>>29355840>mfw 12:30AM and midterms next week, should have gone to bed 2 hours agoCan we compromise? I'll just recommend you *some* Bach then. I don't feel like looking through my library and picking out examples of Xenakis from the ~100-120 pieces of his I have recordings of.
The absolute essential album for Bach is Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations. From there you can move on to Gould doing some of the other keyboard works, like the partitas. I'd recommend the Italian Concerto and the Ouverture in French Style or whatever the fuck that piece is. And the Well-Tempered Clavier, of course, though that's quite a bit to swallow at first. Actually, I might recommend the Italian Concerto to start, the Goldbergs can be hard to listen to for some too.
Then there's the chamber music for other instruments. Solo violin sonatas/partitas are all great, as for recordings...start with Heifetz, I guess, it's enough of a standard reference, though probably far from the best. I'd need to refresh my memory as to what I would consider good, IIRC Oistrakh and Prihoda made some very good recordings. Start with the D minor partita or C major sonata. They're fucking great, though very different pieces. And the cello suites, get Pablo Casals or someone like that. I don't know them so well though. I would avoid at least Yo-Yo Ma's early 1980s recording, it's bland for my tastes. Avoid the sonatas for violin and continuo, they're comparatively bland as fuck.
Mass in B Minor is long but usually considered an essential. I personally don't care for it too much, and it is pretty long so not easy to digest, but sometime you should listen to it anyway, even 1-2 movements if you can't stand any more.
Other than that? Shit I don't know, there are two violin concertos, seven keyboard concertos, nearly 200 sacred cantatas, and an assload of other stuff. He wrote an overwhelming amount of music. Oh and look for Murray Perahia if in doubt.