the GMG recommendations project

[coffee]

About the GMG Recommendations Project

New to classical music? Or a veteran listener looking for something new? You've come to the right place!

The participants of this forum have created this list of recommendations, ranked from our highest recommendations (at the top) on down to works we specifically do not recommend. You can find it in reply #1, the post right below this one. These recommendations embody an accumulation of many people's knowledge and a consensus (via compromise) of many people's tastes. We eagerly hope it helps you fall in love with some music that you might not have heard already.

Happy listening!

Finally, if you have any personal familiarity with classical music, and have formed any kind of opinions about it, you will probably, for one reason or another, view our list with dismay, even horror. Well, you can make it better. We constantly update this list as we discover new works or remember old ones that we'd forgotten to recommend, and in this project, every vote, regardless of when it is cast, carries an equal weight. So it's not too late: all you have to do is cast a vote, baby, and share your insight with us. Someone will appreciate it. Someone else will disagree with it. That's life in this tragically fallen world. It's even worse on the internet. But the good news is, especially if you bring a lot of knowledge to us, far more people will appreciate it. So please, especially if you have decades of study and careful listening to share, vote in order to add your own insights and preferences to our recommendations. But even if you only know a few works, you can share your tastes with the world. We truly hope you will! See reply #2, below, for instructions. Thank you!

[coffee]

Tier 8: (most strongly recommended):
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)

Tier 7:
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #4 in G, op. 58

Tier 6:
Bach, JS: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Beethoven: Symphony #3 "Eroica" ("Heroic") in E-flat, op. 55
Beethoven: Symphony #9 "Choral" in D minor, op. 125
Debussy: La mer
Ligeti: Études
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Mahler: Symphony #9
Monteverdi: L'Orfeo
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie (Hippolytus and Aricia)
Schoenberg: String Quartet #2 in F-sharp minor, op. 10
Schubert: Winterreise, D. 911
Sibelius: Symphony #7 in C, op. 105
Wagner: Parsifal

Tier 5:
Bach, JS: Matthäus-Passion (St. Matthew Passion), BWV 244
Bach, JS: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier), BWV 846–893
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114
Boulez: Pli selon pli (Fold by Fold)
Debussy: Préludes, Books 1 & 2
Dufay: Nuper rosarum flores
Ives: Symphony #4
Mahler: Symphony #6 in A minor
Messiaen: Éclairs sur l'au-delà... (Illuminations from the Beyond...)
Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time)
Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie
Monteverdi: The 8th Madrigal Book, Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Madrigals of War and Love)
Mozart: Piano Concerto #20 in D minor, K. 466
Rameau: Pièces de clavecin
Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill), op. 25, D. 795
Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)
Stravinsky: Threni
Verdi: Otello
Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

Tier 4
Bach, JS: Mass in B minor, BWV 232
Bach, JS: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #14 in C-sharp minor, op. 27/2 "Quasi una fantasia" ("Moonlight")
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #30 in E, op. 109
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #32 in C minor, op. 111
Beethoven: Symphony #5 in C minor, op. 67
Beethoven: Symphony #6 "Pastoral" in F, op. 68
Beethoven: Symphony #7 in A, op. 92
Berg: Wozzeck
Berio: Sinfonia
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, op. 14
Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas
Brahms: Symphony #4 in E minor, op. 98
Britten: War Requiem, op. 66
Bruckner: Symphony #5 in B-flat
Bruckner: Symphony #8 in C minor
Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit (Thus the Night)
Dutilleux: Timbres, espace, mouvement (Timbre, space, movement)
Fauré: Requiem in D minor, op. 48
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56
Haydn, J: Symphony #104 "London" in D
Janáček: Sinfonietta
Josquin: Nymphes des bois (La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem) 
Lassus: Lagrime di San Pietro (Saint Peter's Tears)
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B Minor, S.177
Lutosławski: Symphony #3
Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame
Mahler: Rückert-Lieder
Mendelssohn: Symphony #4 "Italian" in A, op. 90
Messiaen: Le Livre du Saint-Sacrement (The Book of the Blessed Sacrament)
Messiaen: Trois petites liturgies de la presence divine (Three Small Liturgies of the Divine Presence)
Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus
Mozart: Symphony #41 "Jupiter" in C, K. 551
Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov
Nielsen: Symphony #4 "The Inextinguishable," op. 29
Nielsen: Symphony #5, op. 50
Nørgard: Symphony #3
Ockeghem: Missa prolationum
Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus Mass)
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #2 in G minor, op. 16
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G
Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
Schubert: String Quartet #14 "Death and the Maiden" in D minor, D. 810
Schubert: String Quintet in C, D. 956
Schubert: Symphony #8 "Unfinished" in B minor, D. 759
Sibelius: Symphony #5 in E-flat, op. 82
Strauss, R: Metamorphosen
Strauss, R: Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)
Stravinsky: Agon
Stravinsky: Les noces (The Wedding)
Stravinsky: Petrushka
Tallis: Spem in Alium
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Verdi: Falstaff
Wagner: Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master-Singers of Nuremberg)

