music you cant live without

I should think a little first. The names I just mentioned have been my favorites for almost 30 years (except for Allison Krauss - 13 years or so), so I havent lived without them all this time and cant imagine doing so. Now that I have heard Eva Cassidy in the last few months, Id have to add her to the list.

I guess there are not too many classical music lovers.
But here goes: Schubert's last three string quartets, his
violin sonatas, piano trios, string trios, string quintet.
Brahms viola sonatas, piano quartets and piano concertos. Beethoven string quartets, and his piano trios. All of Webern's instrumental works. Dvorak's string quartets. Mozart's 40th symphony and his piano concertos. Those are the ones that I can listen to over and over. Tons of others
from Schumann/Mendelsohnn/Berg. I loved Bruckner in my
youth but I oded on him.

Guess we're in the minority here. Here are a couple more:

Berlioz's Fantastique; Harald en Italie
Bruckner (still haven't reached my saturation point)
Mozart's Requiem; last triptych of his symphonies; Piano Concerti 18 and 21. Alfred Brendel.....you know.
Sibelius (virtually anything he wrote)
Schubert's "Great C Major" (Don't you love the redundancy?)
Oh yeah, Beethoven ain't bad either.

I'll try to add to the minority. Anything by J.S. Bach, particularly his choral pieces, and Brahms, Shostakovich's 1st and 5th symphonies, Prokofiev's 2nd and 3rd piano concerti and first symphony, Rachmaninoff's 2nd and 3rd piano concerti and solo piano works, particularly the Corelli Variations, Copland's Symphony No. 3, Mahler's 1st, 2nd, 4th and 9th symphonies, Vaughn-Williams symphonies and Tallis Fantasia, Dvorak (anything by him)-- too many to mention, when you think of it. Check out the Most Aching-Beautiful Music thread for more.

Alfred Brendel does justice to Shubert's Impromptus,too.
Emerson String Quartet is at the moment my favorite string
quartet;very powerful and forceful particularly on Schubert's quartets and Webern's chamber pieces. What do you think of YoYo Ma's work these days?????