What is your favorite classical music piece?

Rather than relying on other people's favourites (and these people's musical taste might be VERY different from yours, after all), I would steer you towards the three books below which give an excellent introduction to classical music and how to start building a collection. They are all cheaply available through sites like Amazon. 1) 'The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection' by Ted Libbey. It has good info on the 350 most renowned classical works. 2) 'The Rough Guide to Classical Music' (various contributors) 3) 'Classical Music for Dummies' by David Pogue and Scott Speck Happy exploring!

Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I used to listen to it all the time, and repeat it over and over again. It's brilliant.

i enjoy la campanella as well. Beethovens pathetique is good. I enjoy piano more but i do think that Paganini writes very good violin pieces just because his bowing creates some very crisp sounds. I dislike bach because i feel that many of his pieces were just "manufactured" for the church, not to mention he really likes to keep the same tempo through all his pieces.