Classical music is a vast world of colour, drama, beauty and invention – and there is far more to it than the handful of familiar masterpieces that usually introduce newcomers to the genre.
From the mystical monophony of Gregorian chant to the passionate Romanticism of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Wagner, and on to the boundary-pushing creations of composers such as Dani Howard and Missy Mazzoli, ‘classical music’ encompasses an extraordinary range of sounds, styles and ideas. Think of it rather like ‘literary fiction’: a single label embracing composers as different as JS Bach, Stravinsky, Florence Price and Philip Glass.
No ten works can begin to capture such riches, but they can provide a few enticing doorways into them. We’ve deliberately looked beyond the most obvious choices – Beethoven’s Fifth, Moonlight Sonata and their familiar companions – in favour of pieces that might surprise and delight, while opening up a path towards something new.
So, whether you’re completely new to classical music or simply looking for a fresh place to begin, here are ten works to kickstart a lifetime of listening and discovery.
Best classical music for beginners: Renaissance and Baroque
1. William Byrd: 'Haec dies' (for unaccompanied chorus)
Why you'll love it: the exuberant spring in its step, and the unexpected, almost jazzy rhythms
Published in 1591 during the reign of Elizabeth I, ‘Haec dies’ comes from one of the great periods of English music. William Byrd was a close colleague of Thomas Tallis and wrote an extraordinary range of sacred and secular music, despite secretly remaining a Catholic at a time when practising the faith could be dangerous.
You might expect Tudor choral music to sound solemn and austere. Not this. ‘Haec dies’ is bright, energetic and wonderfully alive, with a major-key exuberance that seems centuries ahead of its time. Listen out for Byrd’s playful syncopations: the rhythms can sound surprisingly modern, giving this 16th-century masterpiece an almost jazzy spring in its step.
Recommended recording: The New Company/Harry Bicket (Sony)
2. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos (for Baroque orchestra)
Why you'll love it: it's perhaps our greatest composer in his most joyous mood
Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once wrote of his favourite composer: “I’m convinced that Bach is the greatest genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy.”
There’s more to the six Brandenburg Concertos than happiness, but these are certainly among Bach’s most exuberant works: intricate, inventive and full of the sheer pleasure of making music. Each has its own distinctive combination of instruments, from the virtuoso trumpet of No. 2 to the dancing strings of No. 3 and the wonderfully colourful woodwinds of No. 4.
For beginners, start with No. 3, a relatively short, exhilarating burst of string-playing; then try No. 2 for its dazzling trumpet solo. Listen to how individual instruments emerge from and disappear back into Bach’s endlessly inventive musical conversation.
Recommended recording: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Erato)
Best classical music for beginners: the Classical era
Hang on, isn't this whole thing about classical music? So how come there is a Classical era within that? Confusing, we know. Our piece on classical music's eras will shed all the light you need.
3. Haydn: Trumpet Concerto
Why you'll love it: it's a captivating showcase of the trumpet's expressive potential
Why not Mozart? Well, why not Haydn? Joseph Haydn is sometimes unfairly regarded as dry and dutiful, but his music can be wonderfully witty, warm and life-affirming.
His Trumpet Concerto, written in 1796, was designed to show off the capabilities of the newly developed keyed trumpet – and it remains a delightful demonstration of what the instrument can do. The opening movement is swaggering and playful, the slow movement contains one of the most beguiling melodies Haydn ever wrote (listen below), and the finale bubbles along with infectious energy.
If you're new to classical music, this is Haydn at his most immediately approachable: tuneful, colourful and full of personality, with the trumpet taking centre stage throughout.
Recommended recording: Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet); Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Sir Neville Marriner (Philips)
4. Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4
Why you'll love it: Think Beethoven is all frowning drama? Try this mellow and meditative gem
Almost everyone has heard some Beethoven: the “da-da-da-daaah” of the Fifth, the Ode to Joy from the Ninth, or the brooding opening of the Moonlight Sonata. Add those famously stern portraits, and it’s easy to imagine him as permanently intense and serious.
