Classical music guide for LP

Dougdeacon brings up a good point - are you interested primarily in the performance or the sonics? Seems to me the recommendations would be radically different depending on your answer.

Different strokes and all that, but for me the performance is paramount. There are lots of tidy and pristine recordings out there where the actual performance is as pedestrian and uninvolving as kitty litter.

If you had specific works you were looking for, lots of folks here can suggest particular releases (which, as Pbb notes, you may have to search high and low for or pay a premium to a collector).

You may be interested in:

http://www.classical.net/music/welcome.html

This is an interesting "starter" site that is geared to introduce different aspects/periods of the genre to the curious newcomer. You'll get as much an basic education about sub genres, periods and composers as a recommended list.

As you drill down to specific composers, they have suggestions for significant, representative compositions and recommended recordings. The recommendations are based upon performance, not sonics. It is not geared toward the audiophile, but someone wanting to learn about classical music.

One can argue back and forth about whether a particular recommendation is "the best" performance of a specific work. For instance, Beethoven's complete 9 symphonies - do you go Von Karajan or Furtwangler? But most of the recommendations are for good readings of the repertoire and I don't remember any clinkers mentioned.

Each recording is referenced by its current CD release. You asked for vinyl, not digital. But many of the CD releases refer to older recordings which have been re-released in digital. Your job, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to find the original recording on vinyl.

For instance, it recommends Bach's Brandenburgs 1-6 recorded by Festival Strings Lucerne, conducted by Rudolf Baumgartner (Suk, Jaccottet, Bourgue, Nicolet, Touvron) on CD. After a little searching, I found it on vinyl, Ex Libris EL16873 in mint condition in Canada.

Hope this helps.