of the most amazing sounds ever (as distinctive to my ears as the contemporary Berlin Phil with Karajan). For me the Mravinsky Tchaikovsky (DG) Symphony recordings are one of the glories of all recorded music (that I have heard) and certainly this is one case where I have almost given up listening to any other recording. The fifth is awesome...

HWV

I understand your general point (the non-interventionist approach) but I am not sure I would put Mravinsky in that category. While he does not pull around the tempos too much his does display use effects, such as the trick of pulling back just before climaxes (Jansons does much the same on his Chandos recordings, but somehow it just comes across as mannered to me - a case of the pupil not having the magic of the master, just the tricks). It does help of course the 1960's Leningrad Philharmonic is just one of the most amazing sounds ever (as distinctive to my ears as the contemporaneous Berlin Phil with Karajan). For me the Mravinsky Tchaikovsky (DG) Symphony recordings are one of the glories of all recorded music (that I have heard) and certainly this is one case where I have almost given up listening to any other recording. The fifth is awesome...