New to classical..looking for recommendations

Dvorak's "New World Symphony," Jascha Horenstein conducting the Royal Philharmonic, Chesky CD31. Unfortunately out of print, but available at highish prices.

Great music, great performance, and one of the best sounding CDs of a classical symphony I have ever heard. You won't believe it was recorded in 1962!

Regards,
-- Al

Tboooe,

This thread may be of use to you:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?gmusi&1107016344&openusid&zzRushton&4&5#Rushton
.

You're going to get a lot of recommendations here. Start by sampling at Amazon. It will also link u to similar composers.

Since Vivaldi falls into the Baroque category, maybe start with the early composers... JS Bach, Handel, Joseph Martin Kraus, Mozart, Haydn, then move forward to Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Mendelssohn.
Since you like concertos, u can enter for example "Beethoven Concertos" and his piano and violin concerto will be displayed.

YouTube has many samples, but I think Amazon gives you more help by suggesting similiar artists.

Then, once you've found artists you like, you'll want to find the best quality mastered CDs. Certain Record labels excel in high quality classical...Chesky, EMI, Philips, Decca.

Please read Rushton's recommended threads. "Starting Points" is an excellent place to begin, but don't stop there. There are about 300 threads on Agon in it's Archives relating to classical music and several would be very informative to you.

FWIW, if from this reading you develop specific questions don't hesitate to ask. There are quite a few currect contributors on Agon with both the knowledge of classical music and the willingness to share with others.