Reddit mentions: The best ballets & dances music

1. Read a lot of fiction. It's the closest thing to telepathy we have. You can pick up the point of view of someone long-dead or from a vastly different culture. The more widely read you become the better. Don't feel you have to suffer, though. If you like reading romance, go and read it. Read things that lead onto other things. Learn to read and your horizons will be infinite.
   
   
2. Take up a martial arts class. I recommend something like Aikido rather than kick-boxing. Your primary goal isn't to learn to fight but rather to straighten your posture and gain calmness and confidence. Hence, consider the more "art" based martial arts first.
   
   
3. Meditate. This will help you gain confidence and put you more at ease with yourself. I recommend Zen, but there are many good ones. It's basically taking quiet time to let yourself see your own flaws.
   
   
4. Make a list of activities that people from higher social classes do, and investigate them. This isn't to become something you're not - I actually think you should be proud of your desire to improve, and I think it's a bad idea to hate your upbringing, too. No, this is about making a list of all those things you've never been exposed to, so you can try them and find out for yourself if you like them. By systematic. I've put an example list at the bottom of the post.
   
   
5. Speak into a recorder and listen honestly to your voice. If it seems to bind you to a particular place and class, consider paying for lessons to change your accent. Actors do it all the time. Again, this shouldn't be about becoming something you're not, just softening any disadvantages. Accents are cute, you don't need to lose it, but if you find it a disadvantage, it will help to soften it.
   
   
6. Learn to do public speaking. Toastmasters are everywhere, and remarkably cheap. Just knowing you can stand in front of a crowd and deliver a speech will change the way people see you and you see yourself.
   
   
   Recommended activities (to see which you like):
   
   Art Go to an art gallery and take a look around. There are all sorts of paintings and statues that people have created for thousands of years. See if any appeal. This is best done with knowledge, so try reading an easy book like this, or a more in-depth one like this
   
   Theatre Try going to the theatre and watch a play. I recommend you pick a classic, but for your first one it might be better to pick one in your natural language rather than Shakespeare. Bear in mind, though, that when you get into it, there's a reason Shakespeare is considered amazing.
   
   Cooking Seriously, learn to cook. It's a life skill. You can take classes, but nothing beats picking up a good book and practicing. I'm English, so I don't know much about American cookery books. The one I learned off is this one, by the English cook Nigel Slater, and I heartily recommend it.
   
   Music I'm not personally a fan of classical music, but the aim is to see for yourself what you like. You could do worse than look at this online course. You could also get a cd, like this
   
   Cinema Go buy DVDs of classic film and extend your repertoire. For example, try watching Hitchcock, for example, and ground yourself in a major part of world culture. Note that this, like all the above, will give you a breadth of conversational topics.
   
   Finally Creativity Go and do something that makes you a creator rather than a consumer. I like writing, but you could equally take art classes or learn to play a musical instrument. Being creative will transform your life. If you want to try writing, I recommend nanowrimo and for science fiction writing, this book
   
   Notice what I'm saying with all of the above. The intention is to open your horizons to what other people enjoy, and give you the ability to converse with them fluently. It's also getting rid of the main markers that might hold you back. Ideally, you'll also find something you love, as well, that you might never have considered.
   

OMG, that is such a fabulous CD. You started at the top.

What got me started was Maria Bayo, Opera Arias and Cantatas.

Lorraine Hunt recorded a couple of Handel albums earlier in her career, these are also fabulous: Handel Arias and Arias for Durastani

If you get really interested in Handel's vocal music, you are going to have to get used to high male voices, "countertenors", who substitute for the "Castratos" that took the heroic roles in Baroque opera. A good place to start would be David Daniels.

Philippe Jaroussky is another great countertenor singing today.

Complete operas? There are 37 of them, some of which do not yet have satisfactory modern recordings. Generally speaking, the more recent the recording, the better. Some of the old ones are awful. One great exception is Rene Jacobs' 1992 recording of Giulio Cesare, Handel's greatest opera, and by extension the greatest Baroque opera. It's long, and there's a lot of "recitative" that can get a bit tedious on repeated listening, but it's a fabulous performance of a great work. Every aria and duet is a masterpiece.

