Peggy Lucero:

>They provide 5 lists, the last one is the one I'm zeroing in on.  (If any
>of these are operas, Please tell me, as I don't care for opera.) It lists
>the following artists/works:
>
>Adams: Harmonielehre
>Barber: Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance
>Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta;  Miraculous
>Mandarin Suite
>Berg: Violin Concerto
>Corigliano: Symphony no. 1
>Hindemith: Mathis der Maler Symphony
>Ives: Symphony # 2;  The Unanswered Question
>Janacek: Taras Bulba
>Mahler: Symphony #9
>Prokofiev: Scythian Suite
>Ravel: La Valse
>Schoenberg: Gurrelieder
>Shostakovich: Symphony # 1
>(I was advised to get the one done by Rostropovich--Do you concer?)
>R. Strauss  Also sprach Zarathustra  (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
>Stravinsky: The rite of Spring
>Webern: Passacaglia, opus 1

I think it quite a good list, with the exception of the Corigliano. Try
the Vaughan Williams 5th (Barbirolli, Boult, or the new Hickox) instead.

>As an aside, my favorite instrument is piano. Someone recommended Pollini,
>M.  But I don't know what would be good by him.

A truly smashing CD is DGG 447 431-2 which contains Stravinsky's 3
Mouvements de Petrouchka, Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7, Webern's
Variations for piano, and Boulez's second sonata.  The last two are rather
rough going, however.  For a marvelous piano CD try Horowitz on Sony doing
Scarlatti piano sonatas.

Steve Schwartz