Classical Music CDs

[Voncaster]

I would like to expand my classical music collection...I need some lyric free music to listen to while I work. My favorite composer is Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. I favor sad slow numbers over a bombastic full orchestra. I like the piano and organ best.

I looked a bit last night on Amazon, but was frustrated because every composer has 18 versions of each their major works handled by a different conductor. I don't know which to get. Compared to rock this is odd. When you want the best version of Appetite for Destruction...its a no brainer as there is only one.

Generally the reviews averaged 3.5 stars (a lot of people praising the CD and a few people bashing it). There also didn't seem to be a great number of reviewers; many CDs had 3 to 4 reviews. Hardly enough to draw a conclusion from.

If any of you listen to classical music and would like to give me some recommendations or a link to a good site that reviews classical CDs it would be appreciated.

I've also thought about buying classical music from modern day composers via movie soundtracks. John Williams, Danny Elfman, et al. My problem with these soundtracks is that they have to cut their songs short to match a scene in a movie. I love some of Williams scores, but they seem truncated in many instances...where they are good enough to be extended in many cases.

[Jonathan Bogart]

The first thing to do when you get into classical music is to get rid of the idea that there is a "best" or definitive recording of any given composition. Unless you're really going to geek out about this stuff, one recording sounds pretty much like another, and I nearly always go for the cheapest price unless I'm looking for a specific performer.

Sounds like you want Romanticism and perhaps some Impressionism. Chopin, Liszt, Schubert, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Debussy, and Satie would be good names to investigate; they've all written extensive work for the piano, either solo or with an orchestra.

I'm running late, so this will have to be short; good luck!

[Voncaster]

Thanks for the reply Jonathan Bogart.

At some point I'm just going to have to jump in and figure out what I like and what I don't. Your linking of my tastes to Romanticism seems right. From the wikipedia research I did, Romanticism...sounds like the type of classical I would enjoy the most.