Tier 3:
Adams, J: Harmonielehre
Alfonso X El Sabio: Cantigas de Santa Maria
Bach, JS: Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-1051
Bach, JS: Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5 in E-flat, op. 73 "Emperor"
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #8 in C minor, op. 13 "Pathetique"
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #21 in C, op. 53 "Waldstein"
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #23 "Appassionata" (Passionate) in F minor, op. 57
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #29 in B-flat, op. 106 "Hammerklavier"
Beethoven: String Quartet #13 in B-flat, op. 130, including the Große Fuge (Great Fugue), op. 133
Beethoven: String Quartet #14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131
Beethoven: Symphony #8 in F, op. 93
Boulez: Le marteau sans maître (The Hammer Without a Master)
Boulez: Sur Incises
Brahms: Piano Concerto #2 in B-flat, op. 83
Brahms: Piano Trio #1 in B, op. 8
Brahms: String Sextet #1 in B-flat, op. 18
Brahms: Symphony #1 in C minor, op. 68
Bruckner: Symphony #9 in D minor
Chopin: Nocturnes
Debussy: Études for piano
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor, op. 104
Dvořák: Symphony #9 "From the New World" in E minor, op. 95
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85
Feldman: Rothko Chapel
Grisey: Espaces acoustiques
Josquin: Missa L'homme armé sexti toni
Lassus: Prophetiae Sibyllarum ("Sibylline Prophecies")
Mahler: Symphony #2 "Resurrection"
Mahler: Symphony #3
Martin: Petite symphonie concertante, op. 54
Monteverdi (et. al.?): L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppaea)
Mozart: Symphony #40 in G minor, K. 550
Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, op. 67
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #3 in D minor, op. 30
Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus (Concerto for birds and orchestra), op. 61
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, op. 35
Schnittke: Piano Quintet
Schoenberg: Serenade, op. 24
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), op. 4
Schubert: String Quartet #15 in G, D. 887
Schumann: Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love), op. 48
Sciarrino: Luci mie traditrici (Oh My Betraying Eyes)
Shostakovich: String Quartet #8 in C minor, op. 110
Shostakovich: Symphony #5 in D minor, op. 47
Shostakovich: Symphony #8 in C minor, op. 65
Shostakovich: Symphony #10 in E minor, op. 93
Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles
Stravinsky: Symphony in C
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, op. 71
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto #1 in B-flat minor, op. 23
Tchaikovsky: Symphony #5 in E minor, op. 64
Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6 "Pathétique" in B minor, op. 74
Thomson: The Feast of Love
Vivaldi: Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest of Harmony and Invention), including Le quattro staggioni (The Four Seasons)
Webern: Symphony, op. 21
Weill: Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)
Xenakis: Jonchaies

