Are you me in a different dimension? Replace dad with mum and we have a mirror existance with the addition of Schumann, Shubert and Bach and Beethoven. I was weaned on the stuff and it's still with me after decades. Real music that you never tire of, no matter how much you hear it.

On the Puccini theme I would add:

In questa reggia from Turandot. It's wonderful but from 03.26 onwards is spine-tingling stuff.

Pictures at an exhibition by Mussorgsky - I once heard it described as haunting and that to me is exactly the right word. I love it.

Bolero by Ravel is another fav too.

I take it that's an orchestral or original piano version. For sheer awfulness it is worth seeking out the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version. They manage to turn the majestic, spinal shiver inducing Great Gate of Kiev into a rather wimpy, instantly forgettable pop song!

Mendelssohn's Hebrides overture.

For me it is two pieces:

The Swan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moh9K...eature=related

1812 Overture (The bit with the cannons )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW4C2h3lPac

I have to admit to knowing very little about classical music. To me that does not matter as it is all about getting pleasure from listening to it. So, would this be considered classical music? It is an except from The Making of Westside Story. Well worth getting the DVD I hasten to add:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWnsm...eature=related

My fave is Ravel's Bolero

Stockhausen - Etude

Gustav Holst - Venus, the Bringer of Peace.

The term 'classical music' when used correctly really only applies to a period of about 40 years that spanned the middle of the 18th century to about 1800. Before that it was Baroque and after that it was Romantic, amongst many others, but Classical Music is now a catch-all that describes what I would prefer to called Western art music. So yeah, the Bernstein score is probably included in that.

I can't choose one piece.
Puccini "Madam Butterfly" humming chorus
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2
Saint-Saens Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso
Schubert ‘Serenade’
Tchaikovsky ‘The Nutcracker’
Beethoven 7th Symphony
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto E Minor (Op. 64)

I can no more pick one favourite piece than I can pick one favourite pop song. But today I will say Allegri's Miserere. It is so beautiful that it's almost painful in places, and the highest notes really do sound like angels in some kind of ecstatic raptures.

Do you know Lotti's Crucifixus?

Beethoven's 7th - 2nd mvt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tacmg0wX13s

'Jupiter', from Holst's 'Planet Suite'
Which contains the original melody for 'I vow to thee my country', from about 3mins onwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B49N46I39Y

Also love most of the Mozart I've heard
As a kid, we were always played into assembly by the headmaster's Mozart collection - 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik' and the 40th symphony were always my fave at the time.

I never went much on opera, but an uncle got me into Rossini, mainly for the overtures. 'William Tell' is just brilliant.

Beethoven-Moonlight Sonata

Faure-Requiem: In Paradisum

Elgar-Nimrod

Two more:
Beethoven Piano Sonata #2 In A Major, Op. 2, No. 2 - 2. Largo Appassionato
Fauré - Pavane, op.50

I'm no connoisseur but I do like Barber's 'Adagio For Strings' and Satie's 'Gymnopedie No 1'.

I can't believe no one else has mentioned Moonlight Sonata-apart from my mention of it above. It is such an atmospheric, emotional piece.

I spent ages learning the first movement (the famous, and easy, one) and so I sort of grew sick of it. The other two movements were way beyond my capabilities.

My choice for today:

Bellini - “Norma” – “Casta Diva” (magnificent Maria Callas)

Puccini - “Gianni Schicchi” – “O mio babbino caro” (divine Montserrat Caballé)

Pachelbel's Canon

Not exactly 'classical' per se, but Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings is quite moving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV3SHBFyDZM

Another very famous adagio, which I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, is the one commonly known as 'Albinoni's Adagio in G minor', except it wasn't written by Albinoni at all!

It was composed in the 1950s by Remo Giazotto who alleged to have found some fragments of the adagio in Albinoni's hand in the displaced archives of the Saxon State Library in Dresden after WW2. No-one believed him though and most people think he composed it from scratch, which must make it one of the most widely-known pieces of 20th century music in existence.

Either way, there's no denying it's mournful, tragic beauty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuh3W...eature=related

The sudden mood changes from grief to consolation are exquisite.

I like listening
Schubert 'Serenade',
Beethoven 7th Symphony.

This thread has been quiet for a while so here's something I recently re-discovered - over 40 years after last hearing it on the old Clarke & Smith loudspeakers at school....

Litolff: - "Scherzo from Concerto Symphonique"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE4i9Eqe_gs

Henry Charles Litolff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litolff