I Take Back All the Bad Things I Said About Shostakovich: Concerto for Violin Orchestra No. 1 is the perfect sound track for the Year of Our Lord 2012. I have come to the conclusion that the only problem with classical music that I didn't like the first time round is that I wasn't playing it loud enough.
I'll second that emotion.
I was recently sitting around doing nothing, as usual, when the question popped into my head, "How is it that I don't all of Beethoven's symphonies just like I did when I was a little kid and we had that nice Reader's Digest boxed set I listened to over and over, along with The Addams Family TV show soundtrack and Switched On Bach and Professor Ludwig von Drake Presents Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and Jan and Dean Meet Batman and Robin?"
(BTW, I've managed to get digitals of all of those except The Addams Family... Whoops, wait a sec, there it is in the iTunes store: Original Music from the TV Show by Vic Mizzy. Time to put it on the old wish list... There, done.)
So, as I was saying, (time to burn the other side of the pork chop before I get carried away again) I googled it and the first hit was an Italian site with a bunch of low-quality MP3s of old live 1950s concert recordings. So, what the hell....
Auditioning them one morning, very quietly while my roommate still slept, I was later in full accord with your conclusion after they had woken up and I was able to crank it up. Not quite the way I remember those first recordings I was exposed to (which will always sound to me like the only "right" versions), but close enough.
Excelsior!