What do you consider your favorite classical music?

I started looking back on the works that I've written about here and I'm starting to doubt this whole experiment. Maybe it's where I find the albums, but with few exceptions, I don't think anything that I've found would make it on a Top 10 list.

I mean, there is Luciano Pavarotti's quasi- "Greatest Hits" album, which is a fun record. And the "Strauss Waltzes" has some classics on there. But the Brahms Symphony No. 1? I like it, but he knew he was no Beethoven. He was right, too. And the less I can say about Ravel's "Bolero," the better. (But I do like the album cover.)

So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to step it up a little bit. The aim is to find inexpensive classical music, right? So I'm going to write about records I found that are better than inexpensive: They're free.

To me, at least.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine -- and regular reader of this blog -- gave me about a half-dozen vintage classical albums, featuring the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn and some other big names.

But before I get into writing about that, let's open up the floor. This site has some top 10 lists of classical CDs. What would make your list? Discuss in the comments.