Cocktail Party Fact: Bach wrote the Musical Offering after a visit to Frederick the Great. Frederick gave him a theme to improvise on and Bach complied. After he returned home, Bach decided the theme had more potential and turned it into a little library of Baroque chamber pieces.
Commitment Factor: About one hour for the whole [...]

Active Years: Born November 9, 1965
Position: Bass-baritone who quickly rose to unassuming fame, the Figaro of our time, and the Wotan of the future.
Career Highlights: Figaro, Leperello, Jochanaan, Villians in The Tales of Hoffman, etc.
Career Totals: Numerous awards including a Grammy and a Deutsche Grammophon award.
Scouting Report: Born Bryn Terfel Jones on a farm in [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: This work (and most everything else by Bach) remained virtually unknown until Mendelssohn rediscovered it in the 1830s, leading to the Bach revival that continues to this day.
Commitment Factor: In a good performance, about 3 to 3-1/2 hours. In a dull performance, forever.
Vital Statistics: Baroque Period (1729). A sacred oratorio (a story [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The Third Suite contains the famous “Air on a G-String,” which Bach did call an “Air,” but it isn’t played on the G-string of the violin. This was a later arrangement made during the Romantic period, over a hundred years after Bach wrote it.
Commitment Factor: About 20 - 25 minutes per suite.
Vital [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The Mass in B Minor has been called one of the greatest resumes ever written. Bach sent two sections of it to the ruler of Saxony because he wanted a court appointment. He got the job.
Commitment Factor: About two and a half hours.
Vital Statistics: High Baroque Period (1740). This is probably the [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Bach dedicated these works to the Margrave of Brandenburg, and sent him the only manuscript copy that survives. The Margrave, however, never heard them, since his orchestra didn’t have the necessary players at all!
Commitment Factor: About 15 - 20 minutes per concerto
Vital Statistics: Baroque Period (1720). A sort of concerto encyclopedia, showing [...]

Active Years: 1926-today
Position: Soprano
Career Highlights: Lucia di Lammermore, Elvira in I Puritani, Linda di Chamounix, Norma, Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera, Violetta in La Traviata, Elvira in Semiramide.
Career Totals: Premiered Tippet’s Midsummer Marriage in 1955; Made sensation in Lucia at Covent Garden 1959; Sang leading roles on the world’s operatic stages for over 35 [...]

Active Years: 1864-1949
Position: Composer and Conductor
Career Highlights: Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Arabella, Daphne, Capriccio.
Career Totals: 15 operas, several orchestral tone poems, songs, instrumental works.
Scouting Report: An infant prodigy in Germany, Strauss’s early orchestral tone poems established him as a leading modernist for his harmonic experimentation and orchestration, the [...]

Active Years: 1675-1741
Career Highlights: The Four Seasons.
Career Totals: Over 150 violin concertos, 38 operas, hundreds of chamber music works, several cantatas, and many songs and airs.
Scouting Report: One of the most celebrated virtuosi of the old timers’ league, Vivaldi was the master of the violin concerto. His writing is very colorful and evocative, especially noticeable [...]

Active Years: 1839-1901 (born 1813)
Position: Italian Superstar
Career Highlights: Aida, Othello, Falstaff, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Requiem, Quatre Pezzi Sacre
Career Totals: Twenty-eight operas, 10 choral works, approximately 30 songs, one string quartet
Scouting Report: Giuseppe Verdi is primarily an opera composer — the Classical All-Stars list is mostly a hall of fame for composers who wrote [...]