Tier 2:
Adams, J: The Dharma at Big Sur
Adams, JL: Become Ocean
Albéniz: Iberia
Alkan: 12 Etudes in All the Minor Keys, op. 39
Bach, JS: Johannes-Passion (St. John Passion), BWV 245
Barber: Symphony #1 (in one movement), op. 9
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116
Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110
Beethoven: String Quartet #15 in A minor, op. 132
Beethoven: String Quartet #16 in F, op. 135
Beethoven: Symphony #4 in B-flat, op. 60
Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, op. 61
Bellini: Norma
Berg: Kammerkonzert (Chamber Concerto) for Piano, Violin, and 13 Wind Instruments
Berg: Violin Concerto
Bernstein: Mass
Boccherini: Quintettino (Quintet) "La Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid" (Night Music of the Streets of Madrid) in C, op. 30/6
Boulez: Piano Sonata #2
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op. 115
Brahms: Ein deutsches requiem ("A German Requiem"), op. 45
Brahms: Piano Concerto #1 in D minor, op. 15
Brahms: String Sextet #2 in G, op. 36
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn ("St. Anthony Variations"), op. 56a
Bruckner: Symphony #6 in A
Bruckner: Symphony #7 in E
Busoni: Berceuse élégiaque, op. 42
Carter: A Symphony of Three Orchestras
Casella: A notte alta, op. 30
Chopin: Ballades
Chopin: Polonaise in A Flat, op. 53, "Heroic"
Chopin: Preludes, op. 28
Crumb: Black Angels
Dallapiccola: Canti di prigionia
Debussy: Jeux (Games)
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
Debussy: Sonata for flute, viola and harp
Dufay: Missa Se la face ay pale
Dvořák: Piano Trio #4 in E minor, op. 90 "Dumky"
Dvořák: String Quartet #12 "American" in F, op. 96
Enescu: Oedipe
Falla: El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat)
Franck: Violin Sonata in A
Gesualdo: Madrigals, Book 6
Ginastera: Cello Concerto #2, op. 50
Glass: Songs from Liquid Days
Gluck: Iphigénie en Aulide
Gorecki: Symphony #3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"
Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16
Gubaidulina: Repentance
Gubaidulina: Viola Concerto
Haydn, J: Die Schöpfung (The Creation)
Haydn, J: Symphony #101 "The Clock" in D
Harvey: Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Holst: The Planets, op. 32 
Honegger: Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake)
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel
Janáček: Jenůfa
Janáček's String Quartet #1, "Kreutzer Sonata"
Korngold: Violin Concerto in D, op. 35
Kurtág: Messages of the Late Miss R. V. Troussova, op. 17
Ligeti: Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano
Liszt: Années de pèlerinage, S.160-163
Lully: Atys
Lutosławski: Cello Concerto
Maderna: Quadrivium
Mahler: Symphony #1 "Titan" in D
Mahler: Symphony #4 in G
Mahler: Symphony #5
Martin: Ballade for Trombone and Orchestra
Martinů: Polní mše (Field Mass)
Martinů: Symphony #4, H. 305
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio #2 in C minor, op. 66
Mendelssohn: Octet in E-flat, op. 20
Mendelssohn: Symphony #3 "Scottish" in A minor, op. 56
Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (And I Await the Resurrection of the Dead) 
Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 3
Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 4
Monteverdi: Selva morale e spirituale
Mozart: Piano Concerto #18 in B-flat, K. 456
Mozart: Piano Concerto #21 in C, K. 467
Mozart: Piano Concerto #22 in E-flak, K. 482
Mozart: Piano Concerto #23 in A, K. 488
Mozart: Piano Concerto #24 in C minor, K. 491
Mozart: Piano Concerto #27 in B-flat, K. 595
Mozart: Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat, K. 452
Mozart: Symphony #38 in D, K. 504 "Prague"
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
Nono: Como una ola de fuerza y luz
Nono: Prometeo (Prometheus)
Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann)
Orff: Carmina Burana
Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Pérotin: Sederunt principes
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #3
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, op. 64
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto #1 in D, op. 19
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Rachmaninoff: 24 Preludes, opp. 3/2, 23, and 32   
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, op. 45
Rachmaninov: Symphony #2 in E minor, op. 27
Rameau: Castor et Pollux (1754 version)
Rautavaara: Vigilia
Ravel: Piano Trio
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin (pour piano)
Reich: Different Trains
Saariaho: Je sens un deuxième coeur (I feel a second heart)
Saint-Saëns: Symphony #3 "Organ" in C minor, op. 78
Schumann: Études Symphoniques (Symphonic Studies), op. 13
Schumann: Fantasie in C, op. 17
Schumann: Gesänge der Frühe (Songs of Dawn), op. 133
Schumann: Kreisleriana, op. 16
Schütz: Cantiones sacrae
Schütz: Weihnachtshistorie (Christmas Story), SWV 435
Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, op. 57
Shostakovich: Piano Trio #2 in E minor, op. 67
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto #1 in A minor, op. 77/99
Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge ("Song of the Youths")
Stockhausen: Gruppen for 3 orchestras
Strauss, R: Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), op. 64
Strauss, R: Elektra, op. 58
Stravinsky: Dumbarton Oaks
Stravinsky: Ebony Concerto
Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
Suk: A Summer's Tale, op. 29
Szymanowski: Violin Concerto #1, op. 35
Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, op. 24
Toch: Die chinesische Flöte, op. 29
Vaughan Williams: Flos Campi
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Vaughan Williams: Symphony #5 in D
Victoria: Officium Defunctorum (Requiem à 6)
Wolf: Spanisches Liederbuch (Spanish songbook)

