classical sampler?

Classical music was composed over a span of hundreds of years, and consequently changed quite considerably over that period, from early music, through baroque, classical, romantic and then modern. I would try to select a few representative pieces of music from each part of history to see if you have a preference for one period over another.

Bach is the definitive composer for baroque music.
Mozart and Beethoven both wrote mostly classical style, with occasional romantic music.
For romantic era my favourite is Brahms, though there are many others.
For modern music a good introduction would be Rachmaninov.

Since you have specified a preference for more dramatic music I'll suggest the following:
1. Bach : Toccata & Fugue BWV 565 (somewhat overplayed, but the original is rather good) dramatic organ music.
2. Mozart piano concerto no 20: a perennial favourite piano concerto. If you don't like it you won't like any Mozart.
3. Mozart Requiem Mass ... totally unlike other Mozart ... dark and other-wordly.
4. "Tchaikovsky Festival" CD Naxos 8.550500 ... removes dust from speaker cones !
5. Mussorgsky - Night on the bare mountain (Decca Legends 289 460 977-2)
6. Carl Orf - Carmina Burana (music from "The Omen" .. there's a good version on Decca). Haunting 10th century lyrics set to modern but sinister sounding music.

I'm thinking there's probably something by Wagner you might like, but I don't really like Wagner myself, so I'm not in a position to suggest a specific piece.

Snipes:

If this were 25 or 30 years ago, I would suggest starting with something like Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring." Back then, Frank Zappa (Mothers of Invention) cited Stravinsky as a major influence to his music. Keith Emerson (the Nice & Emerson, Lake, & Palmer) and Procol Harum both cited Bach as an influence (a "Whiter Shade of Pale" is built around a Bach cantata). Also, ELP's recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition" is just their version of Mussorgsky's composition. It was interviews and music like this that got me started in listening to classical music.

Two useful web-sites to look at are:

1. Classics Today is a newsletter that is carried in most record stores and has reviews of new releases by categories.
2. http://www.hypermusic.ca/hist/mainmenu.html - has a pretty useful overview of the different musical periods that comprise classical music.

At this point, it is not necessary to get the best recording of any piece, but rather to get to know what you like. Most classical compilations have either a "music to relax by" or "instrument" theme to them ... so they may/may not be useful to you. Find a period ( I would suggest after 1800) or composer (Stravinsky; Beethoven) or instrument (organ; violin; guitar) and jump in.

Sticking with either Naxos or EMI's Greatest Performance/Greatest Artist series is an inexpensive way to explore classical music.

Regards, Rich

Here's a link to an earlier thread discussing various points of entry for people new to classical who'd like to begin exploring:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?gmusi&1116521882

Seandtaylor99 has offered soe interesting starting points for individual works. The link above includes many others that you might find as good starting points.

Don't forget to check with your local public library. Many libraries have nice collections of classical music on CD that would allow you to sample some different music at no cost and no risk to your wallet.

The world of classical music is so large and so diverse, there is no one avenue for exploring it. As you suggest in your opening post to this thread, listening to a sampler CD just to find out what grabs your attention may be a good way to start. The other is to borrow some CDs from the library of several works listed in this and the other thread and see if any of those works resonate with you. If you hear something that grabs your interest, tell us the music and we can offer you some additional suggestions that would build from that.
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Here's a suggestion that some may consider lightweight or frivolous, but it's an inexpensive way to get briefly exposed to a wide variety of classical music. Telarc has produced a series of ten (10) classical sampler CDs (all drawn of course from the Telarc catalog), which can often be bought very cheaply used on Amazon.com from Amazon.com marketplace sellers. They are called The Telarc Collection, volumes 1 through 10. There's a lot of good stuff to be sampled in them (I have all ten). Telarc has also produced a 2002 classical sampler entitled Telarc Classical: Celebrating 25 Years (2 CDs, and it has a companion volume, also 2 CDs, sampling Telarc Jazz).

I admit to enjoying samplers, and have classical samplers from Dorian, Reference Recordings, RCA Living Stereo, Naxos, and probably a few others. Their advantage lies in exposing you to a broad range of music briefly and cheaply. Their disadvantage is that the selections are usually brief, sometimes short snippets, that may not provide enough exposure to the piece of music before moving on to the next selection. But they have their place, I think, and can also be fun for audiophiles. If you're new to classical music, they can at least point you in some rewarding directions and give you ideas as to what you'd like to explore more fully.

Thanks for the responses and recommendations. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to start, but I hope to pick up a couple disks this weekend. The public library is a good suggestion, now if I only knew where that was...

Thanks and I'll report back