The Greatest Hits of Classical Music

Cafe Society
1

Hoping someone can educate me about Classical Music…

I’ve got a pretty extensive music collection, covering several genres. Pop, rock, country, jazz, reggae, folk, R&B … I certainly don’t have everything, but I’ve got lots. More than I usually get around to listening to.

But I have almost no Classical. And I don’t really know where to start.

Is there an “Essential” list for Classical music? Are there one or two composers I should get EVERYTHING by? Are there fifty or a hundred composers I should get one or two things by?

Remember, I’m just starting out here. What should be, say, my first ten acquisitions?

Oh, one other thing … how do I know which specific recording to get? For instance, if I’m picking up a recording of Beethoven’s 5th, should I get one by the London Philharmonic (don’t even know if they did one), or some other orchestra? Is there a good orchestra that has a whole series of recordings?

Thanks,
thwartme

2

I’ll start with some Baroque music.

Handel: Water Music, Messiah
Vivaldi: The Seasons
J.S. Bach: Anything, the man was incapable of writing bad music.

3

A rule of thumb (and it’s just that, a rule of thumb) I was told in school is that you should look for an orchestra and a conductor the same nationality as the composer.

As for “greatest hits” there are tons of books/guides about how to build a classical collection. For example, here’s one from NPR for 50 works; includes not just the compositions but recommends specific recordings:
http://www.npr.org/programs/pt/features/pt50.html

There is also an NPR book that covers 350 CDs:

4

As lists go, this one is pretty good as a starting off point.

This one breaks it down by era and offers more explanation on each work.

5

Just saying “classical music” is really too broad of a statement to have much meaning. You might as well say “Twentieth Century music.” And even that would be a much narrower field than all of Classical.

That said, you might go get the Fantasia soundtrack (and Fantasia 2000, too) and listen and see what particular types of classical music you like best.

6

The way I first familiarized myself with classical music was through the “greatest hits”-type compilations, each devoted to a particular composer (“The Best of Beethoven,” “The Best of Mozart,” etc.), then go on to buy complete works.

If you’re starting out, you should realize that there are several different eras (or time periods) and subgenres within the big field known as “Classical music,” and you ought to try some of each: The Baroque (Bach, Handel, Vivaldi), the Classical (Mozart, Haydn), the bridge between the Classical and Romantic periods (Beethoven, Schubert), the Romantic (Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Dvorak, Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, and many more), and the Twentieth Century (Debussy, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Copland, Shostakovich, and many, many more). Symphonies, concertos, chamber music (string quartets, piano trios, etc.), solo piano music, and more.

Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven are commonly regarded as the three greatest composers of all time, so make sure you don’t miss them.

As for which recording to get, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Look at the reviews on Amazon.com or elsewhere, listen to a sample before you buy if possible, and don’t assume that price necessarily correlates with quality; I’ve gotten some very good recordings dirt cheap.

Here’s a thread we did a while back on The Essential Music Library: Classical. (My own specific recommendations are in that thread.) It only goes up to about 1900, so supplement it with The Essential Music Library: Contemporary Classical. Be warned that, compared to earlier eras, twentieth-century pieces can sound very different from one another, and can range widely from the accessible and tuneful to the weird and hard-to-listen-to.

7

I’d suggest the same thing. You can even look for recordings directed at kids to get a good sample of what’s out there and accessible. I think you’ll be surprised and pleased to find that you are familiar with more classical music than you knew. After all, you watched Bugs Bunny, didn’t you?

Have you checked your public library for music? I’ll bet they have some excellent compilations to try.

As far as which recordings to buy, another approach is to find a musician that you like and get a bunch from him or her. It’s hard to go wrong with Itzhak Perlman.

8

I would actually start by listening via iTunes or something similar to representative works by various classical composers.

Thus, you could listen to a Mozart Piano Concerto, one of Bach’s preludes, a Beethoven symphony (I’d suggest the Seventh, which while not popular, is relatively short, and is almost quintissentially “classical”), a Chopin waltz or two, THE Tchaikovsky piano concerto, a Rachmanninof prelude, some highlights of Wagner opera orchestral music (such as from Meistersinger), etc. This will help you narrow down your likes and dislikes about classical music, both in terms of time frame (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.) and in terms of composer.

9

I started a thread a while back and the responses to it helped me a lot.

Check it out
I love The Symphonie Fantastique (I probably mangled the spelling, sorry) by Berlioz and I was surprised by how much I really loved La Mer by Debussey.

