Ramon Khalona said: >One orchestra that is sorely missing from your list is Staatskapelle >Dresden ... I would agree that the Staatskapelle is a great orchestra, just shy of being one of the top ten. The Leningrad/St. Petersburg Orchestra was great under Mravinsky, but suffered from blatty brass. The Cleveland was awesome so far as precision is concerned, but Szell's precision came at the price of emotion. I heard a live concert with Stokowski conducting the orchestra and realized they were much better than the recordings I'd heard. Peace from he who is stumpf aka Sisyphus