J.S.Bach: Magnificat, Brandenbergs, cello suites by Yo-Yo Ma, Glenn Gould doing piano sonatas, Tochata and Fugue in D minor
Allegri: Miserere
Faure: Requiem
Mozart: Requiem
Vivaldi: Stabat Mater
Beethoven: ninth symphony, the Emperor
Guitar classical: Julian Bream, Paco de Lucia
Popular opera collections: Benjamino Gigli, Jussi Bjorling

As well as the more recent stuff recommended above, go for older Renaissance music by Tallis, Byrd, Tavener (as well as the modern John Tavener who has just died) Palestrina, Gabrieli, Praetorius, Gibbons etc. Beautiful.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGQLXRTl3Z0[/video]

The Cello Suites Bach

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjRt-o0XwZ4[/video]

Rachmaninov’s Vespers Some of the best choral music, I think

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkkX-S9zmz0[/video]

Mozart Piano Concert 23 in A

There’s too wide a range – do you want purely Classical (i.e. Beethoven onwards) or earlier Baroque style such as Handel (Zadok the Priest) and Bach e.g. 48 Preludes & Fugues or even earlier?
Then there’s 20th Cent Classical, e.g, Holst The Planets and Elgar’s Nimrod, moving onto Philip Glass and John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

It might be worth listening to radio BBC3 Breakfast or Classical FM to get a feel for what you like.

THEN there’s which conductor you like as one arrangement can sound really different to another.

sublime

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOzatzJEnSo[/video]

some good ones here

I’ve only got 1 classical album – Rossini’s William Tell Overture. I robbed it off an ex-girlfriend. It’s stirring stuff, but I could live without it.

Some of my favourites are:

Rachmaninov piano concerto no 2
Beethoven, symphonies 5 and 7 are my pavourites, but they are all great
Mozart, requiem, clarinet concerto
Beethoven piano concerto no5
Stravinsky, the rite of spring
Vaughan Williams , fantasy on a theme by Thomas Tallis

Not very adventurous , but all good!

My favourites are

Mendelssohn violin concerto in E (all time fave) – beautiful, fragile, powerful, perfect.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmj7nCRYNs4[/video]

Bach Cello suite 5 (c minor)

And as THM said pretty much all of Chopin – Pianist Soundtrack is a good random spattering of his stuff for a taster.

Wynton Marsalis – The London Concert

Stravinsky – Rite of Spring and Symphony in 3 movements

Handel’s Messiah

Rachmaninov piano concertos

See if you can find a copy of Shine starring Geoffrey Rush, the story of pianist David Helfgott. Rachmaninov’s Third won’t sound the same

Someone suggested Carmen – I’d look for Carmen Jones (on film as well), which moves the story to 1940’s Harlem and translates the songs to English (big plus if you want to follow the story)- The Toreadors Song/Stand Up and Fight is brilliant

I also really like Saint Saens Organ Symphony No 3 in C Maj but having heard it on the local concert hall organ, well that’s a bit different to any home stereo performance.

listen to some ClassicFM/ R3 to pick up what you like.

EDIT – come to think of it, why not go to an orchestral concert?

Interesting that Bach’s cello suites are mentioned several times. Originally tests rather than performance pieces but with different themes.

Best explained in the fascinating book

Wife and younger son both cellists (hence bias in my choices) but both biased against suites from having them used as technique exercises in their development. They are now less keen and moan when I put them on!!!

MM’s version of allegro appassionato (one of THM minor’s showpieces) is great too.

Great thread!

I’m no expert at all, and quite happily have Radio 3 just play me stuff but I really love Beethoven’s string quartets and Brahms’ symphonies 1-4.

The Charles Ives recommendation further up ^ is brilliant!

+1 for Erik Satie as well. And Nils Frahm. There was a tremendous 6Music session with him last year, might have been on Gilles Peterson.

If you like Cello music, it is often rearranged for the lute which is sublime – try Andrew Maginley “the Baroque Lute”, I should declare an interest as he is a friend.

The Radio 3 idea is a good one. I put myself on a strict diet of it for 6 months and it certainly clarified and extended what I liked and didn’t like. Classic FM I found too lightweight and populist. I was always amused by the R3 newsreaders sounding rather surprised that anything of significance could happen outside of music.

‘Must have’ for me would Schubert’s Impromptus and Moments Musicaux for piano. Beautiful pieces, played at their best (IMO) by Peter Frankl. Might not be for you though if you prefer something more orchestral. This is the album:

Much of what has already been posted however, if it’s the 1812 Overture you’re after then it has to be THIS RECORDING. It uses actual, period cannon and musket fire as well as proper church bells.

Have scared the neighbours more than once with it.