Speaking of duets, one of my absolute favorite Handel albums is Love Duets by Suzie LeBlanc and Daniel Taylor. The duet from Rodelinda is phenomenal.

Great complete operas include Rodelinda,
Orlando and Radamisto.

Great dramatic oratorios include Hercules and Theodora, although the best recording of it is a DVD featuring Lorraine Hunt in a mind-blowing performance.

Good luck! This is some of the most beautiful music ever composed, and it's still not well-known enough.

To be honest, moving away from the monkey coffin format was a mistake.

Certainly a lot of them were downright bad and maybe these C-V's fall into that category, but competent "monkey coffin" speakers reveal how ridiculous a lot of modern gear is.

The amplification requirements and crossover gymnastics required to get reasonable output and extension from cute little bookshelf and slim tower enclosures with 5" and 6" woofers are absurd, and ultimately you need to add subwoofers anyway if you hope to match the kind of full range audio that a big monkey coffin with a 12" or 15" woofer can handle with ease.

While we may all laugh at the Cerwin Vega name, imagine if (insert your favorite modern audiophile speaker builder here) decided to really bring their resources to bear on an affordable modern speaker in this form factor.

I have the Cerwin Vegas' spiritual descendants, [the BIC RTR-EV15s which are similarly sized with 15 inch woofers that are somehow even more visually obnoxious](http://bicamerica.com/showpage.php?brand=3&type=15&spkrID=120
). Don't worry, they come with grill covers that hide the cones.

They are not bad at all. BIC claims 24Hz-20kHz +/- 3dB and my measurements agree, as long as you play around with positioning a bit. They are not the last word in resolution, but they aren't bad either. They are tonally correct and have dynamic range that more modern audiophile gear can only dream of.

Ironically, given their "please blast some Slayer" appearance, they are great for reproducing classical music with massive (DR17 in this case, I think) dynamic range like this recording of the Firebird Suite with output levels and bass extension approaching an actual performance. That's not something easily accomplished with modern audiophile-targeted gear, at least not for less than the price of a pretty decent car.

They sound great blasting Slayer too.

I was actually thinking about making this piece its own thread later, but this seems like a great place to put it! I normally stick within the canonical "top 50" classical composers list so it was a huge discovery for me to find that the Ukrainian composer Viktor Kosenko had written a beautiful and inventive set of piano pieces titled "Eleven etudes in the form of old dances".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Kosenko

They came to my attention because of this [raving review on Amazon](
http://www.amazon.com/Eleven-Etudes-Form-Old-Dances/dp/B000IAZNJA). The whole set can be found on Spotify.

Here is one of the most tender of the pieces - a very pretty Gavotte.

One of the more wistful is this Minuet.

OK, so these are pretty but who cares? There's lots of pretty music out there, does anything make this special? Well, the second to final dance is a monumental, 18 minute long epic Passacaglia. It's fantastic. I'm a huge fan of the form, from Bach's second violin partita to Handel to Brahms and Shostakovich. For my enjoyment this Kosenko Passacaglia equals the Handel. Here it is.

Everyone here will recommend classical music written between from 1650-1850, but you owe it to yourself to check out Renaissance and Medieval music while you're at it. There was so much neglected but amazing stuff written before 1600.

Ronn McFarlane has some fantastic solo lute albums. If you prefer quiet beautiful introspective melodies, DEFINITELY pick up his albums "The Renaissance Lute" and "Between Two Hearts".
He's also a member of the Baltimore Consort, and their work is quite good if you find you want more of this genre.

If you want beautiful music to wash over you and bring you to tears, listen to THIS album of Renaissance choral music. Crank it up LOUD! It's like angels tickling your insides.

Medieval music has more dissonances in it, so you may or may not like it, but give it a shot. I like the quieter meditative pieces that sound like a twisted music box. Here are some decent CDs:

• Music For a Medieval Banquet
  
• Medieval Dance Music
  
• Songs and Dances of the Middle Ages
  
• Trouveres
  
• Sinners and Saints - older recording, and more 'orchestral' (with a few less good vocal pieces) but some really good spots.
  
