Best symphonies 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.

I read your comment and thought: "there are lots of commercially unknown orchestras with great recordings....". Then I went to the amazon page for the Beethoven collection pictured: http://amzn.com/B00012QMDG

Listen to the opening of Beet 5. Yuck. I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything. It just really really sucks even compared to other cheap CDs. Shit, you can get the entire 1963 Karajan Beethoven cycle used for about $15 on amazon: http://amzn.com/B000001GBQ

If you like classical music as background music while you work or whatever, fine. But if you want to hear it the way it's meant to be heard, you can do much better for the same amount of money.

EDIT:
I'll be constructive and recommend a few cheap and great recordings (buying used off amazon, nothing more than $5). Others might be able to do better....

Mozart Symphonies 40, 41

Mozart Symphonies 32, 35, 39

Beethoven 5, 7

Bach cello suites

Bach Brandenburg 1-3

I was in the classical recording business for a long time, and often was called on to make recommendations for newbies. For someone who is brand new, I always recommend Beethoven's Nine Symphonies, and I love this one the best:

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 1-9 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000095IUM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_HPo3Ab1Y4808P

This is performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. It runs about $28, and is well worth it for what is arguably the greatest music ever composed.

In general, when people picture classical music in their head, they are thinking of the music of Beethoven. Start with the odd numbered symphonies. The Fifth Symphony is the most famous with the great opening (Dit Dit Dit Daaah!), and is thrilling from start to finish. The Ninth is probably the greatest and most influential music in history. It intimidated and guided literally every composer who followed for the rest of the 19th century. The Seventh is my favorite piece of music in any genre. The second movement is beyond beautiful. The third symphony re-wrote the rules of music and was instrumental in transitioning music from the classical era to the romantic era. The rest may not be as influential, but they are all incredible works and well worth getting to know.

Start with Beethoven, and then start trying some other stuff, like Mozart, or Bach, or Vivaldi, or Mahler, or Stravinsky, etc. It's all worth listening to.

A little advice, when you are trying to introduce a new genre of music to your life, try to dedicate at least several weeks to listening to nothing but that kind of music. It seems to rewire your brain so that it starts to make sense, and once that happens, you'll always be able to listen to and enjoy that style of music. I've done that many times in my life, and now I can enjoy almost any kind of music there is. I once spent a couple of months listening to nothing but traditional Chinese music, but now whenever I hear something like that I slip right into it and love it.

Goodreads' Users Choice awards for the "best" books of 2016 are out. The history category is, uh, well it exists. The winner being a ghostwritten celebrity death cash-in is not great. Oddly the only book on this list I'd heard any buzz about at all this year was White Trash, which I didn't get around to reading.

This Mozart 220 CD collection is being tooted as the "best selling album of 2016." Don't believe it - it's only because they're counting EACH CD as an individual sale, so any other album has to sell 221 copies to make up for one of these doorstoppers. It's not even the #1 classical album on Amazon for pete's sake. Sloppy journalism.

The Great Beethoven Natural Sign Debate got even spicier after last week. I am pretty invested now.

$329 for the 200 CD box. If I liked Mozart more, I'd be tempted to pull the trigger.

https://www.amazon.com/Mozart-225-New-Complete-200/dp/B01FW8XWSG

I'm pretty sure that what you saw was the Peter Sellars production of "The Marriage of Figaro," which aired on PBS in 1990. The production was set in the present day in Trump Tower.

I saw it too, and remembered that Cherubino (the boy character portrayed by a female singer) looked quite a bit like kd lang and wore a hockey uniform early on.

Here's a link to an Opera News interview with the singer who played the role. You can scroll down for a photo from that production.

The obvious choice would be Holst's The Planets. Bach would be a good choice as well, since he's kind of awe inspiring and cerebral. However, I would like to suggest an oddball: NASA made a series of albums called Symphonies of the Planets, which are based off of the EM recordings made by Voyager I and II as they passed various planets. It's not exactly music, but it is strange, beautiful, haunting ambient stuff.
purchase
torrent
info

Martha Argerich Rach 3 and Tchaikovsky - A classic. First rendition of Rach 3 I heard. Not the most technically perfect (e.g. compare with Kissin) but just so powerful and exhilarating.

Solti Mahler 8 in Vienna - Perfect soloists, perfect sound, perfect interpretation. Completely different league with respect to any other recording in terms of the soloists and Part 1.

Solti Brahms cycle - Great cycle. Either I love CSO/Solti recordings or I can't stand them. This is one of the former probably because Brahms is more in line with Solti's type of conducting. The fourth is particularily strong.

