Diving In

I started slowly last week with Schumman's Symphonies No. 1-4 and Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Now with Rough Guide's classical music reader I'm ready to take the sounds I'm interested in and explore them fully.


A similar decision to jump into opera last March has taken me from first-time listener to well-versed in works from Massenet to Adams to Wagner.


500 years of extraordinary compositions from around the globe can't be wrong. Here goes...