Best ballets & dances music according to redditors

Keep in mind that the term "classical" is very vague. If you ask someone to recommend a good "rock" album, you could get styles ranging from ACDC to Britney Spears, from Beatles to Lynard Skynard. Same thing when you use a broad term like "classical" - you'll range from Gregorian chants to atonal avant-garde. Don't give up on classical music just because you didn't like the first few things you heard - there's a huge range of styles and composers.

Here's a starter list where I've tried to give you an idea of several styles and eras, staying in the realm of "popular" classical music - nothing here is too obscure or fringe. You can get some quick samples from the Amazon links, or try searching Grooveshark for the full pieces.

• Barber: Adagio For Strings Op.11 - Slow yet intense string piece.
  
  
• Dvorak: New World Symphony - Good symphony with a wide range, from slow moving parts to more bombastic parts. (this piece is sometimes referred to as the "Star Wars" symphony, it has a similar tone at certain parts)
  
  
• Rachmaninov: Vespers - One of my personal favorites. Choral music - intense, haunting at times, interesting harmonies founded on that trademark Russian low bass.
  
  
• Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro A very accessible opera, and one of Mozart's most famous, perfect for a beginning opera listener.
  
  
• Beethoven - Symphonies 5 and 9. Easily two of Beethoven's most famous symphonies. Beyond the parts you hear in movies and commercials, very moving and complex pieces. The 9th has massive depth, particularly the 4th movement. I literally have over a dozen recordings of this piece alone, and hear something new every time I listen to it.
  
  
• Vivaldi: Four Seasons. You'll recognize this in quite a few places. Try the Winter suite, especially the third movement.
  
  
• Bach: Brandenburg Concertos. A good example of Bach's counterpoint style in Baroque string music.
  
  
• Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2. Intense and melodic, this piece transitions from sweeping melodic lines building to full frenzy - almost chaotic at times.
  
  
• Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5 - Emporer. You could call this a "fancy" piece - several running lines across the piano, including heavy ornamentation and embellishments, particularly in the 1st and 3rd movements. The 2nd movement is more reserved, and it's tranquility bridges the more lively movements.
  
  
• Stravinsky: Rite of Spring. Fascinating, driving intensity - asymmetrical rhythms make this very interesting, unconventional.
  
  
• If you're feeling adventurous and want to delve into a longer piece of a different style, Handel's Messiah or Mendelssohn's Elijah are two great oratorios.

Yes. Classical and Heavy Metal (seriously). I can't stand boring music. I usually listen to Chopin, Bach, and Brahms, and I don't like modern classical.

I highly recommend you buy this CD, it's pretty amazing.

Rachmaninoff made some recordings on piano rolls, which allows them to be replayed in a modern studio with modern equipment. Check out this Window in Time recording to hear what he might sound like with a modern recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hv2zh_Z0Io

Snobs and purists will turn their noses down at the suggestion, but Naxos has tons of collections and boxed sets to get you into the various sub/genres.

Naxos actually uses a lot of well regarded, but out-of-print or older recordings that have been superceded by a new performer. A new performance by Yo-Yo Ma will sell better than something from 20 years ago.

An article on Stereophile on Naxos. Worth the read as an intro to the music.

FYI, Naxos is to classical what Vaynerchuk is to wine. The product is still great, but the Old Guard is offended by the new marketing.



There are also the mega-collection boxed sets of different composers:

Beethoven

Mozart

Bach

Here are 2 sets of Bach. One occupies 155 CD's (remember those?) and the other occupies 172 CD's. Most CD's are 60 to 80 minutes long, so very roughly, perhaps 200 hours.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Johann-Sebastian-Bach/dp/B003LR4QPE/ref=sr_1_sc_2

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Complete-Works-155-Box/dp/B000HRME5U/ref=sr_1_sc_3

A few to consider, some more affordable than others:

• Complete Webern
  
• Complete Varese
  
• The DG Complete Beethoven Edition (if you can find it anywhere)
  
• The Philips Complete Mozart Edition (if you can find it anywhere)
  
• Steve Reich
  
• Philip Glass
  
• Handel - Orchestral Works
  
• Bach - Orchestral Works
  
• Ravel - Complete Edition
  
• Debussy - Complete Edition
  
• Shostakovich Edition (one of the few Brilliant Classics box sets I can wholeheartedly recommend, unlike many of the others which can be a bit patchy)
  
• Strauss - Complete operas
  
• Wagner - Complete operas (Solti)
  
