New to Classical Music - Recommend Some Artists?

I am a new listener to classical music and I was hoping you can help me out. I know some of the well known artists but that is about it. Can you please tell me the names of some composers and what pieces or cds I should buy to get into the music. I would rather start with the well known people like Chopin, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart before getting into the more lesser known people.

Thanks.

In classical music you really need to search the music of different composers and not by different artists, it is the composer that makes the difference and not the performer (you know it is a bit different than in the pop music world!)!

Anyway, for a start you might like to try Chopin's preludes and nocturnes, maybe some flute concertos by Mozart or Vivaldi's Four Seasons...

Almost everybody likes J.S. Bach. I've never met anyone who wasn't knocked over by the double violin concerto in D minor. Start with Bach and you can move forward and back. There's a pretty good selection on this CD: http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Violin-Concer...

DAVID RUDDER andRICKYJAI

Glenn Gould the Goldberg Varations is one of my favorites. It's a piece by Bach with a tywst by Glenn Gould. Make sure you get the 1955 recording not the eighties one. Also Henry Van Karajan recording Beethoven's Ninth. In my opinon it's the greatest recording of the Ninth ever. In classical Music there are four peroids (really six, but it's not quite classical music until the Baroque peroid). In the Baroque you have Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel (a little bit more obsucre, but I like him is Domenico Scarlatti). In the Classic era (this is by far the most famous era) there are only about three great composers, Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn. Of the works of these men the most famous are Betthoven's Fifth symphony, Mozart's Serenade in G (I think his 40ith symphony is better) and Haydn's 94th symphony. After them comes the Romantic Era (in my opinon this is the worst of the eras). There are countless good composers but relatively few great ones. The most famous composers from this age (I'm not going to include opera) are Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mauler, Chopin, Lyst (I don't like him), Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Mussorgsky, Korsakov, Balakriev, Dvorak and my personal favorite Franz Schubert. The works from this era I would recomend are Tchaikovsky, the Nutcracker and Overture of 1812 (you've heard both many, many times). Brahms's Fourth Symphony, Mauler's tenth (or ninth) symphony, Chopin's second piano sonata, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Mussorgsky's Night on the Bald Mountain (I really like most of Mussorgsky, but this is a recognizable melodic piece so just getting into classical music this is a good choice), and Dvorak's ningth symphony. Most of these have recognizable tunes. If you can Franz Schubert's unfinished ninth symphony is by far my favorite work from this peroid. The twenith century classical music is the most dramatic music ever written, but it's very hard to get into. There are so many composer's I could not even come close to listing them all so I'll just mention my favorites. Stravinsky is the most well known and by majority opinon the best composer of this era. The Rite of Spring is one of his most famous works and it will remind you of Star Wars (John Williams uses Stravinsky and Prokofiev as the basis of mos of his work), but my favorite is entitled Symphony of the Psalms. Prokofiev has a ballet named Romeo and Juliet which is one of my favorite pieces (dances of the knights epspecially). Rachmaninoff's second Piano Concerto is a great Piano Concerto. Bela Bartok's (hard to listen to) Six Dances in Hungarian rythmn is my favorite piece of his, but so many of his works are good it's hard to choose. Appalacian Spring is one of my favorite works from this time peroid and that is by Aaron Copland. The most famous piece from this time peroid is named Bolero. It is by Maurice Ravell. Musically it's a joke written by a kid, but the two themes are so good it remains listened to till today.

Im New to Classical also. I have been reading Classic FM Magazine to help guide me to the best of classical music, not that other classical music isnt the best.

But at the moment i am trying to download the composer Josquin Des Prez. I heard some samples of his work on Encarter 2004 and it was breath taking.

Hope this answer helps!

You can browse classical music on youtube to get an idea of what you like. Just type in the name of the composer.
Try these : Bach solo suites for cello
Rodrigo's guitar concerto
Fernando Sor ...anything by him ; he wrote music for the classical guitar.
Beethoven's violin concerto
Chopin....anything at all ; great piano music.
Paganini ; six sonatas for violin and guitar.

some of my personal favorites are Tchaikovsky, Henryk Weiniawski, Gustav Holst, Dvorak, Brahms, and Bizet.

Chopin - all the nocturnes, etudes, and primarily his ballades and scherzi. anything named "nocturne, etude, ballade or scherzo' will be good by chopin. Also his polonaises are worth checking out He wrote a few piano concerti as well.

Handel - his Messiah of course

Beethoven - I would like to say everything, but start with his symphonies 5, 7, & 9. His Coriolan overture and egmont overture are amazing. For piano - his Appassionata Sonata, Pathetique Sonata, Waldstein Sonata, Les Adieux Sonata, Moonlight Sonata (pretty much all of them).

Bach - all of his Well-Tempered Clavier are great pieces (preludes and fugues). Also the toccatas and any of the suites are good as well.

Mozart - I would go with his piano concerti (they are to me his best pieces) and are the best introduction to his styles I believe. Also try his fantasy in d minor for piano. His symphonies are of course famous as well and worth checking out (Jupiter Symphony is famous).

Schubert - Impromptu's are great piano pieces to begin listening with. His Unfinished Symphony is amazing (get the recording of Carlos Kleiber conducting the Vienna Phil if u get a recording of it). All of his piano pieces are interesting.

Schumann - all of his music is different and interesting in its own way - he is one of my favorite composers (he was also bipolar before they knew what that was and so his music is quite unpredictable).

Sorabji's music may become more accessible to you once you listen through other composers music. That is what i have discovered. The best way to come to appreciate later music is to start at the beginning and go through each composers various works untill you sense that composers style and then move on. Maybe a good progression of composers would be this.

DeLassus - DuFay - Vivaldi - Handel - Buxtehude - J.S. Bach - C.P.E. Bach - Gluck - Haydn - Rossini - Mozart - Beethoven - Berlioz - Schubert - Schumann - Chopin - Dvorak - Paganini - Liszt - Grieg - Offenbach - Brahms - Tchaikovsky - Wagner - Mahler - R. Strauss - Debussy - Ravel - Satie - Scriabin - Stravinsky - Bartok - Ives - Schoenberg - Berg - Weill - Prokofiev - Shostakovich - Copland - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Henry Cowell - John Cage - Edgar Varese - Messiaen - Boulez - Stochkausen - Babbitt - Steve Reich - Peter Maxwell Davies - George Crumb - Rochberg - John Corigliano - Sorabji

and READ about their ideas and life too - listening is not all there is to understanding these musics - some pieces are very much about the composers - and some relate to very extramusical ideas or complex ideas. These all really do instruct their listeners how to listen and how to understand.
Sorabji may fall sooner in the list of these. But I feel each of these composers stretch the listener to understand more about music - especially the later pieces. They are all in chronological order but I believe the history of music builds on itself and so this would be the best order to get the music and the ideas behind it - therefore making you able to appreciate it.

Enjoy.

listen to mahler.... i recommend the 2nd symphony. It will change your life...

As usual, I'm bringing up the rear; and so far down, that probably you or no one else will bother to read my response. But, I'll go ahead and post it anyway.

I'm only going to recommend one composer, and one of his pieces.

But for me, it is one of the greatest, most glorious pieces of music even penned.

The composer is Charles Marie-Widor, a renowned French organist: a romantic.

The piece is: The Toccata(the last movement, the 5th) from his 5th Organ Symphony.

If you go to You Tube, type in Widor Toccata, a section will come up with about 20 or so performances of this work. Look for the Amos Goldie performance. He is a French organist, whose performance is on a magnificent French organ.

Hope you like it. It's only 5 1/2 mins. long.

Wotan