Where to look for suggested recordings?

[davidjosepha]

Is there a good place to look online to find recommendations on which recordings of a piece are "best"? With piano music, I generally have little trouble, since I'm familiar with many pianists and their styles, but with opera, orchestral music, and piano music with no recording by a pianist I'm familiar with, I'm really just taking stabs in the dark. Is there any good resource out there for finding good recordings of these pieces, or should I just continue to read Amazon reviews and hope for the best?

[j_menz]

You could always try Classical Net.

I doubt any single source is going to be anything near perfect though.

And "best" is somewhat subjective in any case.  If a piece is new to me, I tend to look for a recording by someone who I trust to be (perhaps even boringly) conventional in their approach and move on from there. For me, often my favourite recordings are in one way or another idiosyncratic, and it well may be the case that I wouldn't appreciate them nearly as much if I hadn't started off grounded in a more pedestrian approach.

[Bob]

Probably forums like this.

The Great Pianist series comes to mind...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pianists_of_the_20th_Century