I'm not a classical musician, just a very interested classical music listener. However, I hope to become a capable amateur classical pianist, as soon as I can take it up as a hobby. For a long time I listened to just hard rock and heavy metal, before I discovered classical music. The best violin solo is worlds better than a great electric guitar solo with tapped-on harmonics. Also classical music has so much variety -- from the room-filling pipe organ, to easy going woodwind, somber cello, to awe-inspiring arias. The first classical music I bought was The Well Tempered Clavier performed by Glenn Gould. Then I bought more Bach, Beethoven's Sonatas by Richard Goode, some Paganini, Schuman, Sibelius, Satie, Liszt, and others. I'm looking to expand my collection to include more living artists and Romantic and Modern period composers. Heavy metal still gets a lot of my listening time, mainly because I lack the $$$ to build up my little classical CD collection, but I'm working on it. Also I'm eagerly awaiting a standard format to succeed the CD -- either SACD or DVD/Audio. "Richard Yasko" <[log in to unmask]>