How to go about collecting Classical Music

+1 Another resource is the on-line classical CD seller Arkivmusic. They have an enormous listing of available CDs searchable by artist, composer, label, etc. They also offer recommendations on particular recordings that can be helpful.


+1 please consider supporting and attending local classical performances once this blasted covid issue gets put to bed. Actual practicing musicians are not having the best of times. Not to mention as good as sound reproduction can be, hard to beat a live performance.

A great pursuit, Mike! Enjoy the journey!!

Brubin and rvpiano, thank you for your suggestions.

Telefunkin, Iwill add those sets you mention to my list of music to explore purchasing. and will research what they contain if I can find some information on them online.

Rbschauman, Archivmusic sounds like a good resource, especially if it’s CD oriented and offers recommendation. I will get to it.

Here in the Roanoke, Virginia area there are, or used to be before the pandemic, occasional classical music performances. There may be a Roanoke Symphony even. On the local PBS they used to regularly run a commercial showing the conductor. They commercial unfortunately had him come across just like "The Maestro", if you remember him from the old Seinfeld show. Poor guy., But where’s there a conductor an orchestra has to be lurking somewhere. I remember at least once hearing about some chamber music locally. It’s probably more likely to find live classical music here rather than jazz in any event.

Thanks for your encouraging words and suggestions.

Anyone, I realized why its taken to age 68, almost 69, to start appreciating classical music. My girlfriend throughout college was learning to play classical violin from one of her professors as part of her classwork. She, the professor, was a talented violinist in the Mid-Hudson Symphony Orchestra.

I’d usually come home from classes and my work-study job, do some homework and then be treated to my girlfriend practicing classical music on the violin. There was no escaping. That daily practice was not dissimilar to a chorus of agitated cats on a hot roof. I haven’t thought about that for a long time, but it’s doubtless taken near fifty years to get over it, and is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit that I have at long last.. I should have been nicer to her about it at the time, thinking back. Oh well.

Mike

I really would consider subscribing to a service like Primephonic.  If you truly have no idea what to get, it would be a great way of exploring music of various composers, styles, and historical eras.  Once you Identify something you like, you can then hunt down the CDs, music files, or LPs if you prefer, at online sources.  But just buying physical media blindly or on other people's suggestions can be frustratingly hit-or-miss.  You'll end up with a hell of a lot of stuff that just doesn't grab your interest.  Classical radio stations are nice, but you're once again at the mercy of other people's musical tastes and interests, which may be ridiculously skewed in one direction or another.  Your music collection is for you....not other people.  I've long ago stopped recommending stuff to other people because I find that much more often than not, they just don't hear what I hear, and I don't hear what they are hearing.

Primephonic+1. Not long ago they were running a half-price sale. One problem with Primephonic though, is that you are constrained to their app or a web interface. Can’t use my Innuos Zenith. One is similarly constrained with Idagio.

Larryi, +1 on the Schubert quintet and Winterreise. I have only 5 recordings.

Between lps and cds I have around 1000 disks. This is a small collection compared to those of many in this thread. A big problem with even 1000 is to get around to listening to everything. There is a big temptation to settle in to 30 or 50 disks that you just love, and visit with them again and again. I finally decided I needed a listening strategy. Mine is to take a week or so every month and binge by category -- an opera binge, the next time a chamber music binge, etc. I’ve found that not only do the binges force me to listen to stuff I might not have gotten around to in a less structured way, but my set of favorites slowly evolves. However you do it, this is something to think about. With 150+ Bach cd’s, it’s just going to be hard to manage, and if you listen to them all at once you will learn to hate Bach.

You are in for a great adventure!
The are some caveats: performance quality and recording quality rarely match up. You can find most great performances in mediocre quality, and the best quality recordings often have material that (as many say) should never have been recorded, and we would not have lost anything. As the saying goes, they most often press only that material in high quality that would otherwise never sell. Vice versa, if people want to hear it, why bother with quality, just press more of the weak recordings. This is a kind of pun, but unfortunately stems from life. For example, Angel and Seraphim have excellent interpretations of the Baroque era, but their recording quality is generally the lowest of all. (Except for the newer Angel digital, which is pretty good, and you will mostly find that on CDs - but their older analogue recordings are quite poor in quality, using second hand master tapes.)
First, your task is to figure out what you like.There are landmarks, who are the giants of classical music.
Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven is the immortal trio upon which practically the rest of classical music is founded upon. I would advise to get acquainted with them first, to get a strong foundation.
The modern composers (such as Stravinsky, etc) offer a very different perspective.They mostly use the same instruments, but the purpose of the works is just about the opposite.Bach, Mozart and Beethoven is all about meditation, beauty, harmony, exploring your inner universe and linking it to the outside world. When you find such works in a good interpretation and good recording quality, it leads to powerful healing and inner growth. Restores you, even saves your life when you have a super stressful job or going through desperate times in life. They also give inspiration - for example, Mozart was Einstein's muse...

Modern composers do the opposite: they explore the outside world, take you for an ecstasy ride, they delve deep into excesses, horrors and terrors of history. Drama, drama and more drama - the more grand, ostentatious, unpredictable, the better. They are suitable when your life is spot on, no worries, and you need some excitement in your life, and want to experience extremes. Listening to much of this music will gt you energized and ready to act, but often leave you unnecessarily agitated and unbalanced. Just to stick to Einstein's opinion, he used very harsh words to describe many modern composers, I am very civil with my descriptions.

That is the general tendency, but there are always exceptions - there are plenty of healing works in modern music (Gustav Holst has that effect on me), and some WTF moments for baroque composers. But, the general tendency is there, and the vastly different expectations of the ages, what people expected from their contemporary music in eg the XVI century and today are vastly different.
I second HM, DG, Telarc, Teldec, EMI, DECCA, London, Telefunken, RCA LSC as superb sources. You can also go for Hyperion, Unicorn, Delos, L'oiseau Lyre, these are superb, smaller labels of high quality. 

Although I have a sizeable classical CD collection, I mainly listen to classical on LPs. Do not be afraid of the condition... yes, sometimes LP used condition is terrible, but you can find pristine early pressing treasures which completely redefine quality listening experience. Get 2-3 copies of the same LP for 1-2$ each, keep the best and you are still under 5$ budget per record. It will be a great experience: how vast a gap there is between two copies of the same recording. While digital format (to me) is perfect for pop and electronica music, and modern sounding recordings, but classical connects much more on LP. Digital somehow convey too much control: can work well for modern composers, but spoils Baroque ambience completely. Although there are some labels that do a pretty good job on CD with baroque classical music, Dorian comes to my mind with fantastic classical CDs.

For LPs, a secret is boxed sets. They cost very little, and are most often in mint condition: maybe Side A of the first record was played once, and that's it. That's the flip side of box sets as well - you can have the best recordings, and they are worth next to nothing if you try to sell them. The exception being the sealed box sets, which go for ridiculous money. Once you remove the plastic cover, you have knocked off a zero from value.
In your place I would start discovering Bach first, then a little Mozart and Beethoven. Then Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Ravel, Holst, Mahler, Shostakovitch, Mussorgsky. You can also expand to medieval music and renaissance (going back in time). That's also a very different kind of music

Also, be aware of the conductors. Their interpretation impacts the piece greatly. For example, a Mozart piece can be conducted to sound as a Beethoven piece, or Bach to sound like Khachaturian. There is a great nimbus for such performances (called modern interpretations), but you want to stay away from those at first, to get a feel for the core and the tradition.

Have a great journey!