Tier 1:
Abrahamsen: let me tell you
Adams, J: Nixon in China
Allegri: Miserere
Alwyn: Lyra Angelica (Harp Concerto)
Anon.: Dies irae (Gregorian chant)
Antheil: Ballet Mécanique
Bacewicz: String Quartet #5
Bax: Symphony #1
Beach: Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor, op. 67
Beethoven: String Quartet #10 in E-flat "Harp", op. 74
Berlioz: Les Troyens (The Trojans)
Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus
Bonis: Piano Quartet #2, op. 124
Brahms: Horn Trio in E-flat, op. 40
Brahms: Symphony #2 in D, op. 73
Brahms: Symphony #3 in F, op. 90
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D, op. 77 
Bruch: Violin Concerto #1 in G minor, op. 26
Bruckner: Symphony #4 in E-flat
Cage: 4'33"
Cage: Music of Changes
Carter: Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei
Casella: La Giara
Cerha: Bruchstück, geträumt (Fractured, Dreamed)
Chausson: Concert for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet, op. 21
Chopin: Scherzi (Scherzos)
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Dukas: L'apprenti sorcier (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Elgar: Enigma Variations, op. 36
Enescu: Chamber Symphony in E, op. 33
Ferrari: Presque Rien #1: Le Lever du Jour au Bord de la Mer (Almost Nothing #1: Daybreak at the Seashore)
Finzi: Let Us Garlands Bring, op. 18
Franck: Symphony in D minor
Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Ginastera: Variaciones concertantes, op. 23
Glass: Koyaanisqatsi
Handel: Giulio Cesare 
Handel: Water Music, HWV 348-350
Hartmann: Symphony #1 "Versuch eines Requiem" (Essay Towards a Requiem)
Haydn, J: Symphony #94 in G "Surprise"
Haydn, M.: Requiem (Missa pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismondo)
Heller: Voyage autour de ma chambre (Voyage around my room)
Henning: Out in the Sun
Hindemith: Violin Sonata #1, op. 11/4
Husa: Music for Prague 1968
Ives: The Unanswered Question
Josquin: Miserere
Kalinnikov: Symphony #1 in G minor
Kancheli: Mourned by the Wind, liturgy for solo viola & orchestra
Koechlin: Ballade for piano and orchestra, op. 50
Krenek: Symphonic Elegy (in memoriam Anton Webern), op. 105
Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion
Ligeti: Atmosphères
Ligeti: Chamber Concerto
Liszt: Christus, S.3
Mahler: Symphony #7
Medtner: Piano Concerto #3 "Ballade" in E minor, op. 60
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64
Messiaen: Catalogue d'oiseaux
Milhaud: La Création du monde (The Creation of the World), op. 81a
Mozart: Great Mass in C minor K. 427/417a
Mozart: Piano Concerto #25 in C, K. 503
Mozart: Serenade #13 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" in G, K. 525
Mozart: String Quintet #3 in C, K. 515
Nono: Das attendee Klarsein
Nyman: MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse [High-Speed Music])
Orff: Der Mond
Ortiz: Trattado de Glosas
Pärt: Fratres
Pierné: Piano Concerto in C minor, op. 12
Poulenc: Gloria
Prokofiev: Symphony #5 in B-flat, op. 100
Puccini: La bohème
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #2 in C minor, op. 18
Rawsthorne: Piano Concerto #1
Rautavaara: Symphony #7 "Angel of Light"
Ravel: Bolero
Reich: Proverb
Riley: In C
Saint-Saëns: Le Carnaval des Animaux (The Carnival of the Animals)
Schnittke: Concerto Grosso #1
Schnittke: String Trio
Schnittke: Symphony #5 (Concerto Grosso #4)
Schnittke: Viola Concerto
Scriabin: Piano Sonata #7, op. 64 "White Mass"
Scriabin: Piano Sonata #9, op. 68 "Black Mass"
Schubert: Piano Trio #1 in B-flat, D. 898
Schubert: Piano Trio #2 in E-flat, D. 929
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat, op. 44
Schumann: Violin Sonata #2 in D minor, op. 121
Shostakovich: String Quartet #3 in F, op. 73
Shostakovich: Symphony #4 in C minor, op. 43
Sibelius: Symphony #2 in D, op. 43
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47
Smetana: Má vlast (My Homeland)
Smetana: String Quartet #1 "From My Life" in E minor
Stockhausen: Hymnen
Strauss, J: Radetzky March, op. 228
Strauss, R: Don Juan, op. 20
Strauss, R: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks), op. 28
Stravinsky: Jeu de cartes
Stravinsky: L'Oiseau de Feu (The Firebird)
Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, op. 50
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D, op. 35
Teixeira: Te Deum
Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts
Turina: Piano Trio #2 in B minor, op. 76
Vaughan Williams: Symphony #7 "Sinfonia antartica" (Antarctic Symphony)

