(Part 2) Best classical forms & genres music according to redditors

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.

Try some Mark O'Connor or Aaron Copland.

In English, here's the sung Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (the standard Sunday service in eastern Christianity.)

Also in English, Taste the Fountain of Immortality is a collection of liturgical prayers and hymns sung by the brotherhood of the ancient Valaam monastery.

In a mix of Slavonic and Greek, using lovely Byzantine melodies, a singer named Divna Ljubojevic has recorded a number of CDs - My favorite: Divna In Concert - Theatre Des Abbesses, Paris. It's a performance, but many of the pieces are the same melodies we sing in my parish - only she does them much more beautifully :-)

Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Alfred Brendel

You could try looking up this stuff
You can't usually go wrong with decent labels such as Decca. Also you could check out reviews here
I grew up listening to classical music as my dad was a fanatic. Also say for example you wish to listen to a certain composer such as Bach for example. Look for reviews or lists of what are considered the best recordings. There's a tonne of information out there and millions of recordings.

My favorite recordings I own is this and this

His most famous works are his piano concertos (particularly his second and third.) I really like this recording featuring Byron Janis. This new recording of the 1st and 2nd by the BPO and Leif Ove Andsnes is great, too.

Rachmaninoff was also a famed pianist himself, and there are some really interesting recordings of him playing his own music, like this one. (Spotify link.)

My absolute favourite, though, is his Symphonic Dances. It's warm, quirky, fun, late Rachmaninoff at his best. You could do worse than this recording by the London Philarmonic.

Hope that helps!

This is the really famous one with Reiner: https://www.amazon.com/Brahms-Tchaikovsky-Violin-Concertos-Johannes/dp/B0009U55RE/

It used to sell for under $10, it's not hard to find, should be able to get it on Ebay for less than Amazon.

For a box-set, I've always been in love with Haitink/LSO for the Brahms symphonies. I've never been more passionate about a particular recording because I think these are a world above all others available.

Of course, for the 4th Symphony, Kleiber is flawless as well. And, though I haven't come across it as a CD release, there is a film available on YouTube of Kleiber conducting the 2nd, which is also amazing.

Thanks for the intro to Maslanka. This is fantastic. Do you know of a quality CD recording?

Also, 'Yes' on all things Pärt.

Edit: It looks like this is about the only choice, no?

Sad, I hate it when that happens! The youtube link does have links to places where you can buy the DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Wolf-Prokofiev-Fantasy-Sting/dp/B000JJSRNE/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1416858356&sr=1-1&keywords=peter+and+the+wolf+sting+abbado

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.

As a European, I find these particularly offensive examples of cultural appropriation in classical music.

https://www.amazon.com/Kathleen-Battle-Wynton-Marsalis-Baroque/dp/B0000027C1

https://www.amazon.com/Haydn-Hummel-L-Mozart-Concertos/dp/B00077F95M

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African-American_opera_singers

/s (if it wasn't clear to begin with)

Here's a few that popped into my head:

Sort of a cop-out, but I love the Bernstein Mahler Cycle with the NY Phil.

Summit Brass Live, 2003

Heroes, Dreams, & Icons, Northwestern Symphonic Wind Ensemble

Philip Glass: Aguas Da Amazonia

Nielsen 2 and 4

Steel aLive-Sérgio Carolino

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|album|Ghost, released Jul 2014|
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I listen to my fair share of both. Just today, I picked up a Thelonious Monk album along with a used 4-disc compilation of Bach. My wife picked up a similar set of Tchaikovsky a few days ago. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is on the way and I just picked up Stanley Turrentine's Pieces of Dreams last week for a few dollars.

The classical I put on quite a bit when I'm studying, the jazz is for relaxation and beer time. Not that it's related, but I'm also big into Sinatra and Bennett for my staring-at-the-wall time.

I like some of Zimmer's scores, but he does tend to use electronics symphonically, whereas I prefer scores played by actual orchestras with no synthesized sounds mixed in.

Aside from Beethoven's 9 Symphonies, his 5 Piano Concertos are my second favourite, following by his 32 Piano Sonatas, and 16 String Quartets are great. I really love all 5 piano concertos.

Among the 32 piano sonatas, this one is my favourite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAFjOcOv868

Here is Beethoven's Piano Concerto 1. The stunning first movement cadenza starts at 13:05.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ywv0JwoTuk

Another performance of it I enjoy watching

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf2xPDmzkYg

The most famous of the 5 is probably number 5, known as The Emperor Concerto. Here is the great Pollini playing it quite recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTLOQGF-c1E

My personal favourite of the 5 piano concertos is number 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXq2Dq0W5lY

If you want a CD recommendation for the Beethoven Piano Concertos:

https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Piano-Concertos-Ludwig-von/dp/B0000041K9/ref=sr_1_1

or a video recommendation, here's an old but awesome performance

https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Piano-Concertos-DVD-Video/dp/B000V9B7PW/ref=sr_1_1_twi_dvd_1

I have several classical recordings on SACD and the experience of listening to them at full volume is amazing. This recording of Pictures at an Exhibition especially.

This dude is a beast and these exercises are really helpful. Some of them are really difficult, but they all address several aspects of playing that everyone should work on.

Check out his recording of Samuel Jones' Tuba Concerto. It's awesome. It's on Spotify too.