Get some Beethoven (almost anything) and Motzart Symphony’s #38, #40, #41.

I found that I really loved Chopin because I love piano work (something I didn’t know about myself until I started listening, I figured I would be more into strings than I am too.) and I also love The Rites of Spring by Stravinsky.
But more than anything start getting an education about what classical music is. There is a lot to learn, and I won’t even pretend that I have done anything but scratch the surface in the 2ish years since I started that thread.

I found that I liked Late Romantic and post Romantic stuff a lot, and I really like some Baroque, but I don’t actually care for the Classical period all that much. Too formalized for my taste. So I focused on finding composers from the era’s I liked and then finding out who those composers liked and who they inspired etc etc.

I think that the link to the 100 Greatest Classical works gives a good jumping off point, and that going to the local library is a great way to familiarize yourself with the works. Also, the single best piece of advice I got in the other thread was “Listen to everything by two different Orchestra’s/conductors/performers before deciding you don’t like it.” It is surprising how different some of the perfomances of a single piece can be.

10

You can do this on YouTube, as well. Use the first list Archive Guy posted above, and search those works on YouTube.

11

Can I assume the OP is looking for classical music that is widely recognizable - like you would probably recognize it if you ever watched the old Bugs Bunny cartoons?

For example:
Beethovan - Ode to Joy
Carl Orff - Carmina Burana O Fortuna (commonly mistaken for Basil Poledouris - Riddle Of Steelfrom Conan the Barbarian)
Mozart - Symphany #40

12

In addition to the suggestions above, I’d recommend using Last.fm as another way of exploring various composers, with the added benefit of it giving further recommendations based on your preferences.

Don’t worry too much about particular recordings or performances until you’ve developed some idea of composers, genres, styles or historical periods which particularly interest you. Then you can focus in on reviews of various releases of particular pieces, for instance.

13

Many recording companies will produce box sets of classical recordings for unbelievably cheap. I picked up a 20 CD set from Costco for about $19.99. The fact that they’ll cut single movements out of larger pieces (sometimes even excerpts :eek:) kind of tweak larger fans but as far as bang for your buck, you can’t beat it if your a beginner.

Right now I’ve got a crush on a piece in an old music ID thread around here: Un Sospiro by Franz Liszt

MOST IMPORTANTLY…be sure to listen to music you like. Find a piece you like through YouTube or whatever then maybe look at other pieces by that composer. Post something you like and people can recommend pieces like it. But the last thing you should do is listen to something because you think you’re “supposed to.” If it’s good, you’ll grow into it eventually.

14

Wow. What a great set of responses. Dopers rule.

I do recognize several classical pieces, whether from Bugs Bunny, or Fantasia, movie soundtracks, or just the brief times I’ve spent actually listening to Classical radio. I can hum along, but I don’t know what anything’s called or who it’s by.

Some of the lists posted look really great and useful. I’ll probably start with the NPR list posted by Claire Beauchamp. Thanks for that.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

thwartme

15

This is for Music Appreciation 101 classes. The selections are fantastic, and go from Gregorian Chants onward. I don’t think you could get a better overview, for not much money. Optionally, you can pick up the book to read about what you’re listening to.

16

You can often find CD collections of Classical in bargain bins, but remember one thing:

Never EVER buy any Classical CD that isn’t a full digital recording (look for the DDD in a rectangle)

Classical music CDs that are not full digital (ADD or AAD) sound terrible.

All CDs made in probably the last 15 years are full digital. But when CD players first came out they and their discs were expensive, and rich people like Classical, so a lot of the first discs made were of Classical music. So much so that there are still bargain bins full of them.

17

Terrible advice. Many of the greatest recordings ever made date from before digital technology. Although there may be shortcomings in the audio quality, the power of the musical performance is more important.

18

What?? Analogically recorded audio can sound just as good or even better than a DDD recording. The result depends a lot on the engineering and equipment to put forward a blanket statement like that.

Certainly, by following this advice, one would miss out on many of the reference recordings of the classical repertoire.

19

I have a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. I was young and dumb and forgot to write down the artist and recording details, but I know I believe it was a recording pre-1960s. With all it’s static-y goodness (someone either coughs in the background or a string player’s bow hits the stand seven seconds into the first movement) it still blows away any modern recording I’ve got on CD. Just wish I knew who the artist was. :frowning:

20

Plus, of course, there’s plenty of badly-recorded and poorly-performed digital recordings!