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How to go about collecting Classical Music

At age 68 I’ve started to like Classical Music. It’s been mostly Jazz, Rock n Roll, and R&B up to now. I’m familiar with those genres, know their history, artists, and how to best and most economically acquire their recordings. Not so the Classical repertoire which covers a much longer time period and encompasses so many styles and forms.

What genres and/or periods of Classical music should I be exploring? I’m not looking for recommendations on particular composers or artists, only genres or periods. In Classical music there is orchestral music, chamber music, opera, church music and who knows what else to try out. Maybe you could advise me, if you wouldn’t mind, of some types to try? Or maybe you could recommend a book on the subject that would help a rookie get a start understanding what’s out there.

In buying classical music, for any one work, there may be innumerable recordings by various artists, orchestras and ensembles. How do you sort out which recordings you want in that respect. For example, I looked up Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring on Ebay last night to get some idea of pricing and what classical music available there. There were so many recordings of that work, I would have no idea how to sort out which would have been a good choice. Are there web sites where there are recommendations on which recordings are most exceptional? Or alternately, are there classical record labels you can rely on routinely to provide superior quality recordings? I’ve heard Deutsche Gramophone may be a reliable label for one, but that’s about it. Could you recommend any other labels to look for?

There seems to be a lot of Classical music in SACD format relative to Jazz or Rock n ’Roll. Is there some reason for that? Should SACD be the format of choice for purchasing Classical music, or is there good classical material in Redbook format to be found? I prefer to stay away from used vinyl due to condition issues, or new vinyl due to cost. I’m guessing the better dynamic range of CD’s lends itself to orchestral music. Is there any market for used classical SACD’s? Are there any sites you prefer to purchase your Classical CD’s, either new or used?

I grew up on Long Island. On one trip to midtown Manhattan I walked into an old church not too far from St. Patrick’s to view its’ magnificent stained glass window. Once inside I heard some equally magnificent classical organ being played. I discovered the church’s incredible organ was being played by some of New York City’s finest classical organists who would book time to practice on it. That large church was always deserted, and I went back many times for what amounted to free private concerts. I’d like to know what kind of music that was to try and replicate that experience to some degree at home, From what I’ve read here and elsewhere there surely is a plethora of other wonderful Classical music to explore and enjoy. Thanks in advance for any advice,

Mike






skyscraper
larryi
4,058 posts
 
label 19,

I agree with you completely about not overlooking chamber and other smaller works of any composer.  While symphonies and concertos paid the rent, a lot of composers felt more free to be inventive and not worry about public appeal when they composed such works.  I too, particularly like Schubert's Winterreise (I have nine versions on CD and a couple more on lp) and other song cycles and his quartets and quintets.  One of my all-time favorite pieces is his D. 956 string quintet.  If all he composed was what he did in the last year of his life, he would still rank among the best composers of all time.  Of all the Beethoven recordings I have, I listen most frequently to his late quartets and his sonatas for violin and piano.  For Brahms, as magnificent as are his Symphonies and piano and violin concerti, I think my favorite single recording is a set of Chorlieder (Kolner Kammerchor/Peter Neumann).

It's really hard to even suggest a path for discovering favorite music because it is so hard to predict what will catch anyone's fancy.  Someone in my office asked me to bring in some selections for him to get started with classical music.  On a hunch, I included something that is somewhat out in left field, and it turned out to be what he liked the most; it is a recording of Harry Partch's "Delusions of the Fury."
jd3939
1 posts
 

Many great responses here. I am interested in classical music and like yourself also like physical media. I am much younger than most posting here (29 years old), but also see the utility of not having emails, scrolling habits, screen glare distracting from the listening experience. Liner notes are also extremely useful for getting some background to the works.

As mentioned by others, “classical music” is a broad and almost useless term, though intuitively we all know what we are talking about. There’s so much under that umbrella term that if someone says they don’t like classical music then they simply haven’t been exposed because there’s literally something for everyone.