Tier 0 (not recommended):
Enescu: Cello Sonata #1 in F minor, op. 26/1
Mahler: Symphony #10
Strauss, J II: An der schönen blauen Donau (The Blue Danube), op. 314
All other works!

This is updated as of hustlefan's vote in reply #607.

[coffee]

How to Participate

Anyone who chooses to participate can recommend works (regardless of era, genre, whatever) by voting for them. You can vote as many times as you want, but you must wait a minimum of sixteen hours between your votes. (The idea is to enable each of us to vote about once a day. Once the voting is brisk enough, I might shorten the time that needs to pass between votes so that we can vote twice a day.)

Each vote must have three parts: a +2, a +1, and a -1. So you think of two works you want to recommend more strongly - it doesn't matter whether they've been recommended already or not - and you vote for them with the +2 and +1 parts of your vote. You also have to find a work on our chart that (in your opinion) is recommended too strongly relative to the other works on the list. That might be difficult, but you've got to do it! You will give that work the -1 part of your vote. (You can't vote -1 for a work already at zero; no works can be voted below zero. Also, any work that is voted back down to zero will be recorded as a score of zero.) 

So you can vote by using this chart:

+2: [any work that you want to recommend more strongly]
+1: [another work that you want to recommend more strongly]
-1: [a work that you think is recommended too strongly compared to the other works on the board]

And that's it! You're done. Come back in sixteen hours and vote again. However, note that you cannot vote for or against a work with consecutive votes. That means that if you vote (for example) for Beethoven's Symphony #9 with a vote, your next vote cannot include Beethoven's Symphony #9. Sorry! You'll have to think of some other works to recommend for a turn, and you can come back to Beethoven's Symphony #9 with a later vote. You can vote for or against it as much as you want, but only every other vote.

(If you want, you can simplify the way you write your vote just by listing three works, which I will interpret as a +2 vote for the first work you mention, a +1 vote for the second work you mention and a -1 vote for the third work you mention.)

Periodically (about once a day) I will update the first post, which contains the list of our recommendations, in order from most recommended to least recommended. All works not listed in the first post are assumed to be not (yet) recommended! (Initially, of course, all works ever have a score of zero, but they aren't actually listed at zero unless someone has at least voted them up once before the rest of us voted them back to zero.)

Eventually the list of recommendations will include thousands of works, all ranked according to our collective opinion of how strongly they should be recommended. (I will reserve the first few posts of the thread in order to have room for all of them. If anything tragic should happen to me, any mod would be able to take over the maintenance of the list. Or someone still active could start a new thread and take over.)

More Words

The term "classical music" includes a huge number of works: medieval chansons and motets, Renaissance polyphonic masses and madrigals, Baroque opera and dance suites, Classical symphonies and concertos and sonatas, Romantic tone poems and lieder, impressionism, futurism, serialism, neoclassicism, electroacoustic music, musique concréte, minimalism, spectralism, polystylism, New Complexity, lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

What listeners new to classical music typically do is explore famous composers - Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Stravinsky, on down the list. Others decide to skip all that and find some niche that they can occupy with less competition.

There's no problem with just exploring whatever we happen to stumble upon that seems interesting; I'd even argue that it's a very good thing to do occasionally. But some of us also want to educate ourselves, to become familiar with the greatest works of all the eras and genres. We will always wonder, what am I missing? Or perhaps we feel tired of exploring the so-called "beaten path" and want to find something different, something new to us, but not actually just any old random thing.

No matter how we go about it, we always eventually come to the questions: What should I explore next? What new thing would I like to try?

That's where this project comes in. The idea is to record the collective strength of our recommendations. The question is: How strongly do we recommend various works to listeners as yet unfamiliar with them?

