classical newbie

Thanks to you all. I think I'm going to buy a 15 cd Colin Davis collection I just read about in sterophile. Also a 55 cd collection from Decca that was on Amazon. Then some from your suggestions, which i think will be a good start. Thanks again.

Sorry to be late but, maybe, for the future. A 63CD collection of the complete recordings by Fritz Reiner and the CSO on RCA. It is on sale now at Arkiv Music for about $150 +/-. A great place to start both for performances and some vintage & excellent recordings still highly prized, especially in the LP versions for the sonics.

Brownsfan,

thanks for your post--I would have added more suggestions but had time constraints. I plan to do so soon.

Meanwhile, my favorite current quartet is the Miro Quartet. I have their early Beethoven set and have heard them live. They are just my style, might be yours also.

For the OP, you might check out the Beaux Arts trio--a great piano trio with many recordings available.

If you have a way to stream music from the Internet to your system the best education you can get is with a subscription to mog.com. for $5 a month. That gives you access to thousands of complete albums.

The bit rate is 320 kbps, nowhere near CD quality but very listenable through a decent DAC. For example, there are 40 full versions of Bach's Cello Suites, including many of the performances considered to be among the best.

It's just a fact that the music that moves you is very personal and following advice about it from others can be a time consuming and expensive proposition with limited payoff. Being able to sample and then follow the trail of what interests you through a site like MOG opens up a world of music that simply wasn't possible back when we saved for weeks or months to buy that one album we thought we might like.

Having said that, I will add something to the recommendations you've received here. As heretical as it is on a site like this, after 40-something years of listening to music I'm still not moved by the kind of full orchestra symphonies others find so compelling.

My first classical album was the Julian Bream recording of Bach's Lute Suites. That was more than 40 years ago and I haven't strayed far from there despite decades of listening. Bach's small-scale works, the Cello Suites, English, French and Italian Suites for piano/harpsichord, the Art of Fugue and many others seem to resonate for me in a way that most other music only approaches, with the possible exception of Buddy Miller.

I've also been fascinated by older music, Marin Marais, Tobias Hume, Mr. De Sainte Colombe Le Fils, Mr. Demachy, François Couperin and others. Looking at the catalog of Jordi Savall's recordings is a great introduction to that world.

A couple of recordings that would serve as a great introduction are Martin Zeller's Six Suites A Violoncello Solo Senza Basso and Jeffrey Biegel's Bach on a Steinway. Both are beautifully performed and the recording quality is superb. Some will argue about the authenticity of listening to Bach's keyboard works on a modern piano but, man, it's just good music.

Beau Arts trio is an automatic but for me !