I like the more powerful sounding songs but haven’t got a clue what any of them are called.

I know Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’s’ but what else should I be looking at.

Not keen on the softly tinkly piano type things but am open to suggestion.

Beethoven 9 should get the juices flowing. Elgar’s Cello Concerto? Neither are Opera sorry-not my strong point. Rite of Spring by Stravinsky for something more modern. Carmina Burana by Carl Orff is pretty ballsy utter, toss though imo. Nesun Dorma is the perennial Opera classic I guess?

Mozarts Requiem Mass – some quiet passages and some loud – best of both worlds in that respect 🙂

Beethoven’s Symphonies. 5, 7 and 9 for starters.

Greig; Peer Gynt:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLXNmKvLBQ[/video]

But what you should really do, to gain a proper appreciation for classical music, is attend a concert or two, at somewhere like the Festival Hall or the Barbican; then you will see what a magnificent thing a full orchestra in full flight truly is. Awesome is not an inappropriate word to use in this context.

The Prom season at the Albert Hall is an excellent way to dip your toe in the sea of classical music; great venue (not the best for sound but still pretty good), an eclectically diverse range of composers and orchestras, and bloody cheap compared to a lot of live music performances.

And check out your local classical scene; many churches have concerts on at weekends and evenings, and sometimes they are free. Might be a bit ‘religious’, but will often be excellent in terms of musical performance. Classical musicians do it because they love music, not because they want to be famous pop stars.

And nothing can compare to hearing Bach in a grand old cathedral. The perfect combination of music and auditorium.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Aej0vQJNQA[/video]

Heard this many years ago, in Rouen cathedral. An experience never bettered or even equalled.

Verdi:dies irae, Vivaldi: Gloria etc. Like a wee bit of classical as it goes. Its an age thing.

Holst’s Planets Suite is another good ‘beginner’ piece:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83J68Y7Z1nk[/video]

Start listening to Radio 3/classic FM. The latter is more populist, but the former has some unusual stuff quite often. both are excellent.

Bookmarked this thread, was gonna start a similar one myself.
Was rummaging thru my old mans classical collection at the weekend (it’s vast) and wondered where to start.
I started with Tchaikovsky (sp?) 1812. It’s pretty heavy in places 🙂
(I’m a Metallica fan 🙂 )

Really glad I didn’t charity shop his classical CDs when I was emptying his house out.

Music is awesome.

I’d echo what Fred says about going to a concert, not much beats seeing a full orchestra blasting out a good piece.

Radio 3 is the awsumz-only radio station that I’ve listened to for the last 8 years.

You can pick up very good box sets of classical music for under £20 on eBay they will contain a large amount of the popular stuff.

Rodrigo’s guitar concerto is pretty accessible I guess? It seems pretty popular anyhow-stunning piece.

Montagues and Capulets from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suite is pretty ‘loud’ too (apprentice theme)

Personally, I’m a huge fan of Puccini’s operas.

Easy option is film soundtracks too: LOTR, Pirates of the Caribean, Gladiator etc

Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue. Slinky bits, jolly bits, blasty bits.

Love it.

Easy option is film soundtracks

Problem with most film scores is that they don’t stand up well on their own, without the visual. But having said that, John Williams is probably the king of classical score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTlqGcByVs

That link won’t work in the video code for some reason.

I started with Tchaikovsky (sp?) 1812. It’s pretty heavy in places

Tchaikovsky is one of the greatest.

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=tchaikovsky&aq=0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&gl=GB&sa=N&tab=w1

Bloody links aren’t working in the video code, sorry.

Thanks for the recommendations.

I’m going through some Youtube playlists and surprisingly the ‘softy piano-y’ things by Mozart nice and relaxing.

But of course, there have been countless wonderful pieces in films, and not always credited. This particular little bugger has taken me years to track down!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c7r76LdwgE

I give up with the YT links. 😥

As far as opera goes I would start with Puccini. Madam Butterfly or Turandot are good as you will probably find some of it familiar.

Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto – get or download Shine starring geoffrey Rush as David Helfgott if you really want to get a story for it
Saint Saens Organ Symphony No 3 in C Major, best live with a serious organ (RSNO played it in Dundee’s Caird Hall using the Harrison and Harrison organ and it was awesome, you could feel the sound before you heard it)

And Nicola Benedetti – if you look for her on Youtube it’s most likely to be Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending, but on her CDs she does a bit more obscure stuff.

I give up with the YT links

Make sure it’s not “https”, http links work fine.

Youtube is excellent for exploring classical music, the quality is obviously not guaranteed, but searching for “Proms” for example is a good way to get started. Gustavo Dudamel is an entertaining conductor, also a good search term:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo1KHr-b-CA[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8_yzb4LLaE[/video]

1:28 goosebumps

Get the film Amadeus on DVD, it will give you a good appreciation of Mozart’s genius and how and why classical music was composed.