Deryk Barker responds to Peter Wisse's response to this thread: >This person is just STARTING! How about Beethoven sonatas & concertos, >Mozart concertos (and sonatas I suppose), Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, etc. > >While I very much admire some of the music you've listed, I don't think any >of it is really suitable for somone who's just beginning a collection. While I agree that a basic, beginning classical music collection without Beethoven and Mozart, etc. seems wrong somehow, I strongly disagree with the notion that there is some music that is not 'suitable' for beginners. I started collecting about five years ago and almost from the start, I collected Bartok and Janacek and Ligeti and Rochberg along with Palestrina and Bach and Mendelssohn. As far as I am concerned, there is only music that appeals to me and music that does not. I think the mystification of modern music is simply ridiculous. I have loved modern music for as long as I have loved classical music in general and though my technical education has been slow, that which I have managed to accumulate has not convinced me that I am wrong. Music is primarily an emotional experience, and you do not have to be literate to respond to it, however it has been put together. Regards, John Parker