• Boulez - Bartok
  
• Boulez conducts Schoenberg (far from complete, but this about the best you can do)
  
• Boulez - Stravinsky
  
• Various Bach choral stuff - Gardiner
  
• Stravinsky
  
• Alban Berg Collection
  
• Berlioz - Complete orchestral works (Davis)
  
• Brahms - Complete Edition (absolutely superb collection)
  
• Britten conducts Britten + operas 1 and operas 2 + Complete Britten
  
• Sibelius - Symphonies and tone poems
  
• Elgar - Collector's Edition
  
• Vaughan Williams - Collector's Edition
  
• Barber - orchestral works (Alsop)
  
• Scriabin - Piano works
  
• C.P.E. Bach Edition
  
• Corelli - Complete Works
  
• Telemann - Tafelmusik
  
• Schubert - Masterworks (Brilliant Classics - not always the best recordings, but for the amount of stuff you get, worth the money
  
• Poulenc - complete works
  
• Messiaen - complete edition
  
• Mahler - complete edition (the symphony recordings here are a representative cross-section, you might want to supplement it with another complete cycle, e.g. Solti, Bernstein, Abbado, etc.)
  
• Liszt - Complete piano music
  
• Janacek - Operas
  
• Haydn - Symphonies (Hogwood), not complete, but as close as anyone has come to it
  
• Mozart - Symphonies (Pinnock) - an alternative to Mackerras
  
• Bartok - Piano works
  
• Debussy - Piano works
  
  If you need anything more specific than that, let me know and I'll try to recommend something.
  
  If you have a look in the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section for any of these, you'll find many more.

These two albums are cornerstones of my collection:

• Muti/PO: Symphonies 1-3, Poem of ecstasy, P. of fire - PoE and Symph1 (esp. mvmt 6) are two of my favorite pieces. no other recording of PoE keeps the second half as tense nor does the coda as perfectly as this one.
  
• Lettberg: Solo piano works - I have to highlight her op. 18 and op. 4, two large piano works that mostly predate the sonatas. Great great romantic, virtuosic passionate pieces that lie somewhere between Brahms more violent intermezzos (eg, 76/1) and Chopin ballades. The rest is all quality.
  
  Others to supplement, that I don't feel as strongly about.
  
  
• Ashkenazy: Piano sonatas - older recordings, but he captures the more eccentric side so essential to Scriabin, like the frenetic no. 2 and the disturbing no. 9. I still think Ashkenazy is more at home with Rach (ossia pc3!!) though.
  
• Diev: Preludes - simply a great value, for the 48 short pieces you get here. Solid playing, I don't think he has quite the edge needed to pull off the more hairy pieces, but he nails the tender side of 11/11 and 16/3.

There's a whole CD of actual humans performing arrangements of Nancarrow's studies, which is apparently out of print. I love this CD.

I would recommend Michael Tilson Thomas' recording with the San Francisco Symphony. Clear, crisp, modern sound, but totally maintains the savagery. It's an exhilarating performance.

Get these recordings.

• Bach's Concertos for Piano and Orchestra
  
• Dvorak's Cello Concerto
  
• Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije
  
• Vivaldi's Wind Concertos
  
• Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms
  
• Scriabin's Piano Sonatas
  
• Tartini's Devil's Sonata
  
  These may not be the best known works of classical music, but they're each incredible works, and if the least they do is make you want to hear more classical music, then they've done their job.

I tend not to like piano roll recordings - they're very incomplete pictures of the nuances of a performance. Of course in some cases they're the best thing we've got, but Rachmaninoff recorded most of the things he put on rolls on actual audio as well, and the grainy early recording technology is worth it to be able to hear the organic sound IMO.

Zenph Studios put together a CD of "Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff" a while back that's actually pretty well-done. C-sharp minor prelude and his Lilacs song transcription are the only samples I can find on Youtube. You can read about the "re-performance" process here. They've done re-performances of some Gershwin too (this is news to me, must be a relatively new release), Glenn Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations, and some Art Tatum songs.

If you're interested in Rachmaninoff's actual audio recordings, there is a 10-disc box set (digital, CD) available of his complete recordings. Some absolutely fascinating stuff on there. But even 10 CDs doesn't even come close to touching the breadth of his repertoire.

EDIT: spelling

Mozart will last me a long time. (Now imagine how huge that collection would be had he lived to be, say, 70.)

Go watch Fantasia. It's got a pretty good selection of songs.

