Introduction to Classical Music

I put up this page to provide some help to people who, while interested in getting into "Classical" music, find the prospect daunting because they "don't know where to start". I've put together a (wholly subjective) list of pieces that I think would be good starting points for a newcomer.

The whole list is quite long, so this page provides an index into it, by composer name. Clicking on one of the composer names in the table below takes you to that composer's entry in the main list. You might like to start with a composer you know of already and see what music of theirs I recommend. The more adventurous might like to try an unfamiliar name.

Under each composer I've listed a small number of pieces that I think are good starting points for that composer's music. Where very short pieces are involved I've tried to give a few to look out for in combination. Some of the entries have suggestions (in parentheses) for other similar works you might like to try if you already like the main suggestion.

Just as important as finding a composer and piece of music of interest, is finding a good recording. Poor performances of even the greatest music are worse than useless and "OK" performances can fail to communicate, whereas a great performance can really thrill in the way it reveals the qualities of the music. The popular classical rertoire is so frequently recorded that buying at random is more likely to disappoint than please and no soloist, orchestra, conductor, or record label can be relied upon to always deliver the goods, so some form of guidance is essential. My personal bible is the Penguin guide (ISBN 0-14-051367-1) which has never steered me wrong in all my years of collecting classical recordings. A useful on-line resource is the database of recordings recommended over the years on BBC Radio 3's "Building a Library" feature, but I do find their recommendations less reliable than those of the Penguin guide editors. I hope eventually to add some personal recommendations to the listing page, but for now my advice is to trust the Penguin!

I have found that the best way to get into an unfamiliar piece of classical music is to listen to it frequently, both as background music and more attentively, over a period of many days or even a few weeks. Especially if you limit yourself to one new recording at a time, repeated listening will gradually familiarise you with the overall structure of the music (its patterns of fast/slow and loud/quiet, when different tunes and rhythms come and go and return, when the soloist or chorus is taking part and when silent) and its arrangement (which instruments or groups of instruments are playing when, how tunes are shared out or passed around between them, how the musical texture changes as the balance between different contributions to the overall sound changes). There is so much more going on in a piece of classical music than in popular forms that it is impossible to grasp a piece on just one hearing and there is always new detail to be noticed, no matter how often you listen.

The entries are organised into very broad categories, principally orchestral, chamber, and choral. There are no opera suggestions yet, that's whole separate field. The composers listed cover the range of what is loosely known as "classical" music (roughly the last 300 years of Western art music) concentrating on the more well-known and readily accessible. By the time your collection contains most of the suggested pieces you will have built up a pretty thorough basis on which to branch out into less mainstream areas with confidence.

Obviously a selection like this is very personal and there will be ommissions and inclusions that may seem strange, for example I have an almost total blind-spot where Haydn is concerned. Some of my personal favourites, most noticeably Lutoslawski, are missing from the list as I couldn't, in all conscience, recommend them to somebody coming to classical music for the first time. Just where to draw the line is always a problem (for example: why not include Mahler and Vivaldi?) but there should be little dispute that the earlier entries in the table represent the concensus view of the more important composers in the mainstream of classical music. Enjoy!

Table of composers:

Mozart	Beethoven	Bach
Britten	Brahms	Tchaikovsky
Schubert	Handel	Elgar
Dvorak	R. Strauss	Copland
Sibelius	Mendelssohn	Berlioz
Shostakovich	Stravinsky	Wagner
Rachmaninov	Chopin	Debussy
Ravel	Schumann	Gershwin
Prokofiev	Grieg	Walton
Holst	Rossini	Mussorgsky
Rimsky-Korsakov	Liszt	Satie
Orff	Bruch	Bizet
Barber	Janacek	J. Strauss

If you find anything here useful, or have any suggestions for improvements, please do feel free to contact me. I'd love to hear from you.

Happy Listening!
Steve.