Wow- I have been away from this board for a few weeks and there have been some interesting discussions here!
I don't think anyone responded to Pete, who asked about programs for cataloging a collection. I found the ones I looked at wanting for classical, so I just use an Excel file with columns for everything I want to list.
Mahler's symphonies are amazing - I would urge anyone who hasn't to try the performances of Claudio Abbado, both older and newer. For instance, many prefer Abbado's 5th with Chicago to Solti's from the same era, including myself. His more recent work with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra was amazing as well. The best Mahler conductor of our time, IMO.
Speaking of showing off audio systems with Mahler, my choice is always the first 20 minutes or so of the second movement of the Mahler 8th, with Solti and Vienna, recorded by London. This is an excellent test/show off vehicle for your system, for a lot of different things, from one extreme dynamic to another, and one register extreme to the other as well, along with a huge variety of timbres.
Very interesting discussions about different composers, too. There are a few I personally would put above Beethoven for sheer compositional craft - Mozart and Bach from earlier in his era, and from nearer our own era, Bartok and Stravinsky. Of the later romantics, Wagner and R. Strauss are his equal for sheer craft as well. Wagner of course much more limited as far as variety in genres, lol! But Mozart and R. Strauss are the two who wrote a truly great work in pretty much every genre of the art (if we stretch to include tone poems in the case of Strauss).
As far as great symphonists go, obviously most of those don't apply. I agree with the Sibelius choice, Mozart and Haydn must also be mentioned, Brahms, Dvorak, and it must also be said, and I'm surprised Schubert didn't mention this having lived there, but in Europe Bruckner is often considered second only to Beethoven as a symphonist. He is still under-appreciated here in the US. Try the Giulini Bruckner 7th with Vienna if you have never heard that recording. The writing in the coda of the slow movement for the horns and Wagner tubas was in tribute to Wagner, who died while Bruckner was composing that movement. One of the most beautiful and moving moments in the entire symphonic repertoire.