I agree that ‘redbook’ CD or SACD is the way to go for physical media. Although there is a tremendous amount of music released on hybrid SACD (can be played on standard CD player, reading only redbook layer), most classical physical releases are simply redbook CDs. Personally, I just buy what I want to hear and don’t worry about SACD vs RBCD difference. I will say, it gets frustrating for someone like myself who doesn’t have an SACD transport, but wants to play physical media and still get HiRes quality. The industry simply isn’t there for us non megarich consumers.

When thinking about classical music everyone thinks of the baroque period, classical period, and romantic period. There’s a joyous treasury of music outside of this, including renaissance and medieval music, modern music, “world music”, electronic art music, other meaningless labels that extend beyond the reach of what most people think of classical music, but demand the same attentive listening stance as classical music.

The website Prestomusic has a “record of the week” column that may be useful for you in terms of discovery. If you find something you like read about similar artists and branch out from there! For me, that is one of the joys of physical media – reading the contributing artists and picking up their work.

I know you didn’t ask for specifics but I have been enjoying:

21st century music:
A Far Cry – The Law of Mosaics – brilliant recording of Andrew Norman’s “The Companion Guide to Rome”
Hughes Dufourt – L’Afrique d’apres Tiepolo, L’Asie d’apres Tiepolo
Toshio Hosokawa – Gardens

Classical:
Mozart – Violin Sonatas – Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melkinov

Baroque:
Sean Shibe – Bach Lute Suites on Classical Guitar
Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque – Bach’s Art of Fugue

Early Music:
La Morte Della Ragione – Il Giardino Armonico


skyscraper OP
831 posts
 
Twoleftears, I just finished watching the Beethoven Eroica film you recommended. It was quite good. Thanks.

Label 19, sorry to hear you’re from upstate. I don’t hold that against you much. Thanks for the link to the Classic reviews beginners site. I just now took a peek at it and will look through it more thoroughly.

Larry, so far watching youtube videos I’ve yet to come across anything classical that’s not likeable, I’m especially hoping that holds true for Bach’s works now that I own 157 cd’s worth. At a dollar a cd it was just too good a deal to pass up. There’s an awful lot of Classical out there to listen to though. But, If every single major composer had a similar complete works box set you could knock out a fairly comprehensive classical music collection within a few years that covered a lot of bases.

Mike
larryi
4,058 posts
 
If your Bach box is from the Brilliant label, I have that one too.  There are so many works of his that are sublime.  In many polls of classical music listeners and critics, his B minor mass is considered the single most important work.  I would be inclined to agree.  The only kind of work he did not undertake is opera.  Complete works of composers like Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert would also not contain any "dogs."

But, at any early stage of collecting, I would suggest surveying a wide range of composers and composition styles, including 20th and 21st century composers.


mike_in_nc
1,157 posts
 
Mike--
Books: _Inside Music_ by Karl Haas still hasn’t been improved on. Covers classical music from a variety of perspectives, including instrument families, forms, time periods, conductors, and composers. _The Indispensable Composers_ by Anthony Tommasini is the second one to add. Profiles of the lives and work of a dozen or so of the more important composers.

I can’t urge you strongly enough to spend the $120/year for Qobuz and also whatever a Bluesound Node21 costs these days. It is a wonderful way to explore new and old releases and find what you like. I have about 3,500 classical releases in my library and have been listening to classical music for 60 years, yet I still find Qobuz the best way to select new releases. Your taste will not be the same as anyone else’s, and it’s impossible to know if you will like a release without hearing it. If you avoid buying one or two duds a month by having Qobuz, it’s worth it.

I am more negative than most on LPs. Yes, there are some classic performances available, but much more comes out on CD every month.

Also, the ClassicsToday.com Website, at $49 a year, will pay for itself quickly. Its hundreds of reviews monthly have saved me from some buying some terrible CDs and alerted me to some great ones. Especially if you’re not subscribing to Qobuz or similar, it’s a must.

Have fun!
P.S. I see that @cm6td also recommended Haas’s book and ClassicsToday.com. Bravo!
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