The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection : The 350 Essential Works | 
| Author: Ted Libbey
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $0.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 60457
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 536
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 0761104879
Dewey Decimal Number: 016.780266
UPC: 019628104878
EAN: 9780761104872
ASIN: 0761104879
Publication Date: September 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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Product Description
Berlioz. Vaughan Williams. Schubert and Schumann. Mozart after the Jupiter Symphony, Bach beyond the Brandenburg Concertos, opera after The Magic Flute. In his informed and indispensible guide with over 157,000 copies in print, National Public Radio's Ted Libbey takes listeners by the hand through the classical repertory to build a music library. For the second edition, with five years of new performances to consider, five years of new releases to review, and five years of reissues to re-evaluate-the author has completely revised and updated the book. While sticking to the essential 300 works, there are now one-third new selections and reviews, and a 50% change in discography to keep all suggested CDs up to date. The NPR Guide tp Building a Classical CD Collection will make every music lover's core collection complete.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 34 more reviews...
 a good starting place June 7, 2008
Ted Libbey's a really good guide for someone venturing into classical music without a lot of familiarity with the material. The book is put together pretty well, and Libbey's very knowledgeable and a good writer. His taste is broad, which is good for a reader whose tastes are developing. He tends to emphasize large orchestral works at the expense of chamber music and solo instrumental works, as well as at the expense of opera and sacred music (and he seems to have a bit of a preference for late Romantic works). But that's probably representative of the preferences of most classical music listeners, so it's okay for an introductory book like this. Anyone who develops interest in specific areas will need more than this book offers. But, in good introductory fashion, it provides a mix of music history, composer biographies, a bit of musicology, and some explanation of genres. Definitely a good place to start, and probably worth checking out even if you're fairly familiar with classical music
 Learning from the educated February 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a huge classical music fan, always looking for that perfect recording and being most critical when it doesn't suit my taste. Even so, I had a lot to learn about composers and pieces of great music that I was unfamiliar with. It delights me to report that I have found most of what Ted Libbey has said about building a classical CD collection to be true. He offers a list well thought out; not just according to sales but more in terms of history and attention to detail. Since buying, reading, and rereading this book, I have increased my classical collection considerably. What I find most surprising is how often I agree with the selections and comments the author makes here. Obviously, not all of the time but more often than not, I find his selection to be worthy. I would love to make recommendations for more music to add to the list; such as Mendelssohn's "Songs without words." But the author himself mentioned his difficulty in limiting the list to just 350. I appreciate his insite and have learned a lot from this book. I highly recommend it.
Excellent attempt at the most difficult of tasks December 22, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It takes guts to write a book that attempts to identify the 350-or-so most important works and their best recordings out of the entire canon of classical music. On top of that, Libbey includes a countless number of interesting, informative, and entertaining commentaries of the pieces and their recordings as well as a number of lists to provide the reader with some ideas on how to start their classical music collection. Libbey does an excellent job of providing the information in a way that will neither intimidate the classical novice, nor insult the more experienced listener. As someone who considers himself somewhere in the middle between those two extremes, I appreciated Libbey's descriptions of the pieces as a guide to "what to listen for".
As a result of this book, I discovered a wide range of composers and compositions that I was not familiar with, and deepened my appreciation and understanding of the composers and works that I already knew. Some reviewers have criticized this book for spending too much time on X and leaving out Y, or for having a skimpy section of Z. While the comments are valid, one must recognize that they miss the forest for the trees. This book could be picked apart on the details, but that would miss the thoroughness and helpfulness of this book as a whole. I would give this book 4.5 stars if allowed, but given the difficult nature of the task before Libbey, I will round up and give him 5 stars. For the approximate price of one CD, this book contains an enormous wealth of information. My hat is off to Libbey's accomplishment!
One final note, while Amazon (and other sources) have the majority of the recordings listed in this book (if not all of them), don't forget that your local library often will have many of them as well. It does not hurt to sample some of the music first to see what suits your taste before spending money on the CD.
invaluable guide to classical and opera November 25, 2007
An essential guide to the best recordings of the best classical and opera music. As there are literally hundreds of various recordings for each such music (combinations of singers, conductors, & orchestras), this guide saves hours of aggravation and misgivings while selecting the best recording to purchase, although you'll still want to decide for yourself which of the several recordings recommended.
This guide is not comprehensive, however, as some composers, such as Glazunov (for his Violin Concerto, I recommend Heifetz on RCA), are not included. Also, some recommended recordings, such as Kyung-Wha Chung / Dutoit's Tchaikovsky's and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (single CD on London/Polygram), are no longer available (I had to resort to purchasing a licensed CD-R).
 Useful but bit old August 20, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have a difficult time finding the CDs mentioned in this book, and especially ones performed by specific orchestras. I've searched both online and music stores, but almost 90% of the items described in the book cannot be found since they're no longer being manufactured by companies. It's still nice to know the names of these composers and some background history. Another thing is that they should include pronounciation keys after each mentioned composer, artist, place names, and musical terms. Do you want to sound like an idiot talking to people?
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