Okay, I'm finally going to build up my classical CD collection.

[elperromagico]

I've always loved classical music, but all of my classical music is on tape. Now I want to build up a classical music CD collection, but I'm having a hard time deciding what to get. Suggest some classical composers and compositions I should look for in my search. :D

[2Design]

1. boots randolph is not classical but great sax

[Catshrink]

2. A couple baroque must haves:

Vivaldi's Four Seasons
Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (Concerti if you wanna be correct about it)

Try to find the Trevor Pinnock or Christopher Hogwood recordings. These are awesome -- not over-orchestrated and grand.

another must have:

Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I also like the 6th and 7th. Again, go for Hogwood or Pinnock recordings.

[qwertyMike]

8. Or Glenn Gould

for the Brandenburg. Both good.

[Redleg]

23. Excellent advice on the music!

I too prefer the uncluttered approach of the "period-instrument" ensembles. I actually was lucky enough to see Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music in concert in 1997. Fantastic.

For baroque, I would add Handel's Water Music and Music for Royal Fireworks. Hogwood, Pinnock, and others have done excellent recordings of those.

[wryter2000]

3. What do you like?

If you like Beethoven, you might get the symphonies with Solti and (I think) Chicago. See if they toss in the Choral Fantasia as a lagniappe.

[elperromagico]

5. My tastes are really quite broad.

I can go for anything from Monteverdi to Stravinsky. I'm a music major, so I'm acquainted with all of it.

[wryter2000]

22. If you're a music major

You might want to go with original instruments arrangements, then. I like a big orchestra with Beethoven, but I guess it isn't authentic.

[Sparkly]

4. Depends on what you like

or whether you want a balanced collection.

There's a great classical music CD "club" you can join (BMG I think). They offer new releases, and it's like a book-of-the-month club.

[elperromagico]

6. See reply #5.

:)

[bullimiami]

7. I like Bach Bach and more Bach

Musical Offering.
Brandenburg.
Concertos for Harpsicords and Violins.
Organ Fugue in G minor......

And then Wendy/Walter Carlos playing Bach on synths...

[hyphenate]

9. It's going to sound weird

But you should go over to http://www.politicalcompass.org and look down the left hand menu. There is a page devoted to artists who embrace liberal politics. You might enjoy looking through the list. It's not a scientific grouping, but the webmasters thought it would be fun to try and classify composers. It'll give you a start, anyhow.

Personally, I love Vivaldi, Beethoven and Bach. And no collection would be complete without Holtz's Planets.

On edit: That should be "Holst" not Holtz.

[elperromagico]

16. I've read the orchestral score for "The Planets."

It's a great composition.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. The " Vladimir Horowitz plays" series is great

Mozart
Beethoven
Liszt

others too..I just don't have them all

[Poiuyt]

11. Try these sites:

http://www.classical.net/music/rep/top.html

http://www.basicrep.com/

[Donkeyboy75]

12. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

my favorite. First part is very relaxing!

[King Of Paperboys]

13. Gershwin Gershwin Gershwin

Don't tell me it's not "classical." I have been in a bad mood all weekend, and I'm now listening to my favorite song of ALL time, "Rhapsody In Blue." My God, what a fucking genius. I'm an idiot for not listening to this EVERY DAY. It ALWAYS clears up my mood and makes me feel like I've communed with the Divine.

Gershwin. Rhapsody In Blue. The whole thing.

[elperromagico]

14. I already have Gershwin.

:D

[King Of Paperboys]

15. How about Aaron Copland, smart guy?

Fanfare for the Common Man. Get it. Love it.

Also, can I interest you in some PDQ Bach? "Oedipus Tex" is mother-fucking good!

[elperromagico]

17. I have Copland on tape.

Probably should get it on CD, though.

And I know of PDQ Bach. My voice teacher in college wanted me to sing the part of Don Octave in The Stoned Guest.

[King Of Paperboys]

18. PDQ Bach is the best thing to happen to classical music.

Anything that can draw people to a beautiful, dying art form is OK.

[hlthe2b]

25. Barber: (adagio for strings), Orff: Carmina Burana, (Copland/Gershwin),

for sure...

I personally love the various romantic adagios: Elgar: Nimrod, Mahler: symphony No 5, Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2, Debussy: Clair de Lune, Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (MUST HAVE IMO), Saint Saens: The Swan, Satie Gymnopedies 1 and 3, Massenet: Meditation


And, many more, but once you get the ALWAYS recommended Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Vivaldi.... there are so many more to check out, including more recent works... Consider checking out your used CD section though. They end up with some wonderful selections from estates, since family members often just have no interest....