The Fourth Piano Concerto, composed in 1805–06, offers a very different Beethoven. It begins quietly, with the solo piano introducing a simple, graceful theme, answered by the orchestra as though two friends were starting a conversation. The second movement is more dramatic: the orchestra sounds stern and angry, while the piano responds with calm and tenderness. It has been likened to Orpheus soothing the Furies.
Eventually the tension dissolves, and the finale bursts into cheerful, infectious life. For anyone who thinks Beethoven is all storm and struggle, this is a delightful surprise.
Recommended recording: Leif Ove Andsnes; Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Sony)
Best classical music for beginners: the Romantic era
5. Schubert: Symphony No. 8, ‘Unfinished’
Why you'll love it: Darkness followed by light, in a work that, once heard, is never forgotten
After all those concertos, here at last is a symphony – or rather, a great unfinished one. Schubert began his Eighth in 1822, completing two movements and sketching a third.
The opening is unforgettable: low strings murmur ominously beneath a melancholy theme, before the music seems to find hope in a soaring cello melody. But the clouds soon return. In the development, that innocent opening theme plunges into a dark abyss, with the strings sounding almost anguished. Listen below.
How Schubert finds his way out is one of the work’s great mysteries. The serene second movement provides a luminous answer, turning the symphony into an extraordinary journey from night towards light – and a work that, once heard, is never forgotten.
Recommended recording: Vienna Philharmonic/Carlos Kleiber (Deutsche Grammophon)
6. Chopin: Etudes, Op. 10
Why you'll love them: They may be called studies, but these are some of Chopin’s most powerful and evocative music.
The great Romantic composer Frédéric Chopin nominally wrote his Etudes ('Studies') to develop a pianist’s technique. But they are much more than exercises: like an artist’s sketches, they turn technical challenges into intensely expressive music.
Start with the Op. 10 No. 3 in E major, nicknamed ‘Tristesse’ (though Chopin himself gave none of the Études these descriptive titles). Its wistful, singing melody points towards the rapt Romanticism that Rachmaninov would later make his own. Then try the ferocious Op. 10 No. 12, the ‘Revolutionary’, whose stormy character has traditionally been linked to Chopin’s reaction to Russia’s attack on Warsaw in 1831.
Nearly two centuries later, these pieces remain astonishingly fresh: technically formidable, perhaps, but also powerful, atmospheric and utterly spellbinding.
Recommended recording: Maurizio Pollini (Deutsche Grammophon)
7. Schumann: ‘Mondnacht’ from Liederkreis, Op. 39
Why you'll love it: It's the most amazing example of scene-painting in music
If you’re nervous about trying Lieder (German art songs), Robert Schumann’s ‘Mondnacht’ is a wonderful place to begin. From his 1840 setting of poems by Joseph von Eichendorff, it captures a moonlit landscape with extraordinary delicacy.
The piano opens with a yearning melody that seems almost reluctant to settle into its key, creating a sense of rapt wonder as the singer describes heaven gently kissing the earth. Schumann’s music seems to blur the boundary between landscape and emotion: the moonlit fields become something dreamlike and deeply personal.
You don’t need to tackle an entire song cycle, either. Try a selection of Schumann’s songs first – Barbara Bonney and Vladimir Ashkenazy’s recording is a particularly lovely introduction – and see where the music takes you.
Recommended recording: Barbara Bonney (soprano), Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano) (Decca)
8. Borodin: Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
Why you’ll love it: irresistible melodies, spectacular orchestration and a chorus that seems to lift the music off the page.
Russian composer Alexander Borodin was one of the great melodists of the late 19th century – something Broadway famously recognised when it borrowed his music for Kismet. ‘Stranger in Paradise’ was adapted from one of the soaring melodies in the Polovtsian Dances, but the original is even more spectacular.
The Dances form an episode in Borodin’s opera Prince Igor, in which the captured Russian prince is entertained by the Polovtsian Khan. Sultry melodies sung by the Polovtsian maidens give way to increasingly exuberant dances, with athletic rhythms, blazing orchestral colours and thrilling choral writing.
Borodin wrote surprisingly little music, but what survives is exceptionally melodic. His two string quartets and two completed symphonies are equally rewarding places to explore. For more Russian opera, try works by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky or Rimsky-Korsakov.