Barber Adagio
Elgar- symphony 1&2, Cello Concerto, Enigma Variations (Nimrod sends me emotional every time), Pomp & Circumstance Marches, all great British music.
Karl Jenkins The armed Man & Requiem, slightly more contemporary
Dvorak New world Symphony no.9(Hovis advert)
Mahler Symphony 1&5
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue, An American in paris
Mussorgsky Pictures from an Exhibition, Night on a Bare Mountain
Prokofiev Classical Symphony, Lieutenant Kije
Saint Saens Organ Symphony no.3 Piano Concerto no.2
Shostakovitch Jazz Suite
Vaughan williams Fantasia on Greensleeves

A lot of Recordings have several pieces by the same composer so worth looking at different recordings

Moldau by Smetana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pKiNlxoA0o

Dvorak’s Cello Concerto is beautiful.
Saint Saens Piano Concerto no.2 is a great listen for a relative novice as well. Loads packed into it.
For something a bit wackier with some church bell action at the end, try Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.

I like minimalist and quite modern stuff too…

Steve Reich – the Nonesuch ‘Phases’ collection is superb and includes some of Metalheart’s recommendations

Michael Gordon – Industry is fantastic, in particular the electric cello piece, a recording of which should be somewhere in this http://boilerroom.tv/session/jonny-greenwood-and-the-london-contemporary-orchestra/ …but my browser’s not playing, and besides I was there when it was recorded!!

Eric Satie – Gnossiennes and Gymnopedie both lovely

Terry Riley – A rainbow in curved air

Messiaen – Turangalila – a bit crazy, but if you like modern music it’s not much of a jump.

I think it’s very tricky to make definite suggestions because as with all music (or art for that matter) taste enters into the equation.

I was going to make the suggestion of listening to Radio 3 too. It’s perfect breakfast time listening and is the default station on the car radio (except when it comes back from a service – odd that!).

There’s a guide of sorts on their website http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/onmusic/

ELP were mentioned earlier and certainly in my young days my early taste of anything vaguely classical was via ELP and The Nice (Mussorgsky, Janacek, Copland). I think for anyone raised on a diet of rock that 20th century music is initially going to be more palatable (thrilling even?) than earlier periods. I started at around Shostakovich and drifted backwards to Stravinsky, Mahler, Bruckner, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Bach…

These days I enjoy lots of stuff from Early music (Renaissance, etc) through to 21st C. Though not everything of course – taste as I mentioned. I used to do my browsing and sampling in the local record library, now there is tons of stuff available online. Try the big names first then if you find a style or period you particularly enjoy spend a bit of time investigating that.

But… BIG shoutout from me for Benjamin Britten.

Any of Mozart’s concertos for flute, violin, piano, etc.

This. It (piano concerto) was the only thing that would calm our daughter when she was newborn and we both really enjoyed it!

John Dowland – In Darkness Let Me Dwell. Hauntingly beautiful singing from the Hilliyard Ensemble.

Ruggiero Ricci-Decca Recordings 1950-1960. Simply the best violin playing you’ll ever hear.

definitely agree on the Britten, slowoldman, but it may not be an immediate attraction.
On the other mentions – do we share the same record collection?!

See also Debussy Cello Sonata; Scubert Arpeggione Sonata.

I also have a very soft spot for Monteverdi, Gabrielli and the Venetian Renaissance set.

Could I just suggest Henry Purcell, Dido & Aeneas in particular but anything is great.

I’m a particular fan of counter tenners of the Baroque period. Have a look out for the anything Andreas Schell, brilliant voice. I suspect he’s pretty pleased he’s a natural rather than become a castrato.

Mahler 4,5,6
Brahms 1 & 4
Beethoven 7
Mozart requiem, trio from the end of first act of Cosi
Janacek and Bartok string quartets
Bach St Mathew passion and Brandenburg 2, and cello suites and the Goldberg variations
Shostakovich 24 preludes and fugues
Tons of stuff really important to me.

But also rock, funk, house. Miles, Bill Evans
Anything but trad jazz and thrash metal
There is only good music and bad music.

Worth a listen is Nigel Kennedy and Palestine Strings performing Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons at the proms.

definitely agree on the Britten, slowoldman, but it may not be an immediate attraction.
On the other mentions – do we share the same record collection?!

I came to Britten initially through the “Variation on a theme of Frank Bridge” when I was particularly keen on English string music (having a stab at learning viola; Britten was a violist) and then drifted to the String Quartets which are sublime – and onwards to all manner of things beyond. These days I’m an amateur oboist and still Britten hits the spot, I aspire to his “6 Metamorphoses after Ovid” and “Temporal Variations”.

But yes, I looked back at your earlier post and I suppose we do share the same collections. The Janacek string quartets are fabulous, though for a starter I would point anyone to Janacek’s “Sinfonietta” and “Taras Bulba”.

I’ve always blown a bit hot and cold over Brahms but there are a couple of superb viola sonatas (arrangements of earlier clarinet sonatas).

For symphonies with impact and composers who are peerless in their use of the different colours available in the orchestra I would go for Shostakovich (for starters symphonies 5, 8 and 10, then 7) and Mahler (1, 4, 2)

Some of the Richard Strauss symphonic poems are worth a listen – Also Sprach Zarathustra and Alpine Symphony for example.

Oh and speaking of Steve Reich, there are some great Youtube videos which nicely demonstrate the use of shifting rhythms

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lesDb9GsQm4&spfreload=10[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doJk4yPwJDk&spfreload=10[/video]

Some of these minimalist pieces go on a bit, and on and on. But the point is to just let them drag you in. A nice glass of red helps.