Classical Music - Check this out!!

Completely agree that Presto Music is an outstanding resource for classical music!

In addition, I recommend the classical review magazine Gramophone: Gramophone – classical music magazine, podcast and reviews | Gramophone

The main blog is free but with a paid subscription Gramophone has thousands of classical recording reviews going back a century!

I also recommend the streaming radio channel Accuradio: Classical - Listen to Free Radio Stations - AccuRadio

Accuradio does not stream in high-res but does have a wide variety of hundreds of free channels and sub-channels including a classical channel with 84 sub-channels listed and described. Since it is free it does have some commercials, but I don't find them intrusive all things considered. For desktop background listening it is quite enjoyable. 

Hi,

The books by Bill Parker are a great source for comparing recommended recordings.

His earlier books are LPs focused, which covers the 'golden-era' of recorded classical music and which translates to CDs in most instances, for example. Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven 5th and 7th are at the tops of everyone's LP list.  They can be found on the same CD.

His later books are CD focused, so they may not include many of the 'golden era' LPs, but the great ones are usually there...

Have fun, and keep reaching-out.  This is an astoundingly large library of music to explore, collect and enjoy.

The Penguin Guide to Classical Music

A subscription to Grammophone

Gramophone and Presto seem to have got into bed together!

Certainly the reviews in Presto include summaries of Gramophone reviews, and more recently Gramophone pushes its recommended recordings to Presto.

Technically @oberoniaomnia is correct about baroque and Bach but I enjoy Bach in large-scale orchestrations by Elgar and Stokowski just as much.

I did float the idea of ditching the word classical (except when correctly used for Mozart etc) and substituting long music, but my boat sank.

@richardbrand for large orchestral works by Bach, possibly try Nederland's Bach Society. I heard them play the Mass in B minor in Berkley. Hearing it on gut strings at a' = 415 Hz, HIPP played, that is a whole new experience. They recorded it, though I don't have that 2x CD. 

Baroque playing is not about playing loud with vibrato sauce, but about gestures such as trills and note shaping (messa de voce, much easier to do with baroque bow than with modern Tourte bow). Listen for the type of trill used (starting upper/lower note, turn at the end, speed change, number of oscillations) and also variation on repeats, which are typically not written out, as the performer was expected to improvise "in the usual manner". Classical orchestras are clueless about all of the above. That's why they compensate by playing loud and hide their ignorance with vibrato sauce.

Current audiences are by and large clueless and just like loud music. I went to a Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra "Baroque series" concert, where the musical director massacred a piece on the grand piano, did not even keep the lid on, utterly killing the theorbo's fine plucking by Master Schneiderman. Theorbo and plucked harpsichord form the Basso Continuo portion of the orchestra. Con-certare (playing together) went out the window, just me-me-me. It was viscerally painful. The carnage got a standing ovation, because it was loud and loud = good.