For a complete set, Brendel is tops. I have been listening to some new recordings of Anderszewski playing the concertos, and they are outstanding.

Schnabel and Kempff are the two standards, although those new to the works might prefer a more modern sound. Arrau is excellent, although I feel he is too serious in the lighter works. Goode is wonderful, especially in the later works (makes sense, considering that Goode is an accomplished...

Adagietto from Mahler Symphony No. 5 Metamorphosen by R. Strauss Adagio for Strings by Barber

My rec would have been Toscanini, but I guess they don't have that one either.

Beethoven - Symphonies 5 and 7 - Kleiber Schubert - Death and the Maiden Quartet - Juilliard Quartet Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 - Kubelik Bach - Goldberg Variations or Brandenburg Concertos - Gould 1955/Harnoncourt And, above all, the famous van Cliburn recording of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto...

Is there a conductor who can, in your opinion, do no wrong? You'd buy a CD just because it has their name on it? Two for me are Carlos Kleiber and Furtwangler. Kleiber's few recordings were not well connected by a common theme (Wagner, J Strauss, Verdi, and the famous Beethoven 5) but they...

Linkin Park and Nickelback, huh? Might be too late to save this one... But there is hope. My wife liked Matchbox 20 and DMB and basically all the stuff that 21 yo girls like (how old she was when I met her). My technique was to introduce bands like I was really excited about them. That way it...

Seems to be a trend to cut a pop-country album if you can't make it as a pop artist.

To my mind, Karajan could do no wrong when it came to conducting Strauss. All of his mannerisms perfectly complemented what Strauss wrote. Some of my favorites: 1) The Karajan recording with Metamorphosen and the Oboe Concerto 2) Vier letzte lieder - Szell 3) Salome - Karajan 4) Lieder - a...

Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time (can't get much more apocalyptic than that) Schnittke - All of it is terrifying, but check out the String quartets and the viola concerto Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 (a little saccharine and melodramatic...

One of the suggestions that's been thrown around in other threads of this nature is compilation CDs. Check out The Art of the Prima Donna, or The Very Best of Jussi Bjorling to hear some of the best singing you'll ever hear. When you find an aria you particularly like, check out the whole opera...

There is a distinction that needs to be made here. When people refer to verismo opera as "accessible" it can also be translated as "over-the-top melodrama." Call me what you will, but I can't believe anyone - anyone - can watch La Giocanda and tell me with a straight face that it accurately...

Thankfully, the glaring omissions were from my list, not from my collection (Brandenburgs, Chopin, Beethoven PCs and VC, Shostakovich symphonies and string quartets). Thanks for the suggestions; I totally missed Haydn and sacred music when trying to assemble this.

I recently got a 30-gb Ipod with the assumption that it would be able to hold my entire music collection on 256br mp3s. Well, it's not even close. So I'm trying to distill about 1000 classical cds to the core 30 gigabytes. Here's what I have so far: Beethoven: Piano Sonatas String Quartets...

Quote: Originally Posted by Ferbose Excellent thread! Brahms is probably the greatest composer for Chamber music. His dark moods brought a new level of seriousness to chamber music. His clarinet sonatas (also in viola) and quintet are among the best. His violin and cello sonatas...