I like classical (in the broad sense that the term is popularly used). Jorgamund listed some great stuff; Debussy is amazing, and Monteverdi and Bach are great choices as well. I even have a bit of a soft spot for the opera Salome.
My favorite composers/works are...
Bach: B minor Mass (Especially the opening Kyrie, but the whole thing's perfection.) and Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (but all of them are great), Cello Suites
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Predictable? Maybe, but my favorite movement's the third, so there.), Symphony No. 6, Piano Sonata No. 8 "Pathetique"
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 8
Chopin: Nocturnes (I can't choose between them...)
Debussy: Preludes, Books I and II, Images, La Mer
Holst: The Planets (With a first movement having often..."inspired" subsequent composers.)
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (The only sixth, despite the...oh wait, I like that one too...), Das Lied von der Erde (The ending is one of the most beautiful things ever written.)
Mozart: Symphony No. 40 (This thing contains a tone row! In a classical piece! That and it's good music.), Clarinet Concerto
Schumann: Piano Concerto
Wagner: Ring Cycle (I mean the whole operas, too. Those orchestral excepts discs don't cut it for me.)
Then, the 20th century arrived, and modernism. Strangely enough, I like this stuff too.
Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces, Piano Sonata
Messiaen: Trois Petite Litergies Pour la Presence Devine, Oiseaux Exotiques, Quartet for the End of Time (This guy's music is nuts. It's a love it or hate it kind of thing. My sister heard a bit of it and she shouted "That's the worst music I've heard in my life!" You may feel the same way.)
Schoenberg: Violin Concerto, Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspiel Scene (He gets much more grief than he deserves from people who've only heard parts of his work or none at all.)
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (which I first heard in Fantasia, like so many kids), Les Noces, Symphony in Three Movements
Takemitsu: Rain Tree Sketch II, Ceremonial: An Autumn Ode, In an Autumn Garden, Requiem for Strings (Imagine Debussy mixed with Messiaen. This guy's music is kind of like that.)
I like a lot of 20th century avant garde work, but I still don't understand Boulez or Carter, so the latter half is pretty much Messiaen and Takemitsu for me.
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