In early 2009, during one of my deployments to Kuwait, I found myself strongly re-engaging with classical music, an interest that has ebbed and flowed throughout my life. Upon my return, I began a new collection of classical recordings, accompanied by several useful books, including The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music and The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

It might be worth a few words to explain why, at this late stage in the digital music revolution, I continue to purchase physical CDs. The simplest answer is that the price is just not much different. Unlike popular music, where one might purchase a few songs from any particular album, it would be rather odd to download a single movement from a symphony or concerto. Many discs are now so inexpensive that there are no savings at all for buying digital. Not to mention the benefits of owning the CD itself: a medium that is not subject to compressed encoding or DRM restrictions and that often comes with attractive and informative liner notes. And I can still get all the benefits of digital downloads by ripping the purchased CD to my hard drive and Ipod.

This is a gallery of my collection, sorted by the composer's last name (albums with works by multiple composers are sorted by the composer of the first piece on the disc). Click on any cover to be taken to the respective Amazon page for that disc, where you can read the always entertaining customer reviews.