An attempt to choose just ten pieces to illustrate the narrative of music
to its most representative advantage.  As usual, no chamber music is
include, because i really can't judge the form intelligently....

1/ JS Bach - Brandenburg Concerti (still as good a starting point as
anything for a introductory journey)

2/ W A Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (popular musical expression; but also
smart)

3/ Ludwig van Beethoven - Choral Symphony (the romantic ideal of the artist
as hero roars into life)

4/ Frekeryk Chopin - Etudes (if you have to choose just one: the
Revolutionary... piano music; but also nationalism)

5/ Choose between R Wagner - Ring of the Neibelung or G Verdi - Aida (opera
& spectacle)

6/ Gustav Mahler - Resurrection Symphony (the romantic vision of the
symphony as epic reaches his apotheosis)

7/ George Butterworth - A Shrophire Lad song cycle (English lyric... if not
Anglophone, choose a suitable score in the recommendee's native tongue)

8/ Igor Stravinksi - Le Sacre du Printemps (the 20th century watershead)

9/ George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (modern tonalism in a popular form)

10/ Terry Riley - In C (experimental)

If i could add a few more, i'd include HE Zhanhao/CHEN Gang - The
Butterfly Lovers concerto (nonWestern traditions); some chant (or
Hildegarde?), Monteverdi (vocal - Orfeo, perhaps?) & Vivaldi (instrumental
- the complete Conflict?) to sample the preBach tradition of Western music;
the Tchaikovski Piano Concerto (the archetypal romantic concerto); Gorecki
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (modern traditional); & Penderecki Threnody -
for the Victims of Hiroshima (from the real King of Hardcore...  now
available in a cracking, effortless version on Naxos)

All the best,
Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>