Wow!  I never expected such a massive influx of responses to my
mundane lil' ol' post.  Thanks to all of you for your welcomes and your
recommendations.  I've got a plethorah of new selections to investigate
now, which means I also have a lot of downloading to do!

Now that I have so many great listening ahead of me, I'd like to share
a little bit of my classical music personality and preferences.  My
obsession with music in general has dated back to before I can remember.
I'm also a singer (big band, and the standards), so I've always had a
love for older, rarer music, music that the general masses look at as
novel or dated.  But there's a hidden magic in old music that a nostalgic
guy like me just can't shake.  You know, I'll probably regret saying
this once the tarring and feathering commences, but I think my first
real contact with classical music was watching the Ren & Stimpy show
as a kid.  The cartoons were great, but even greater was how they used
classical music to add dramatic effect.  So, I tend to be particularly
taken by really dramatic pieces with prominent recurring themes (such
as Dvorak's "New World Symphony", which Ren & Stimpy would cue up
constantly, especially the second movement).  A few years back, I
purchased a set called "50 Classical Masterpieces" (for only 5 dollars,
for Pete's sake!), and I really enjoyed it, but I had not been actively
pursuing the music since just weeks ago, when I started listening to
Beethoven again and realizing how beautiful his works are.  Incidentally,
does anyone here have the 5 disc set of Beethoven's nine symphonies,
performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, lead by Herbert von Karajan, under
the Deutsche Grammaphon label?  If not, I highly recommend it!  It's
well worth every cent of the thirty dollars it costs.  But I digress.
My love of a catchy theme and dramatic quality led me primarily to the
Classical and Romantic periods.  Some of my favorites are pretty elementary.
I haven't branched out into the more obscure composers yet, but I'm
working on it!  My absolute favorites list would have to include the
following...

   Grieg---The Peer Gynt Suites, and his first piano concerto
   Strauss (don't know if it's Senior or Junior)---Blue Danube
     Waltz, Tritsch Tratsch Polka, practically everything I've heard
     of his
   Chopin---Black Keys Study, Minute Waltz, and The Revolutionary
     (I get chills everytime I listen to that one)
   Tchaikovsky---Piano Concerto No. 1, Romeo & Juliet Overture
   Rossini---Barber of Seville, William Tell
   Bizet---Carmen
   Schubert---Unfinished Symphony (I love his use of themes in the
     first movement)
   Debussy---Claire de Lune (the most romantic piece of music I've ever heard.)
   Rimsky-Korsakov---Sheherazade
   Beethoven---Moonlight Sonata, Eroica Symphony, Pastorale Symphony,
     5th Symphony, and Ninth Symphony.
   Mussorgsky---Night on Bald Mountain
   Wagner---Ride of the Valkyries
   Dvorak---the aforementioned New World Symphony, and a string
     quartet I heard on the radio but sadly, I can't remember what
     it was called.
   Mozart---Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (I know I butchered the spelling
     of that one), and his 21st piano concerto
   Handel---Water Music, Fireworks Music, and Messiah (one of the
     great triumphs of baroque choral music)
   Gershwin---Rhapsody in Blue
   and from what I've heard of it, The Planets, by Holst

Gee, I sure hope I didn't leave anyone out!  That's definitely my
essentials list in as small a nutshell as I could condense it.

Barrett Reynolds <[log in to unmask]>