Mahler 2 Bernstein - Another classic. Not your everyday Mahler 2 but then again you don't listen to Mahler 2 every day. Pushing the score to its romantic limits as one reviewer put. Spiritual listening experience of death and transfiguration for the listener.

Eugene Ablulescu's Hammerklavier - Very interesting academic performance (not as slow or heartfelt as Solomon in the adagio for example). Rigid adherence to marked tempi. No idea why it isn't more well known.

Also I totally second the Gilels/Jochum Brahms concertos.

The only extensive series I know of is Leonard Bernstein's brilliant Young People's Concerts from the 1950's! Back when TV had cultural purpose. Though in poor shape from old black and white TV broadcasts, these are all available on DVD.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bernstein+young+people%27s+concerts

http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Bernstein-Peoples-Concerts-Philharmonic/dp/B0002S641O/ref=sr_1_1

http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Bernsteins-Young-Peoples-Concerts/dp/B00E6DMZA0/ref=sr_1_2

https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Symphonies-Nos-5-7/dp/B000001GPX

This is awesome

Some of the stuff from this release was put out with a whole lot of other electromagnetic -> audible sound recordings from the other planets a couple years ago on CD.

http://www.amazon.com/Symphonies-Of-The-Planets-Recordings/dp/B000001V2O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLDWKpAkRHs

A lot of them, especially the Jupiter and Saturn ones, would make for a great 'filler' in the music from the default soundtrack, in my opinion. They are also nice to meditate to.

>full Der Ring des Nibelungen

Low yield. The high yield version cuts out all the singers so it's only an hour. ;-)

That Maazel version is to Solti what Sattar is to PhDs lecturing about their research

Yo-Yo Ma has an entire CD of arrangements of Ennio Morricone music for cello + orchestra. I'm not sure if this is morose (probably not), but here's the version of "Ectasy of Gold" from that CD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBelSZAx4ro (The CD is on Spotify if you've got that and probably the other streaming services. I think the full thing can probably be on YouTube.)

Since we're talking about music from films (which I kind of think makes a good gateway to classical :-)):

I've also really fallen in love with the track "Il bell'Antonio, Tema III" from his latest(?) CD; here it is played by the composer (Giovanni Sollima) and Kathryn Stott (the same pianist as accompanies Ma on his CD).

Many of the tracks from Memoirs of a Geisha, composed by John Williams with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist. Here is a piano+cello arrangement of the theme (Ma on cello, Williams on piano), and here is a later track called "A Dream Discarded" for unaccompanied cello.

Many parts of the soundtrack from the video game Journey (composer Austin Wintory) also perhaps qualify; here's a concert arrangement, called "Woven Variations," of some of that music for orchestra + cello. (The recording quality isn't particularly good, but it's never been properly recorded, at least to my knowledge.)

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Edit: a few more suggestions from "less-standard" repertoire:

• "Dark Pastoral"; by David Matthews based on a very incomplete concerto started by Ralph Vaughan Williams (man I wish that RVW had a chance to finish...)
  
• "Requiem" by Peter Sculthorpe -- this is a stretch, just skip over it if you don't like it (Part 1, Part 2)
  
• If you liked Sollima's "Il bell'Antonio" linked above, you might listen to his "Violoncelles, Vibrez!"
  
• John William's "Elegy" (there for cello + piano; here is Yo-Yo Ma playing it with orchestra)
  
• Astor Piazzolla's "Invierno porteno" (Winter) from the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
  
• Piazzolla's "Oblivion", here arranged for Piano/Flute/Cello (this is available in so many different instrumentations that I have no clue what it was originally)

For a vinyl recommendation, I would highly recommend Vivaldi's Four Seasons played by I Musici with Felix Ayo on violin. Probably my favourite recording of The Four Seasons. It's energetic without being overly dramatic (like so many interpretations tend to be) and very nicely paced. A very enjoyable listen. I don't think I've enjoyed movement 1 of Winter (track 10) more than on this recording. The pacing and speed of playing is just to my liking and the cello really gives the two crescendos a lot of life.

This is fun and exciting, but this is the best recording of Mahler 2 ever.

If you really want to test your system...
Get a mic that can record down to 1-5 Hz and set it up on a laptop in front of your "system"
Find a copy of this:
https://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Overture-Kunzel-Cincinnati-Multichannel/dp/B00005AVNH
The gold coated disc version is impossible to find, but the regular CD will suffice.
You should recognize the music - just play the main track all the way through at a modest level, then you can test the limits. When played on good systems it's easy to close your eyes and be there in the auditorium with the musicians

The Boku to Kimi to no Ongakuchou album contains the vast majority of the performances you're looking for.