Also, The Idiot's Guide to Classical Music has 99 short clips of classical music and a booklet listing who and what they are and where you may have heard them before. There's quite a few Bugs Bunny cartoons in there. Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit.

I guess I don't get it. The Sacrificial Dance is muddy and disorganized (it almost sounds like the percussion are in their own world...) - I'd call it a disaster. Maybe because I've played the piece and have listened to it probably 1000 times, but meh...

They went balls to the wall with stereo separation, which is common with early stereo recordings.

I was in love with Dutoit's performance with Montreal, but the miking was really bad.

I discovered SFO's recording with Michael Tilson Thomas and I haven't turned back. Simply amazing. Great recording and great performance.

I agree. Boston Baroque has a great 2-disc set of the Brandenburgs on period instruments. Link!

The Top 100 Box Set is a pretty good collection of a wide variety of compositions over the course of several hundred years.

A few other pieces of music I'd recommend:

John Adams has some pretty cool pieces. It's more accessible than a lot of the atonal and minimalist stuff you see in modern music.

I'm also a fan of Alan Hovhaness, who is also considered modern; one of the most notable features of his music is the blending Eastern and Western styles to produce beautiful pieces.

I'd also check out eclassical.com, which I use for a majority of my music file purchases, since the prices are pretty good and you can buy tracks individually, as well as having a very wide variety of music to choose from.

So check this out: Rachmaninoff was a big fan of an early type of player piano type rig, and made a handful of "proto-midis" himself, playing a special piano that recorded his every nuance to a paper reel.

The reels were recently recovered and digitized, then made available as CD. I give you Rachmaninoff - A Window In Time (LGT amazon page, but it's also available elsewhere...)

Prelude in C# Minor is my personal fave.

Sorry, I don't have that particular CD. Looks like it is pretty cheap on Amazon, though: http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Your-Mind-Wolfgang-Amadeus/dp/B0000041CB/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1212181026&sr=8-1

I was lucky enough to receive the complete works of Mozart as a gift ( http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Complete-Works-170-Box/dp/B000BLI3K2/ref=pd_sim_m_img_1 ). It took me months to listen to it all, and I was going at a very fast pace. Great recommendation for anyone that is interested in classical music, and almost all of it is great "thinking" music. Mozart's music is very structured (practically everything he wrote is considered "perfect" in an objective musical sense), and yet it is beautiful and elegant at the same time, so I find it to be very conducive to programming.

This list should get you started

yes. This book. while you're at it get this CD.

http://www.amazon.com/Orchestral-Excerpts-Trumpet-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B0000038JG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346559158&sr=8-1&keywords=phil+smith+trumpet+excerpts

It's on Phil Smith's excerpts cd! He talks through and plays many of the excerpts you'll ever need to know for an audition. It's my orchestral bible. It's only one interpretation of this stuff, but you can't go wrong with following the principal trumpet of the NY Phil. That being said, I actually do American in Paris differently from him. It's one of those excerpts that you can really explore lots of interpretations with and get creative with how you play it.

Here's a link to the album on Amazon if anybody is interested: http://www.amazon.com/Orchestral-Excerpts-Trumpet-Philip-Smith/dp/B0000038JG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417017461&sr=8-1&keywords=phil+smith

R. de Leeuw good as well:


https://www.amazon.com/Satie-The-Early-Piano-Works/dp/B0000069CS/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8

While at home I listen to classical music, either on the radio or on youtube. I have three classical music relaxation CDs (this, this, and this), sometimes I listen to those.

When I am stressed, I listen to one of the long (1+ hours) zen relaxation videos on youtube.

When I am having difficulty falling sleep, I listen to sleep music.

Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical

I shuffle from these collections:

The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World...Ever!

The Most Relaxing Classical Album In the World Ever, Volume II

The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe

But usually I just tune in to WILL-FM, it saves me the effort of shuffling, choosing, selecting ... which in itself can be distracting when trying to work or study.

Oh, never mind. I just thought you were into electronic music, maybe a DJ or producer, or something like that. Not to sound stuck-up or anything, but part of the reason I thought that was that 150 albums didn't seem that many. 1 complete set of just Beethoven's, Mozart's, and Bach's music comes to 410 discs already.

Pierre Boulez’s “Complete Webern”, and the LaSalle Quartet's set of Second Viennese School quartets.

