How to know some really good classical music pieces out there?

A great way to learn about new classical music is to subscribe to the BBC Music Magazine. This link to past issues give you a good idea of what the magazine’s about. It comes every month with a cover CD, and interesting articles about performers and composers. You might be able to find it at Barnes & Noble; it’s been awhile since we had a subscription.

Generally what I do is to just search around at a place where I can borrow CDs. In most cases it’s a library. What I then do is to just sift around the music section and just pluck out whatever sounds interesting. Recently I’ve gotten hooked onto English classical music. Vaughan Williams is cool and I’ve fallen in love With George Butterworth’s Banks of Green Willow, idyll for orchestra. It’s just so… So… English and the chords are so beautiful and the music structure is so.. beautiful…

There’s just something about English classical music which puts it apart from the rest. Must be the stateliness of society then.

<Melts into a sighing puddle>

P.S. Tomorrow I’m planning to get some Vaughan Williams music I found in the library. English folk songs. Looked extremely cool.

Well, online you could try Pandora… you can plug in a composer, or the name of a particular piece of music that you like, & it will play similar things for you.

The scope of ‘really good’ expands as you improve and widen your ear training and aural skills. Active listening to any intelligent music will rewire your brain. When listening to an orchestra for example try identifying individual instruments. Name the linear and vertical intervals. Get into studying advanced harmonics. Feel the chords and tensions.

The hidden gems of classical music wouldn’t fit into a large trunk of a luxury sedan.

Have you ever listened to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor? Bruckner’s TeDeum or his Symphony No. 7? Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah? Faure’s Requiem? Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt – Suite No.1?

No advice, but lurve for your praise of Claire de Lune. Simply beautiful!

Go to Pandora.com, sign up for their free service, and create a radio station based on one of your favorite songs. This is a Music Genome project, and should help you to find new music and artists you may not know of. I did that and have discovered hundreds of jazz musicians that I had never heard of before.

My dad loves Pandora. I would use it, too, but my son has destroyed my speakers.

You can also start with this list of popular classical pieces, and then go on to other recordings by the same orchestras.

Personally, I listen to NPR and jot down (or track down on their website) things that impress me, and then I use Amazon to find the CD.

Dear Pandora Visitor,
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

Pandora is good, but if you want a larger sampling of classical music, it might be better to just turn on the classical radio or go to something like AOL Radio which has broader categories. Since there is so much classical music spanning from around 1600 to now, there’s a lot to try. Of course, everyone has preferences.

It’s difficult to suggest pieces since I don’t know what type of classical music you like, but here’s a few I can think of off the top of my head:

The Planets by Gustav Holst. Excellent symphonic suite.
Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi. Ranks in my top 5 greatest classical music pieces of all time.
Sylvia and Coppelia. Two underrated ballets by Leo Delibes, a contemporary of Tchaikovsky whom Tchaikovsky admired. Definitely some hidden gems in those ballets.
Requiem by Maurice Durufle. Dream-like, powerful, and mysterious choral piece.
Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. Not just the opening, but the whole thing. 25 little songs; all of them good in their own way.
Symphonies Nos. 1–10 by Gustav Mahler. The greatest symphonic composer to have ever lived in my opinion.
Symphonies Nos. 1–15 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Not for everyone, but this is modern powerful music.
Anything by Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Besides Pandora, iTunes has a lot of classical music. You have to pay for it though.

I forgot to say though, Youtube has pretty much everything these days, and it’s free.