Recommendations for a few high SQ classical CDs

glupson, thanks, I will add those to my list.

bdp24, thanks for that suggestion. I have always thought of 'classical' being from Bach through Beethoven's early work...but am probably mistaken. But yes, in regard to this thread I meant pretty much everything up to Copland, etc, in the popular sense of classical.

I am familiar with some Bach, some Handel and some Vivaldi as most people are. But other than a few exceptions Baroque has not drawn my interest....which is not to say that it won't, but I'll have to make an effort. Years ago when I decided to dive into southern literature I realized that I needed to understand what it was built on. And while it is still my primary literary focus I came to love and enjoy Homer, Virgil, Dante, Cervantes and Shakespeare. ( I wish I had as much music as I do books!). Which is all to say, if I take the plunge into Classical and Romantic era music, I'll probably want to at least explore the foundational stuff. I do have 8 or 10 Haydn symphonies which I have not listened to in ages.

But I will say, a lot of my rock taste is progressive...so the long, heavy, dramatic symphonies of the Romantics fit well with that rock genre.

George, 

If you have Beethoven's 9th by Cleveland/Szell, hold, on to it. 

The San Francisco Symphony runs their own music label which is always of very high quality for both the performance and the recording. They have all of Mahler’s Symphonies (including the 4th). They also have the Beethoven 9th. If you get these on SACD, they are recorded in natural 5 channel surround sound that is REALLY AWESOME if you have the system to play it on.

https://bluecoastmusic.com/store?f%5B0%5D=field_record_label%3A139

n80,

Once upon a time, I heard a report on the radio that talked about popularity of opera among people who otherwise prefer punk rock. It talked about similarities between those two, what appears to be completely different, styles of music. I cannot repeat it now, but they dissected it and it made sense.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=911160

I'd like to comment on SQ of some of the CD's listed. The Karajan New Years Concert was mentioned. First some history; Deutsche Grammophon's digital recordings from the 1980's are far from good sound quality. Sound was dry, harsh, and their technique of multi-mic'ing resulted in a closed-in and flat presentation. DG was far behind other record labels during the early years of the CD.
    My point is to steer clear of the early DG DDD recordings, as most were remastered later in an attempt to make them listenable.

Now, I would assume the Japanese K2 CD would be superior to the DG issues for sale from US vendors.

One last comment; The San Francisco Symphony's recordings from
their record label are some of the best I've heard. It's true the SQ and performances are top class.
   Other major symphonies have created their own record labels and sell very high quality CD's. One that comes to mind is The London Symphony Orchestra.