Some others, like Mozart's Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" and Tchaikovsky's Rose Adagio from The Sleeping Beauty, can be found on the Twinkle Little Star album.

Masaru Yokoyama's arrangement of Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor can be found on Yuna Shinohara's Estreno album.

The version of wacci's Kirameki that is played in the final episode can be found on the limited edition Kirameki album.

If the Karajan Symphony Edition is in your budget, that gets my suggestion hands down.

Sorry for replying so late. It's generally regarded that Karajan's earlier stereo recordings (late 50s-60s) are his best, with some exceptions. His Beethoven set from the 60s is often considered one of the greatest of all time. If you like Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg) then you might like this CD. Karajan's Mahler is generally regarded as excellent, any of it really; his Mahler 6th is what got me into the composer. If you like Tchaikovsky, in my opinion Karajan was authoritative in that music—here is a CD that I enjoy very much. Bruckner, again, take your pick. There's a live recording he made of Bruckner 8 that is well liked. Karajan made about 900 recordings so it's hard to even remember some of them, but mostly he excelled in the Romantic composers. I think he was underrated in Mozart. This CD has my favorite performance of Mozart's 40th, bar none. Hope this post was helpful.

Mozart 225: The New Complete Edition [200 CD Box Set] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FW8XWSG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rqytybTRV2J19

I guess this is it

To your last point on Music: There is a Your Lie in April CD album that the Sony has released containing all of the classic pieces of the show as performed by the show's pianists (Tomoki Sakata & Eriko Kawachi) and violinist (Yuna Shinohara). You can hop on YouTube to find their recording of Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso.

You can find the full CD on Amazon, though it comes with a hefty 30 USD price tag as an imported product. And obviously wait until you have finished the show first.

Honestly, it's worth it to listen to all of Beethoven's symphonies. Each one builds on the last. The first sounds like a schizophrenic Mozart and the last sounds like pure joy. I've had my hearing all my life and the Ninth still brings me to tears.

Remember, if you do listen to the Fifth, don't just listen to the first movement! A symphony is one complete piece of music, conceived and executed as a whole, but split into four movements; the Fifth is even more unified, since all four movements deal with the same primary theme. Listening to just the first movement of the Fifth is a cop-out, especially because the last movement kicks even more ass.

I find conductor Herbert von Karajan strays too widely from the music as written in general, but Beethoven scholars the world around swear by his 1963 recording. I personally, however, am a huge fan of the late conductor Georg Solti, and think his 1972 symphony cycle is awe-inspiring.

There is a Verdi without words

There is a version of Wagners Ring without words

And there is a CD that has a selection ofworks from other operas without words.

2000!

https://www.academia-music.com/academia/templates/pdf/SPA_50_37_Beethoven.pdf

Del Mar has a huge essay at the beginning of each Symphony talking about all the different sources he used and the major changes to articulations. It caused a big stir. In 2000 a few recordings came out that were based on this edition: Zinman

I did this very same thing, my friend. Here's what I did:

• Listened to this album (a lot)
  
• Read the book The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, and listened to a bunch of the recommended recordings, and followed his blog
  
• Listened to lots of EMI's "Great Recordings of the Century" series
  
• Read lots of stuff online about composers I liked, including Wikipedia and this website and this one too. I also started to learn about the different forms/genres within classical music, and the different time periods as well
  
• But mostly, just listened to lots and lots of classical music. The more times you hear the same piece, the more you will feel you understand it and the better it becomes - and there is no upper limit to this. Explore!
  
  I still love rock and metal for the record, they are not mutually exclusive :P

There is this collection, called the "People's Edition"- over 5,000 people voted on their favorite recordings and the ones with the most votes made it into the boxed set. It's very good! I've only figured out my favorite for some of them:

First: Boulez/Chicago

Second: Bernstein/New York

Third: Abbado/Vienna

Sixth: Boulez/Vienna

Ninth: Karajan/Berlin

My friend, also, has one of these chairs (along with lightning goggles, elephant chode headphones - the works). He actually had to go out to Cali to be trained by the creators; and had some... interesting... experiences while there. When he finally got back with the chair - which reclines back to the point where you practically feel zero gravity - I gave it a test run. . . . . . . . DEEEEE-YEEEEE-CENT! He had me listening to the NASA Voyager (1&2) recordings, and I went on a fucking holy voyage to the great beyond. I whole-heartedly recommend every psychonaut check these recordings out. And, if you can, listen to them on one of these chair machiney type thingies.


edit: for the boobytube links:

Symphony 1

Symphony 2

Symphony 3

_____ <-This is where I draw the line.

I found the vinyl you sent me on Amazon and that's what i worked with.

