5 of the top masterpieces that you really like, or that made you engage ....Here are six, in no particular order:
1)Dvorak, "New World Symphony," Jascha Horenstein conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Chesky CD31. Incredible sonics, great performance, great music. Recorded in 1962!
2)Chopin, "Piano Sonata in B Minor, Op. 58," Hyperion Knight, Piano; Wilson Audio WCD-9129. Perhaps the best sonics of any recording of solo piano in my experience; incredibly beautiful music; excellent performance. Out of print and very hard to find, though.
3)Brahms, "Symphony No. 1." My favorite symphony. Two recommendations:
-- For performance + sonics: Jascha Horenstein conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; Chesky CD19. Recorded in 1962.
-- For one of the greatest performances ever, IMO, in primitive but listenable sonics (transcribed from 78 rpm disks): Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Recorded in 1940. Can be downloaded or listened to here.
4)Beethoven, "Symphony No. 6" (The Pastorale), Bruno Walter conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Recorded in 1958. I have an imported remastered edition, Japanese CBS/Sony 20AC1811, which has nice sonics. Considered by many to be the definitive interpretation of this beautiful work.
5)Moussorgsky/Ravel, "Pictures at an Exhibition," Lorin Maazel conducting the Cleveland Orchestra, Telarc 10042. Wonderful!
6)Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet (excerpts), Erich Leinsdorf conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Sheffield Lab 10043-2. Dry ambience, excessively bright string sound, but if your system does not tend towards brightness, and can handle ultra-wide dynamic range, you will find this to be an amazing recording of very engaging music.
Regarding question (C), I have about 600 classical recordings.
Regards,
-- Al