Mostly Mozart...Tchiefly Tchaikovsky...Basically Bach...but, Rarely Rachmaninov

Yar asked me, in comments, to provide some "essentials" or pointers for people who want to get into classical music but don't really know where to start. That's a pretty big task, and I'm still considering my thoughts there. But I do plan to get to that, maybe later this week. Or early this week. Or tomorrow. Or something.

I do want to point out a couple of classical music purchasing strategies, though. I've mentioned the Naxos label before, and for the classical music lover, Naxos is a godsend. First, it's a budget-price label, with their CDs generally going for eight bucks. The real worth, though, is that Naxos combines low price with adventurous repertoire. It's a lot easier to be adventurous in exploring composers whom one has never before heard when it's eight bucks a pop, as opposed to full-price. Naxos records its share of "the warhorses" of the repertoire, but it's also virtually the only place you'll find a lot of lesser-known composers whose works really don't deserve to languish unknown.

(I should note that classical music tends to fall into a three-tier pricing system: full price, which is $18 or so these days; mid-price, around $10; and budget, generally $7.99.)

Naxos isn't the only way to get good music cheaply, though. The bigger labels are doing a lot of repackaging older recordings, frequently of the "warhorse" repertoire, on midprice or budget imprints. A lot of times, in stores, all these imprints will be gathered in the same place, which is immensely convenient. Even better, the labels have been issuing two-disc sets containing connected works: shorter operas, for example, can be found complete on such sets (many operas are too long to appear on just two discs, but many do actually fit); likewise, one can find things like the complete Scriabin symphonies on a two-disc set from London/Decca, or the complete Mozart violin concertos, and so on. Generally these sets retail for the price of one full-price disc, which is a huge bargain when you consider how quickly one can put a nice classical library together by doing this.

Store organization is also something to consider. Here in Buffalo, the best classical sections are at Borders and Barnes&Noble. First there is the largest section, where things are arranged alphabetically by composer. This is where you will find all of the full-price recordings, as well as many of the mid-price ones. Generally, all of the budget-price labels, including Naxos, will be kept separately, where each label will be shelved separately, and then alphabetized by composer within each label. (In other words, all of the Naxos CDs will generally be in one place, followed by all of the London/Decca budget CDs, and then all the Philips ones, and then the DG ones, et cetera.)

Then, after all of the "single composer" discs, one finds the compilations. Compilations are, almost always, CDs which feature works by a bunch of different composers, the purpose of which is to showcase either a specific performer or ensemble. Thus, a CD of Richard Stolzman playing pieces for clarinet will be found in the compilations section. These tend to fall into a number of different categories, and thus the way they are shelved differs from store to store. But generally, compilations will generally be grouped in logical fashion: vocal compilations will be together, probably grouped by performer; likewise with instrumental compilations. So in these cases, you'll need to know specifically what performer you're looking for. But not always, though: if you want a CD of Yo Yo Ma playing cello works, there will certainly be a section of his CDs; but if you specifically want Yo Yo Ma playing the Saint-Saens cello concerto, you'll probably have to look under Saint-Saens in the composer section. After a while, you'll learn where to look first.

One last note about compilations: frequently if you want to find a specific piece of music that's fairly short, you're more likely to find it in the Compilations than under the specific composer. A good example is Schumann's lovely piano piece "Traumerei", which runs about four minutes. You can probably find a disc or two of Schumann piano music in the Schumann section that contains "Traumerei", but then again, you may not. The next recourse would be to go over to the compilations, and then find all the compilations of solo pianists, which will all be together, and look through the individual CDs for the piece. This can make shopping for a specific piece take a lot longer at first, but this is another case where experience pays off: as you get more accustomed to the rhyme-and-reason of the classical section, you'll know where to look.

So there's your road-map to the classical music section. Sometime soon I'll get into actual destinations on that map.