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How to go about collecting Classical Music

At age 68 I’ve started to like Classical Music. It’s been mostly Jazz, Rock n Roll, and R&B up to now. I’m familiar with those genres, know their history, artists, and how to best and most economically acquire their recordings. Not so the Classical repertoire which covers a much longer time period and encompasses so many styles and forms.

What genres and/or periods of Classical music should I be exploring? I’m not looking for recommendations on particular composers or artists, only genres or periods. In Classical music there is orchestral music, chamber music, opera, church music and who knows what else to try out. Maybe you could advise me, if you wouldn’t mind, of some types to try? Or maybe you could recommend a book on the subject that would help a rookie get a start understanding what’s out there.

In buying classical music, for any one work, there may be innumerable recordings by various artists, orchestras and ensembles. How do you sort out which recordings you want in that respect. For example, I looked up Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring on Ebay last night to get some idea of pricing and what classical music available there. There were so many recordings of that work, I would have no idea how to sort out which would have been a good choice. Are there web sites where there are recommendations on which recordings are most exceptional? Or alternately, are there classical record labels you can rely on routinely to provide superior quality recordings? I’ve heard Deutsche Gramophone may be a reliable label for one, but that’s about it. Could you recommend any other labels to look for?

There seems to be a lot of Classical music in SACD format relative to Jazz or Rock n ’Roll. Is there some reason for that? Should SACD be the format of choice for purchasing Classical music, or is there good classical material in Redbook format to be found? I prefer to stay away from used vinyl due to condition issues, or new vinyl due to cost. I’m guessing the better dynamic range of CD’s lends itself to orchestral music. Is there any market for used classical SACD’s? Are there any sites you prefer to purchase your Classical CD’s, either new or used?

I grew up on Long Island. On one trip to midtown Manhattan I walked into an old church not too far from St. Patrick’s to view its’ magnificent stained glass window. Once inside I heard some equally magnificent classical organ being played. I discovered the church’s incredible organ was being played by some of New York City’s finest classical organists who would book time to practice on it. That large church was always deserted, and I went back many times for what amounted to free private concerts. I’d like to know what kind of music that was to try and replicate that experience to some degree at home, From what I’ve read here and elsewhere there surely is a plethora of other wonderful Classical music to explore and enjoy. Thanks in advance for any advice,

Mike






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Showing 1 response by jd3939

jd3939
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Many great responses here. I am interested in classical music and like yourself also like physical media. I am much younger than most posting here (29 years old), but also see the utility of not having emails, scrolling habits, screen glare distracting from the listening experience. Liner notes are also extremely useful for getting some background to the works.

As mentioned by others, “classical music” is a broad and almost useless term, though intuitively we all know what we are talking about. There’s so much under that umbrella term that if someone says they don’t like classical music then they simply haven’t been exposed because there’s literally something for everyone.

I agree that ‘redbook’ CD or SACD is the way to go for physical media. Although there is a tremendous amount of music released on hybrid SACD (can be played on standard CD player, reading only redbook layer), most classical physical releases are simply redbook CDs. Personally, I just buy what I want to hear and don’t worry about SACD vs RBCD difference. I will say, it gets frustrating for someone like myself who doesn’t have an SACD transport, but wants to play physical media and still get HiRes quality. The industry simply isn’t there for us non megarich consumers.

When thinking about classical music everyone thinks of the baroque period, classical period, and romantic period. There’s a joyous treasury of music outside of this, including renaissance and medieval music, modern music, “world music”, electronic art music, other meaningless labels that extend beyond the reach of what most people think of classical music, but demand the same attentive listening stance as classical music.

The website Prestomusic has a “record of the week” column that may be useful for you in terms of discovery. If you find something you like read about similar artists and branch out from there! For me, that is one of the joys of physical media – reading the contributing artists and picking up their work.

I know you didn’t ask for specifics but I have been enjoying:

21st century music:
A Far Cry – The Law of Mosaics – brilliant recording of Andrew Norman’s “The Companion Guide to Rome”
Hughes Dufourt – L’Afrique d’apres Tiepolo, L’Asie d’apres Tiepolo
Toshio Hosokawa – Gardens

Classical:
Mozart – Violin Sonatas – Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melkinov

Baroque:
Sean Shibe – Bach Lute Suites on Classical Guitar
Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque – Bach’s Art of Fugue

Early Music:
La Morte Della Ragione – Il Giardino Armonico


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