Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Recommendations for ten Classical CD’s?

wow...that's jumping in with both feet! Congrats! I'd love to hear what you think of all 12!

Well the way I figure it, I’m bound to hate some of them, and love others. If I can get a few that I really like, then I can let all you classical music gurus know which ones they are so you can recommend some more. These classical CD’s are pretty cheap, plus, I’ve got another 650 gigs of storage to fill up. LOL

Moonlight Sonata/Beethoven.

Amazing when you think about it, these classical composers were the 'Rock Stars' of their time.

Youtube is a great place to audition music before you buy it, I'm starting to like jazz for the first time in my life but not sure where to start...don't know much in the way of jazz musicians.

I gave each of the CD’s I bought a spin. Some didn’t make it very far before I hit the “skip disk” button on my remote, but I did give each track a listen (some longer than others). I still need to take more time and figure out what it is that I like / dislike about each one, but I figured I’d give my real quick, unorthodox ranking. And I reserve the right to change my order after I listen to them some more… LOL

I bought these:

Holst, Planets
Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake
Dvorak, Cello Concerto
Respighi, Symphonic Poems
Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances
Ravel, Daphnis et Chloe
Brahms, Hungarian Dances
Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
Smetana, Ma Vlast
Khachaturian, Spartacus
Janine Jansen's Four Season's – Vivaldi
Beethoven’s 7th

In order of best to worst….

1 - Janine Jansen's Four Season's – Vivaldi
2 - Dvorak, Cello Concerto
3 - Brahms, Hungarian Dances
4 - Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake
5 - Smetana, Ma Vlast
6 - Khachaturian, Spartacus
7 - Beethoven’s 7th
8 - Respighi, Symphonic Poems
9 - Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
10 - Ravel, Daphnis et Chloe
11 - Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances
12 - Holst, Planets

I like string music, a lot. I didn’t care for the last three because they’re just too, oh I don’t know… sorta movie theme-ish. I don’t like that and I don’t really know why. The Gershwin is too, well dated for me. I doubt I’ll be listening to the any of those four again.

Based on my very initial impressions, is there a particular type of Classical that I should be looking at??

Try Chick Korea and Dave Brubek. Both are excellent musicians and are quite accessable. Another place to try before you buy is your local library. I am quite impressed by the range of discs they have.

Tks, Fred. I forgot about using the library. That's where they have them things from the last century, they called them 'books' or something like that.

I picked up this four disc Vivaldi set at Zellers (Canadian Target wannabe) about a week ago for $10.

Quite enjoyable. Considering others in the series.

Yeah Mike, listening to the compositions in their entirety is a minimum requirement for learning about classical music. They'll often grow on you, and you may have accidentally skipped some music that you'd like best.

But yes, from those initial impressions and as you specifically commented, you like strings. So, I'll suggest my two favorite CDs featuring string quartets: this one with the beautiful Debussy and Ravel quartets with other attractive items; and this , which has on one disc three of the most famous string quartets, by Borodin, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky. Then, the other category that comes to mind is violin concertos, so I'll suggest what's probably my overall favorite out of many in that group, with the Sibelius and Korngold concertos . This "Virtuoso Violin" disc containing Spanish-influenced works by Sarasate and others is certainly aptly named, with terrific playing by Perlman.

bruch violin concerto

and Brahms violin concerto