Classical Top Five

Well said !

Try as I might, I'll always admire JS Bach more than truly love the guy. Just like Brahms, his stuff often strikes my ears as more contrived than inspired.  Either didactic or cranked out for a paycheck. It doesn't help that as the King (or whoever it was) told Mozart in the play Amadeus, there are just "too many notes." It's not that I haven't tried to give him his due, either. My record and CD shelves aren't exactly devoid of the dude. I dutifully toil through his Well Tempered Klavier on my piano.

Jpwarren58,

My sympathies on your knee replacement. I had one done six months ago.
No picnic and a lot of pain.
Hang in!
Listen to a lot of Gould’s Bach.

No love for Handel?

@kenrus -- Yeah, one of my favorite records is a l'oiseau-lyre two LP edition of Handel's "Acis & Galatea" featuring an in-her-prime Joan Sutherland, but I mostly just can't get behind the composer. For me, his stuff just feels too specifically targeted to the Upper Clahhhses.  It lacks emotional power. It seems composed in a way to give an audience the okay to socialize and do business as it's being performed.