Classical music newbie needs your suggestions

You are in for a musical experience  you never dreamed of - especially when listening on a good sound system!  I strongly recommend that you sample the extensive classical selections on YouTube,. The sound quality is surprisingly good with a quality headphone pair, and you will discover many vintage recordings from the golden era of classical stereo. There will be occasional annoying commercials - but the quality and variety of the music is fascinating.

Of particular interest are live recordings posted from Germany and Japan by the YouTube classical community, usually supplemented by worthwhile comments.  I have been particularly impressed with the performances by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony of works from the French repertoire.  Also noteworthy are the amazing live performances of the Bruckner 7th and 9th Symphonies by Sergiu Celibidache and the Münchner Philharmoniker. Happy listening; your musical adventure is just beginning.

Dear rvpiano, Horowitz and Gould are definitely my two favorite pianist of all time along with Martha Argerich and Rubenstein who played Chopin like no other. 

Rather that rattle off a list of my favorite pieces of classical music (we’d be here all day), I would advise you to do a couple real-world things to inform yourself so you can figure out what you like (of music on-hand now) and what might thrill you in future purchases:

1 - Take the time to read the liner notes. With classical it matters greatly who the composer is (of course) and who the performers are (of course, again) -- but in the larger sense, it matters what era of classical music you’re hearing (ie, baroque style vs classical style vs romantic style vs things that came in w/the 20th century).

2 - And when you hear something that thrills you, note what instrument it is (or instrument grouping: chamber vs symphonic). If you find yourself loving the cello (for example), there were fabulous pieces written for it all over the past 300 years

3 - And finally, note any composers whose works appeal to you, and any performers who impress you most. You can later on pick up more recordings based on those factors.

A friend was here yesterday and really liked a classical recording I was playing (an orchestral piece by Frederick Delius). I don’t know him to own any classical, so I asked, "If you like this so much, why don’t you own any of it?" His answer baffles me: "Because I don’t know enough about it to know what I would like."

All he has to do is spend some quality time youtubing classical of various types and eras--and pretty soon he’d have a very good idea what he likes. Your 300 recordings are the equivalent of that.

remember there is always the contrast between recording quality and performance quality. this said, these are my go-to-performances [i value performance quality over recording quality] but there is some overlap described below-

Fritz Reiner/CSO rca red seal 1960 recording of "Scheherazade." if one has Stendhal's Syndrome at all, this one will rend your heart when you hear the violinist's [Sydney Harth] solos. this is a lean-sounding vividly up-front recording but with tremendous liveness, you are virtually atop the podium here, you can hear the musician's clothing rustling, breathing, chairs and music stands creaking, sheet music shuffling, you can hear REAL MUSICIANS at work here playing at the peak of their abilities, with Reiner leading them with controlled fury. this performance is among the most brisk of all the recordings of this work i've heard [over a dozen], and stands head and shoulders above the rest. 

Neeme Järvi's [RSNO] performance of alexander nevsky cantata opus 78 is cinematic, vivid, it brings something akin to a real war between and around your loudspeakers. also a bit thin-sounding and a bit distant, a bit veiled, but the visceral rendition is what matters here. this is a fair aural document of a thrilling performance that is emotionally involving. the 1975 Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Orch. version has richer sonics with good clarity but it is IMHO, relatively speaking a leisurely reading, less a war than a collegiate argument. 

gustav holst's "the planets" suite is a tougher nut, in that there is a wide variety of performances and recordings to choose from, highly variable in performance quality and recording quality, i really can't choose well among them, but have settled on ones by Sir Georg Solti/LPO 1978, Stokowski/KAOI 1956, [1971] Zubin Mehta/LAPO - this last one is breathtakingly hypnotically visceral esp. on "mars, the bringer of war" with those low brasses grabbing one by the ears and not letting go. unfortunately, this one is also a bit thin-sounding in the bass range [otherwise a very "rounded" sound here], needed more low end. the Solti version has less violence but more suavity. there is some tape overload audible in "mars" and "uranus" esp. on the cymbal crashes, the noise floor seems artificially low and the quiet parts are VERY quiet which seems to make the brasses stand out brightly. this recording has good body/low end. the Stoky version seems to both be idiosyncratic in the way of many of Stoky's recordings but also seems to draw a line between the suave extreme of the Solti version and the violence/menace of the Mehta version. the 1956 Stoky recording has pretty good [if thin] audio quality for its day, recorded up-front with strong presence/studio sound more than hall sound, it being a very early stereo recording.  

there are other recordings of these 3 pieces that have much more sumptuous sound but the performances IMHO [your mileage may vary] just aren't quite up to the required intense feeling that these pieces need to be conveyed as fully as their composers likely intended. 

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