Recommended recording: Kyiv Chamber Choir; Ukraine National Radio Symphony/Theodore Kuchar
Best classical music for beginners: Debussy and Shostakovich
9. Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3, ‘Organ’
Why you’ll love it: it builds from restless mystery to one of the most thrilling finales in the entire orchestral repertoire.
You may think you know the ending already: the organ suddenly erupts with huge chords, the orchestra joins in, and the music seems to burst through the ceiling. But the real pleasure of Camille Saint-Saëns’s ‘Organ’ Symphony is the journey towards that glorious climax.
Written in 1886, the symphony moves between brooding, lyrical and playful passages before the organ gradually transforms the atmosphere. Its final movement takes a recurring musical idea and expands it into a magnificent, chorale-like theme, culminating in a blazing C major conclusion.
It’s spectacular without being bombastic, tuneful without being simplistic, and a wonderful introduction to the sheer scale and colour an orchestra can achieve.
10. Debussy: ‘Reflets dans l’eau’ (for piano), from Images Book I
Why you’ll love it: Debussy transforms the piano into something shimmering, fluid and almost weightless.
Claude Debussy was a ‘quiet revolutionary’, subtly reinventing what music could sound like. He did the same for the piano, moving beyond the tradition of using it primarily to display a performer’s virtuosity.
‘Reflets dans l’eau’ (‘Reflections in the Water’), composed in 1905, takes the familiar musical depiction of rivers and fountains into an entirely new realm. From its opening notes, Debussy creates the impression of a limpid pool, its surface gently disturbed by ripples and reflections.
What makes the piece so magical is that the extraordinary technique required to produce these effects seems to disappear completely. The pianist must make us hear water rather than fingers, hammers and strings: something fluid, fleeting and almost impossible to pin down. It is a miniature masterpiece of musical impressionism – and utterly enchanting.
We named Debussy one of the greatest French composers of all time.
Recommended recording: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (Deutsche Grammophon)
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11. Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8
Why you'll love it: Quite simply, the most gripping piece of chamber music out there
String quartets – normally for two violins, viola and cello – have suffered an unfortunate reputation in popular culture, where they often provide genteel background music for wealthy villains. In reality, the quartet has traditionally been an intimate form of music-making, from the affable quartets of Haydn and Mozart to the intensely personal works of Schubert and Shostakovich.
Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet, composed in 1960, is anything but genteel. Its five connected movements trace a stark emotional journey: a bleak, obsessive opening gives way to agitation and violence, followed by passages of grief and tender remembrance. The music then returns to its opening darkness before ending not in triumph, but in exhausted resignation.
It’s vigorous, sometimes exhilarating and deeply moving – a powerful introduction to 20th-century classical music.
Recommended recording: Borodin Quartet (Erato or Decca)
- What’s the difference between chamber music and orchestral music?
- Shostakovich facts: 13 captivating details from one of classical music's most turbulent lives
Live music vs recorded: which is best for a beginner?
Inevitably in a list of this kind, we have offered links to recordings you may either stream or buy. Yes, this is the most convenient way of finding new music, but, it has to be said, nothing beats the experience of actually going to a live performance!
We especially recommend trying to go to a concert of orchestral music, most particularly if you've never been to one before. Nothing beats the experience of seeing so many types of instruments – stringed, wind and percussion – and you have the excitement of seeing the musicians making the music right there in front of you.
Plus, there’s the sonic splendour of actual live sound, the more splendid if you go to a state-of-the-art concert hall such as Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. But you may also feel a frisson of excitement at a concert by a fine a cappella choir, or when witnessing the intimate intensity of a string quartet or a solo violin and piano duo.
There’s also a mental difference between listening to an album at home – often there’s an expectation that the music is there to relax you after a hard day – and going to a performance, particularly if it’s something ‘immersive’ such as going to an opera, or, for instance, one of Benjamin Britten’s Church Parables staged in a church or cathedral with costumed performers processing in and out past the audience.
So don’t worry if you get the chance to hear something performed live which is outside what we’ve recommended here – it may be precisely because hearing that work live rather than ‘canned’ may be its best introduction.
All that said, while you’re on Spotify, do listen to the recommended work, but also be prepared for what Spotify’s algorithm throws at you after each of these works – you may make some surprising discoveries that way.
