I’m trying to find some really high energy classical music, but I don’t know where to look. I’m looking for something along the lines of “Dragons Fly On The Winds Of Time” or “The Great Locomotive Chase”. So, anything I should be listening to?
Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has always been a favorite. Most of the others that come to mind are even more well known. There are a lot of good examples inthis thread, although it’s not all classical music.
I can’t vouch for the sound quality, but it’s enough to give you a sense of it
Here’s another suggestion
Bach- Toccata and Fugue in G Minor
Beethoven- Symphony No. 6- Too long to link, just trust me
Mozart- Symphony No. 40- Ditto
Barber- Adagio for Strings
Schubert- Symphony No. 9 (Unfinished)- Again, too long to link to
Mussorgsky- Night on Bald Mountain
Stravinsky- Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)- Unbelievably brutal and atonal, but worth every bit of the time you take to listen to it
Grieg- In the Hall of the Mountain King (from Peer Gynt)- Phenomenal
Ravel- Bolero- 18 minutes of bliss
Dukas- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice- If the climax don’t get you going, nothing will
Gershwin- Rhapsody in Blue- A personal favorite, if not exactly “classic”
I could go on and on (my father is a professional musician, I grew up with this), but that’s an exceptionally good start. If you never heard anything else you’d still have chills running up and down your spine, they’re that awesome.
Ah, the hell with it. Just start here and work down the provided links on the right. None of them are bad. Some are not favorites of mine, but I’m somewhat discerning in that regard. I am a classical music snob, sue me.
Oh, and because I didn’t trouble myself to read the OP (I responded to the thread title), an “upbeat” classical music piece would be Los Torreadors by Bizet {from Carmen). Flight of the Bumblebee (Rimsky-Korsakov) or the Sabre Dance (Khachaturian) would be a good way to go.
Sorry for both missing the point and getting carried away, but classical music is something that never fails to get me wound up. It’s too bad that it’s so unappreciated anymore.
By the way… get off my lawn.
Karl Jenkins Palladio
If you like more bombastic stuff I like Ferde Grofé’s Niagra Falls or Hiroshima/Nagasaki Requiem. Also Pride of the Dwarves.
On the more frenetic part of the spectrum check out Kronos Quartets’ Half-wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight.
Also Walter Piston’s “The Incredible Flutist: XII. Polka Finale”
I wondered why you considered Barber’s Adagio “high energy.” 
Several of the Beethoven symphonies are pretty fast-moving and exciting, especially if performed by Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonik, or even more by Toscanini and the NBC orchestra. Try the end of the Seventh symphony, for instance, or of the fifth.
Lots of Anton Dvorak’s stuff fits this bill.
If you can get past the Lone Ranger and Warner Brothers Cartoon imagery, the William Tell overture works, too. If you really want a rush, get Wendfy Carlos performing it on the synthesizer. Actually, a lot of Bach and others of his contempraries performed by Carlos are incredibly fast, upbeat stuff.
If you want some “high energy” piano, try Chopin’s “Military Polonaise” and Liszt’s
Hungarian Rhapsodies #14, and then #2. Spectacular. And Brahm’s “Rhapsodie in G Minor”, Op 79 #2 is a good one if you want to arouse a young lady. At least that’s what an old girl friend once told me. Worked, too.
Specifically, the Slavonic Dances
Maybe try some Prokofiev, like the 3rd Piano Concerto
Most of what has been mentioned here (understandably enough) is orchestral, but there also exists fast, energetic classical music for piano*, string quartet, etc.
*ETA: written before I saw Post #11 
You can’t go wrong with a little Ludwig Van. Fourth (choral) movement of the ninth.
“Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!”
Yeah, I was picturing him working out to Debussy’s “La Mer”.
Someone mentioned the William Tell Overture… lots of stuff by Rossini would probably do the trick for you.
I would also recommend:
The March from Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges.
“Poet and Peasant Overture” by von Suppe.
Ravel’s Bolero (starts quiet, builds to very high energy).
Various pieces from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, especially the Russian Dance (Trepak).
“The Ride of the Valkyries” from Wagner’s Die Valkure.
Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” Overture
Really not great sound quality, but here’s another non-orchestral piece
When I read the thread title, what started playing in my head was Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony.
Thanks for all the replies! I’ll be sure to check them out!
Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, especially ‘the Dance of the Knights’
Antonín (not Anton) Dvořák’s 9th symphony ‘The New World’
Borodin’s ‘Polovtsian Dances’
Leoš Janáček’s ‘Na zarostlem chodniku’
Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’
J.S. Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’
Bedřich Smetana’s ‘Vltava’
Wagner’s ‘Walkürenritt’