That many feel the need to justify Copland and Gershwin as part of the classical genre is interesting. I see classical as such an incredibly diverse grouping of composers and musical styles, that there has to be something for everyone there if they will just give it a chance...

[King Of Paperboys]

26. I refuse to justify Copland and Gershwin.

Their works speak for themselves.

[King Of Paperboys]

19. How about "Fantasies and Delusions,"

Op. 1-10 of Mr. Billy Joel, Music for Solo Piano

Music Performed by Richard Joo

I've heard worse. The man IS classically trained, and highly underrated.

[Catholic Sensation]

20. Leoncavello I Pagliacci

greatest. opera. ever.

[elperromagico]

21. I've performed "Vesti la Giubba" from that opera.

That's fun.

[MrsMatt]

33. Disagree

I think Bellini's "Norma" is the best. opera. ever.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

24. Check out the PT 50

NPR's Performance Today presents its list of fifty essential classical music CDs, selected by classical music critic and PT commentator Ted Libbey.

http://www.npr.org/programs/pt/pt50.html

[BlackVelvetElvis]

27. Classical era: FJ Haydn

The C. Hogwood series of Haydn's symphonies are really good.
The 12 London symphonies are a must (#'s 92-104).

[russian33]

28. Anything by Tchaikovsky

Also, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Khachaturian, Prokofiev (Peter and the Wolf is great)...

Tchaikovsky's Concerto No.1 and Rachmaninoff's Concerto No.2 performed by Van Cliburn is an excellent CD.

Sorry..I'm a little biased towards Russian composers :7

[terrya]

29. Mahler. Especially the 9th...with the adagio, one of the most beautiful...

pieces of music ever composed.

[Rabrrrrrr]

30. Must have George Crumb, Stockhausen, Glass, and Reich

I'm into the modern stuff, so there. :-)

For Crumb, start with the Kronos Quartet CD "Black Angels" - that's Crumb's string quartet in response to the Vietnam war, and the first modern piece to be so outlandishly written. It was composed for the Julliard String Quartet, and they took a long time to rehearse it to get it. Nowadays, of course, as Crumb said at a talk I heard him give a couple years ago, lots of people write like that and places like Juillard and MSM have Freshman who can practically sight read the dang thing. It's VERY impressive, though. And the CD has other works written in response to war, including some Ives and a few others I can't remember. Great CD. And also need to get a copy of Crumb's "Ancient Voices of Children". Made my weep when I saw it in concert a couple years ago.

Stockhausen - Helicopter Quartet is a real zinger. For string quartet and helicopters. And much of his other work is fantastic.

Glass - pick up some random sampling of old stuff and new stuff: Einstein on the Beach, Music in parallel motion, Itaipu, Symphony No. 5, Akhnaten

Reich - you MUST have "Music for 18 Musicians", and also get his pieces "Drumming" and "Tehillim".

I LOVE my copy of Mahler Sym. #2 with the LSO conducted by that magazine owner guy who's a total Mahler afficionado and is spending a lot of money to help Mahler scholarship.

You should have some John Cage, some orchestral Zappa ("Zappa and the LSO Volumes I and II" are must haves), Riley, Harry Partch, Ravel, Wagner, Schoenberg, and a bunch of other composers whose names just won't come to me and I'm not home so I can't start looking through stuff.

GOod luck on the collection!!

[MrsMatt]

34. I agree with the Crumb recommendations

they are wonderful.

Check out the SPCO Haydn symphanies (Hugh Wolff, conductor). Hell, any recording by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, regardless of conductor is worthy (be it Pinky, Dennis Russell, Hogwood, Wolff etc.). But, I am partial to Hugh - he's fabulous.

[joeybee12]

31. Dvorak, Dvorak, Dvorak, Dvorak, Dvorak, Dvorak, Dvorak, Dvorak!

Did I mention that you should get Dvorak? Anything by him is wonderful!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. How I began building my classical collection

1. Listening to classical music on the radio and writing down the names of the pieces I liked. (You may not have this opportunity, since there are fewer than one all-classical station per state.)

2. Attending concerts and buying recordings of the pieces I liked.

I feel that the genre is so broad and has existed for so long that there are really no "must haves." I don't have all the Beethoven symphones, for example, but they're easy to hear, both on the radio and performed live. I prefer to buy recordings of whatever I like rather than feeling that I have to buy off someone else's shopping list.

My personal classical library contains a lot of choral music, chamber music, and tonal contemporary composers, but I have previously gone on medieval/Renaissance and Baroque kicks. The result is over 200 classical CDs acquired over ten or twelve years.