I just listened to Beethoven's piano concerto No. 5 last night. I had forgotten how much I enjoy that piece of music.

Don't forget about that one from the "Clockword Orange" soundtrack, too!

(Beethoven's 9th, for the cinematically-challenged)

Beethoven's 9th goes without saying.

I have the Harnancourt (sp?) box set of all nine Beethoven symphonies. Very nice. I especially like the 6th and 7th.

In reply to:

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I have the Harnancourt (sp?) box set of all nine Beethoven symphonies.

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Good coice, Craig! Teldec, right? I have the set, too, and love it. Excellent recordings, too. In fact, I was going to suggest the Symphony No.7 as well, and you covered it already.

Oh, and since you like Beethoven's "Emperor" Piano Concerto, I bet you will love Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1, too.

Ooh, I'm going to have to grab that. My Beethoven's 9th is so bad I can hear a wrong note by one of the cellists in the first movement and the scrape of someone's folding chair. (which is pretty impressive quality, I know, but come on...)

I've tended to like a lot of Tschaikovsky's work. I really like "marche slave". I swear I've heard that in a movie before, but no one has ever been able to confirm that for me.

I just finished listening to my copy of Holst "The Planets". I have it on the RCA Victor Basic 100 disc 27. What a great disc. Wow...The Planets is even dolby surround encoded. I flipped on DPL II, and it was a GREAT sounding experience. (I generally have not enjoyed DPL II in the past).

I currently have discs 4,5,25,27,33,41,53, and 58 of the Basic 100. I've scoured the web for more info on the "Basic 100" series, but it seems in my classical music absence, this series has disappeared. Anybody know any more about these discs? I'd love to get more.

Craig, this is encouraging; if you like "The Planets", which I have several of(the CDs, not the planets themselves), you should like most of my previous suggestions. Again, if for some inexplicable reason you haven't run over to Tower on Sunset to pick up or order whatever they have, leave the computer and do so. As to the RCA Basic 100 Series, there is some good stuff there, although it's rather old. Besides the Planets, I also note your Rachmaninoff #53. There's a lot more of him that you'll enjoy. On the Tower Records site under classical, search label RCA and album title Basic 100 and you'll find 35 listed, which doesn't necessarily mean that they'll all be in stock, of course.

Craig:

I think the Basic 100 series came out about 10+ years ago. I'm 99.999% sure all the titles are now OOP (if the what I'm thinking of is correct, red and white CD cover?). You can try Berkshire .... Berk-something to see if they have anything in inventory (the people who specializes in cutouts/discontinuted items).

10 years ago sounds about right. That's about when I was listening a lot to classical. I'll be heading out cd shopping tomorrow.