  
  Of course, on the Rock side of things, just buy the entire Led Zeppelin discography. Sitting through Led Zeppelin IV is a religious experience!
  
  Oh, and The Beatles post 1965 - sooooo many colors in their sounds ... Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road, hell buy those too!

| | |
|-:|:-|
|name|Ludwig van Beethoven|
|about artist|Ludwig van Beethoven (16 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a composer of the transitional period between the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He was born in Bonn, Germany. Beethoven is widely regarded as one of the greatest masters of musical construction, sometimes sketching the architecture of a movement before he had decided upon the subject matter. He was one of the first composers to systematically and consistently use interlocking thematic devices, or “germ-motives”, to achieve unity between movements in long compositions. ([more on last.fm](http://www.last.fm/music/Ludwig van Beethoven))|
|album|Classics in the Air, released Apr 1985|
|track|Moonlight Sonata|
|about track|Sonata in C sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2 - First Movement (Adagio Sostenuto) Correction This is not the entire Piano Sonata No. 14 ("Moonlight Sonata"), but only the first of three movements. The second and third movements are Allegretto and Presto Agitato, respectively. Beethoven's 14th piano sonata, AKA "Moonlight Sonata," was composed in the summer of 1801 in Hungary, on an estate belonging to the Brunswick family. The composition was published in 1802 and was dedicated to Beethoven’s pupil and passion, 17 years old Countess Giulietta Gucciardi. The Sonata is one of the most popular piano sonatas from Beethoven’s creation. It is also named “The Moonlight Sonata” by poet Ludwig Rellstab who, in 1832, had this inspiration on a moon lit night on the banks of the Lucerna River. Some biographers make the connection between the unshared love the composer held for Giulietta Guicciardi and the sonorities of the first part. Even more so, this sonata was dedicated to Giulietta, the musical theme of the first part being borrowed from a German ballad as Wyzewa observed. The piano sonata has three parts. The parts of the sonata give the impression of a whole first of all through the elaboration of themes and motifs. Consequently, the main musical theme of the first part becomes very elaborate in the second part, and the second motif of the main theme will be encountered in the first theme of part III.|
|images|album image, artist image|
|links|wikipedia, lyrics, vgmdb, allmusic, discogs, imdb, biography, secondhandsongs, track on amazon, album on amazon|
|tags|classical, instrumental, romantic, classic, rock|
|similar|Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Franz Joseph Haydn|
|metrics|lastfm listeners: 1,615,984, lastfm plays: 25,970,665, youtube plays: 153, radd.it score: 8.25|


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A good starter list of a few different styles, with links to Amazon to get some samples...

• 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. (at times, you can hear similarities to the score from Star Wars/Imperial March)
  
  
• 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 is incredibly deep, 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. I'm fond of 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

As far as your point about lyrics, in my experience what makes it hard to get into music without lyrics is probably one of two things (or both):

(1) the lack of a melody that is easy to follow.

(2) the lack of an explicit meaning given to the music.

For me, I tend to have problem #2 to some extent, because when I listen to popular music I tend to have visions about the music in my mind. And those visions stem to some extent from the title of the song and the lyrics (both of which are often lacking in classical music). So not having lyrics makes it hard to picture something onto which your imagination can latch. It's just sounds, with little to no indication by the composer on what the music might be about. Heck there's a lot of classical musicians that adopt the "Absolute Music" doctrine, wherein music is about nothing in particular.

What a lot of people like to do to "remedy" this is make up their own "story" about the music (e.g. think of a loved one when listening to a slow movement). Sometimes I do this but to be honest it just happens naturally (in other words, I don't consciously tell myself Ok let's think about this or that).

I know I'm not offering concrete advice, but perhaps all of this might give you something to think about.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As far as where to begin, I'm sure you'll easily find some advice on the web. For what it's worth I remember starting with this collection back in th day. https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Classical-Music-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B000001VU5

I still think it's a nice little starting point.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

The complete works of Bach

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

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

Do what he does.

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.