The most highly recommended works are those we'd consider "most fundamental" to a listener's education, including works that we recommend though they may not be as famous or historically significant. So the works ranked highest on the list are the works we (collectively) recommend most strongly. Somewhat less important but still very important works are beneath them, with fewer points. And so on down the list.

Therefore, we ask you to vote not only according to your own personal tastes, but also according to your sense of what is most important or helpful to listeners with less experience than you have. When you look at our list, you must see some work that, in your opinion, is much more important than our ranking has it. Vote to move it up! Or you might notice some work missing: vote to add it. And you might see some work that is ranked higher than you think appropriate: vote to move it down.

A few words (you can see that I love words) on the negative vote: a negative vote does not necessarily mean that you do not like a work. All it means is that you do not recommend it as strongly as the rest of us have (so far) chosen to recommend it. Please consider very carefully before moving a work from Tier 1 (very weakly recommended) to Tier 0 (not recommended). Would you really recommend someone NOT to listen to that work? However, the negative vote is required (paradoxically, this helps us avoid hard feelings), so every time you vote, you have to find some work on the list that is recommended more strongly than you would recommend it. (Perhaps, if you really can't find anything you'd like to move down, you can consider just voting against whatever work is at the top of the list. Is it really that much better than whatever is in second place?)

[coffee]

I'm saving this post for later when there will hopefully be a huge list of thousands of recommendations....

[coffee]

I'll save this one too, just in case...

[coffee]

One more time... Saving this post... I'm very optimistic... but this will be the last time!

[SimonNZ]

I'll play, but you might want to start with a larger group and higher initial scores - or we may be obliged to vote off Beethoven simply because we're obliged to give something a minus.

[coffee]

I'll play, but you might want to start with a larger group and higher initial scores - or we may be obliged to vote off Beethoven simply because we're obliged to give something a minus.

That's what will happen, and it's ok. We can vote anything back up again. Nothing is permanent.

[GioCar]

Ok, my friend from another time and space  (didn't know you were here as well - very happy to meet you again)

I'll play. I'm a bit trained from another similar game 

J.S. Bach: Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 / Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Beethoven 9 -1 (tough this one)

[Androcles]

Bach Partita No. 2 for solo violin +2
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 +1
Beethoven 5 -1

[SimonNZ]

Harvey: Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco +2
Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time +1
Beethoven Symphony No.9 -1

so...you update the board yourself? How many works are there to be up for vote at any one time? At what point do they go off the voting board and on to a permanent list?

[coffee]

Harvey: Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco +2
Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time +1
Beethoven Symphony No.9 -1

so...you update the board yourself? How many works are there to be up for vote at any one time? At what point do they go off the voting board and on to a permanent list?

There is no permanent list!

That Harvey work is an awesome recommendation. How did you encounter that work?

[coffee]

Bach Partita No. 2 for solo violin +2
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 +1
Beethoven 5 -1

Unless you object very strongly, I'd like to group Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin into a single "item" on our list.

I'll do that for now, but you let me know if you really want to Partita #2 alone.   

[coffee]

+2 Cage Music of Changes
+1 Bach Matthew Passion
-1 Harvey Mortuos

[SimonNZ]

There is no permanent list!

That Harvey work is an awesome recommendation. How did you encounter that work?

So the first post/score will just keep getting bigger and bigger?

heh...you say its an awesome work then mark it down. can't remember how I first heard about it - someone's list of recommendations somewhere.

[coffee]

So the first post/score will just keep getting bigger and bigger?

heh...you say its an awesome work then mark it down. can't remember how I first heard about it - someone's list of recommendations somewhere.

Yeah, I had to vote against something, and... it's not Bach.... I guess Cage is not long for the high scores either.

Yes, the list'll just get bigger and bigger without limit, aside from our mortalities or whatever. But Harvey will be on there forever. 

[GioCar]

Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps / Schubert: Winterreise D.911
Cage: Music of Changes -1

[Trout]

+2 Reich Music for 18 Musicians
+1 Messiaen Turangalila-Symphonie
-1 Bach Sonatas and Partitas

Already off to a very interesting start! Beethoven who exactly? 

[Maestro267]

There needs to be a point at which pieces with enough recommendations go into a "Hall of Fame", otherwise this feels like a rather pointless exercise.

[Androcles]

+2 Beethoven 9
+1 Mozart Piano Concerto 24
-1 Harvey Mortuos Plangos