Sadly because I live in Serbia almost none of them shipped to me for less than the actual cost of the vinyl so after reading some reviews I ended up buying this one, since the shipping cost around 6 dollars.

Again thank you very much for your help.

He's done more than just that one.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Composer-Anthony-Hopkins/dp/B005K7HBMS/

Le incisioni più quotate dei migliori prodotti del genio umano, a poco più di un euro ciascuna. Ringraziamo Amazon!

[The whole set] (http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Nine-Symphonies-Ludwig-van/dp/B00000IFP6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408039024&sr=8-1&keywords=beethoven+symphonies+zinman)


[CD with just the 5th and 6th] (http://www.amazon.com/Zinman-Conducts-Symphonies-5-6/dp/B0007PLKSO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1408039024&sr=8-4&keywords=beethoven+symphonies+zinman)



Just wait until you hear the 3rd movement of the 9th, I've never heard it that fast.

Harnoncourt / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / 1991.

Amazon / Spotify

It was this set, if you're curious: http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-The-Symphonies-Lied-Erde/dp/B000BDIY3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410208446&sr=8-1&keywords=mahler+bernstein+dvd

I recently purchased David Zinman's cycle which tries to follow the original metronome markings. I find the music much more exciting this way.
It becomes easier to imagine the relentless energy that original audiences were confronted with, and if we have it on good authority that this is how Beethoven wanted his music played, then I can't imagine hearing it any other way.

Ohh, man, I love Karajan. Easily atop my list of greatest conductors. Karajan: Symphony Edition is the first thing I'll be getting as soon as I'm back in the green.

Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin

http://www.amazon.com/Kashmir-Symphonic-London-Philharmonic-Orchestra/dp/B0000040V8

Ah, so there is some opera you like already! When I first started studying music in college I wasn't too keen on opera, other than some Wagner excerpts I'd heard. It wasn't until I started seeing opera (live or on DVD) that it really made sense to me. Unless you speak German, French, or Italian (or whatever other language it happens to be in) well enough to understand it when it's sung, it's much harder to really get into audio-only opera, even if you have translations in front of you. But when you can see what's going on, it makes for a much more satisfying experience - especially if you have the aid of subtitles (on DVD) or supertitles (live).

Since your thread here is about Mozart specifically, I'd suggest finding a good DVD recording of Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). It's one of his comic operas, and is riotously funny if done right. Plus, it has some absolutely gorgeous melodies. There are lots of good traditional productions out there, but one of my favorites is one by Peter Sellars that sets the action in a New York Highrise rather than an Italian estate: http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Sanford-Ommerle-Sellars-Symphoniker/dp/B00092ZANG/. If you're a netflix subscriber you can find it, along with a handful of traditional productions, on there.

The spotify list mentioned earlier is awesome. I highly recommend it. Specifically, though, I have three songs that I use to test out headphones (which also are great for fun/bassy types):

Foy Vance - She Burns

1812 Overture (this version with the badass canons at the end)

Blue Man Group - Above


EDIT:

If you ever splurge on some hi-fi speakers, definitely use that telarc version of the 1812 overture to demo them. With the right setup you'll damn near feel THX certified.

[Leonard Bernstein - Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic](
http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Bernstein-Peoples-Concerts-Philharmonic/dp/B0002S641O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1289508589&sr=1-1)

The Unanswered Question - Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein

On top of the answers already provided there are 2 more soundtracks.
[Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso Boku to Kim to no Ongakuchou = all the performances in the show] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N23RGU4/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687702&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00TA3PZ8A&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0HEW8K1DDNJ99QC4V9CZ)
[Shigatsu Wa Kimi no Uso Twinkle Little Star = Other performances related to the show] (http://www.amazon.com/SHIGATSU-KIMI-TWINKLE-LITTLE-STAR/dp/B00TA3PZ8A)

My favorite recording.

Is it the Kashmir from Symphonic Led Zeppelin by the London Philharmonic Orchestra? Because that whole album is AWESOME!!

"the ring without words". here a link to the cd. i highly recommend it.

amazon

You can buy the OST on Amazon.

And this is the album with the classical pieces.

How about this?? It oughta count, I think...

http://www.amazon.com/Composer-Anthony-Hopkins/dp/B005K7HBMS
Oops, he's already in there.

Bruckner - Symphonies 3 - 8, Te Deum & Mass in F minor (Celibidache)
Webern - Complete Works (Boulez)

Celibidache's Bruckner.

I plan on buying the rest of the boxed sets of live performances at some point.

Orchestral sessions. Fuck yeah.

There's still a fond place in my heart for symphonic led zeppelin

> It is very important you get TELARC edition

Is this the right one?

its an official thing they put out