Also, Mitsuko Uchida's complete Mozart Sonatas.

fuck that, I'm listening to Classical Thunder!



oh yea Gustav make me want it bad, real bad, make me beg for it bring war to my fertile red surface.

and Grieg I want you to mountain king me in the hall

Oh Ravel, I think you got the key to unlock my Great Gate!

Strauss my sweet Strauss my Hero I want you to ravage my Battlefield.

Kraftwerk - Computer World and The Man-Machine are two of my favorites. Classics. Also, although I don't own any records, old Krautrock stuff like Tangerine Dream & such would also fit into this category.

Also, for anyone interested in old electronic music, Ohm is a really good primer. Some really wild shit on there, especially on the DVD.

Also also, here's another awesome song. Early(ish) experiments with sampling. Art of Noise - Moments in Love

Here is a 10 CD set of all of the recordings that we have of Rachmoninoff playing - http://www.amazon.com/Sergei-Rachmaninoff-Recordings-Sergey-Rachmaninov/dp/B000003FB7

You can buy individual songs from the collection, as well.

The sound quality is a bit shallow and there are some pops and static in some songs, but that's to be expected, I guess.

I actually bought this entire collection back about a decade ago, IIRC, back in the days when you couldn't buy a couple songs here and there. :-) I enjoyed listening to it for some time, although the poor (by today's standards) sound quality was always in my consciousness when listening. Also, he played many of his solo piano pieces way faster than more modern renditions I had heard, and I prefer the slower versions, personally.

I don't know man, we put on a good 2500+ person free show, maxed the out the venue.

Also for the outdoor concerts we can get a few thousand people.

Since orchestras can't tour easily doing free media everywhere isn't going to help them as much as a band that tours.

Band tour models don't work well for orchestras, because of cost of transportation. Also most orchestras don't do CD sales. Once again it's to expensive. Unless you are one of the big 5 orchestras in the US it will probably be a significant loss of revenue, and since new market members have a hard time differentiating between all the information such as, orchestra, guest artist/soloist conductor composer, it alternatively doesn't' bring that many people in. Free concerts are more effective for that and costs a significant amount less, and generates more revenue, and gets people to fill the seats and tell their friends about it.

PS:

Here is an example of why CDs can be confusing for new audience members:
John Adams: Harmonielehre / The Chairman Dances / Tromba lontana / Short Ride in a Fast Machine by Jonathan Holland, Wesley Warren, John Adams, Simon Rattle and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1994)

What that says is: Composer: name of piece/ name of piece/ name of piece, soloist, soloist, composer, conductor, orchestra.


That's not going to be great promotion for people to go see shows, particularly since the orchestra might only play that show with that conductor 4 times.

Vs. a band CD that says: Band name, Album title. The band then goes on tour with the release of a new album, and promotes it. Simple easy to remember, and the band will play your area only once.

My ensemble recorded an arrangement of this back in the 90's. They're very fun to play, and No. 7 is one of my favorites.

You can hear a sample on Amazon. I couldn't find a free streaming version, but you're welcome to buy the record!

That DG set looks awesome. Might have to be a Christmas present this year.

Some of my favorites are the EMI Elgar and Vaughan Williams sets, the Stravinsky collected works, and the big RCA Toscanini set.

More wallowing, if you're into that kind of music: Erik Satie. Sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIVp05sEPhE

I highly recommend "Early Piano Works", performed by Reinbert de Leeuw..

Incredibly sad and great at the same time.

The complete works of Bach

http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Complete-Works-155-Box/dp/B000HRME5U

Oh god OP, that Kleiber beethoven 5 is crazy intense. Good choice.

Mahler's Symphony No. 5 - Bernstein

Mahler's Symphony No. 8 "Symphony of a thousand" - Sinopoli The greatest recording of this ever. And yes I have heard Solti and Horenstien.

Schumann's Fantasie in C major If you know Richter's Schumann, no explanation is required. If not, you need to hear this.

Scriabin's 10 Piano Sonatas - Ashkenazy I've heard people call Ashkenazy bland. He definitely isn't here.

I really don't want to limit my choices, but I think maybe I should keep it at 5 or this list will become too big..so for something completely different..Phases - Box set of Steve Reich's music on Nonesuch label

http://www.amazon.com/Orchestral-Excerpts-Trumpet-Philip-Smith/dp/B0000038JG

Do what he does.

Time Life had a popular collection known as Classical Thunder that you may want to check out. Such collections of excerpts are great introductions, IMO. The list of tracks on this jacket will probably closely match responses on this thread.

https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Thunder-Richard-1-Strauss/dp/B00081U6XC