A brief chronological survey of my own tastes in classical, in which I leap irresponsibly across centuries ignoring and forgetting oodles of genius:
St. Godric. Only three of his songs survive in written form from the 12th century, but they are striking. The piece
Crist and St. Marie is incredibly haunting, and you can find a beautiful version by the group Anuna—who are a wonderful introduction to ancient classical music in general. Try also their version of
Cormacus Scripsit, the oldest surviving piece written in three parts, or
Sanctus, based on the works of Hildegard von Bingen.
Hildegard von Bingen. Ms. Bingen was also composing right at the cusp of written music and her work was suppressed by the church because she used "satanic" intervals in her liturgical chants. (thirds) There are older Gregorian chants that also come down to us, but Ms. Bingen shines like a beacon in the mists of history—recordings of her compositions feature some incredible female vocalists, and just about any you can find will transport you. There was a surge in the popularity of her music a few years ago which produced, among others, the albums
Canticles of Ecstacy, Lux Vixens, and
11,000 Virgins, all excellent.
Some other good introductions to Medieval and early Renaissance music are Kronos Quartet's aptly named
Lachrymć Antiqua (Early Music), The Baltimore Consort's
On The Banks of Helicon (Early Music of Scotland), and Jordi Savall's
Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World), the music of Marin Marias, which brings us up to the 17th century.
Johann Pachelbel. German organist remembered largely for one piece: his
Canon in D Major. You've heard this whether you know it or not, it's often used as Christmas music and cropped up in a recent commercial. For me, the best recording of it, although it's actually variations on the canon and not the original structure, is Brian Eno's
Discreet Music. (in three parts)
The
Albinoni Adagio is essential.
Johann Sebastian Bach. For me Bach is the ultimate classical composer. (I'm not terribly big on much symphonic music, with a few exceptions, and Bach's work tends more toward "keyboard studies" and chamber music, which is more to my taste.) My favorites are
The Well Tempered Clavier, an extensive body of works,
The Goldberg Variations, and
The Brandenburg Concertos, but I find all of his work has a delightful, fluid yet mathematical quality. Indeed, a number of his fugues are said to be "impossible" and contain an impossible number of component voices. He had to be insane. Here's a
site containg midi files of almost all of his work.
During the late Romantic/early Modern period there where a lot of brilliant composers to be sure, but much of the music is too flowery and operatic for my tastes.
Frederic Chopin is a real standout, with his moody piano pieces, as is
Franz Liszt and
Erik Satie.
Modest Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition is a really accessible work, popularized in the late 20th century by Emerson, Lake and Palmer's rendering.
Claude Debussy seems to me to be one of the first classical composers to become really interested in developing his own unique sound, and I'm not certain, but I think he may have coined the idea of "tone poems." His work seems to have new colors in it compared to the history of music at his time, though in our time, I think, he has been so influential that it's easy to overlook how unique he was. His "greatest hits" are probably
Clair de Lune, the
Arabesques, Reverie, and
Snowflakes are Dancing—the last being the title of an amazing album with synthetic renderings of all of the above by Japanese musician Isao Tomita. There's also a very interesting album called
The Seduction of Claude Debussy by The Art of Noise, which doesn't touch directly all that much on his music, but is based on the story of his life.
Béla Bartók is an interesting cat, and a lot of his strange percussive, rhythmic works seemed to pave the way for a lot of modern composers such as
Steve Reich. Try his
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.
Igor Stravinsky, for me, represents everything good about symphonic music.
The Rite of Spring is always the first thing I think of when I think of full orchestral works, alternately as violent and balls-out as any rock and roll, and eerily minimalistic and haunting.
Samuel Barber's
Adagio for Strings is another essential. You can probably find at least 50 different arrangements, ranging from choral to brass. (You might know this as the opening theme for
Inside the Actor's Studio... if memory serves...)
I consider
John Cage a classical composer though his work is widely varied and often very difficult listening, including such things as amplified plucked cacti and instructions for musicians to play radio tuning and volume knobs. If you can find the piece
Atlas Eclipticalis however, music based on star charts of the constellations, it represents perhaps the most unique use of an orchestra to date and is quite beautiful.
Henryk Gorecki's
Symphony No. 3, (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) is for me the breathtaking pinnacle of modern symphony, almost tantric in its slowly rising glacial layers. There are a few different recordings of it, but I think the best is the one that features Dawn Upshaw.
Karlheinz Stockhausen never fails to intrigue. His piece
Trans is perhaps my favorite: a seething, hissing orchestra punctuated by the intermittent sound of the shuttle of a giant weaver's loom.
Hmm, well we're already up to
Philip Glass. Perhaps best known for his scores of
Koyaanisquatsi and more recently
Dracula, performed by the Kronos Quartet. A lot of people find his work repetitious and trite, but for me it has a certain "atomic" structure that is appealing (if sometimes annoying) but definitely worth checking out. I'd suggest either of the above or my favorite, which is the CD
The Photographer.
I'll stop here, both because I feel a little sick at having summed up the history of music in these few paragraphs, and beyond this point the idea of what is "classical" gets all fuzzy. Some people consider Ryuichi Sakamoto a "classical composer" because of all his film scores, but he's undoubtedly also a "pop" musician... and is Danny Elfman a "classical composer"? I dunno, but if he is the theme song from
The Simpsons takes on a strange new value...