6 steps to classical happiness
I know nothing about classical music. And enormous ignorance combined with huge choice makes me a very nervous buyer indeed. However, have managed to end up buying a series of quite wonderful classical piano CDs through the following chain. And I can recommend all to all.
1. See The Pianist.
2. Decide this is quite good, so buy the soundtrack.
3. Decide I like Chopin’s piano work - so ask someone at work who knows about these things what the best Chopin piano thingy is: he recommends Martha Argerich playing Chopin’s Preludes.
4. Decide I like Martha Argerich playing the piano, so click around through various recommendations on Amazon to find Martha Argerich Live from the Concertgebouw 1978 & 79 playing Bach, Bartok, Chopin and various others. Fantastic.
6. Buy the sequel: Live from the Concertgebouw 2. Excellent.
Now, for the idiots among us: Who is Martha Argerich? and Where/ what is the Concertgebouw?.
Incidentally, according to this book review, Vladimir Horowitz once observed that there were three kinds of pianists — Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists and bad pianists. I don’t know which category Agerich fits into.