Classical Music
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Bramblethorn
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I will second "Pictures at an Exhibition". I also like "Peer Gynt" but the best bits get played a lot.
A few others:
Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suite. You've quite likely heard "Mars, Bringer of War" but the other six movements are less well known.
Philip Glass "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra". Took me a while to get into this one but I've come to enjoy it.
Bach's cello suites. I discovered these via "The Hunger", where David Bowie plays his own cello scenes.
Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor. He's better known for "Land of Hope and Glory"; the Cello Concerto was written in the wake of WWI and it shows.
A few others:
Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suite. You've quite likely heard "Mars, Bringer of War" but the other six movements are less well known.
Philip Glass "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra". Took me a while to get into this one but I've come to enjoy it.
Bach's cello suites. I discovered these via "The Hunger", where David Bowie plays his own cello scenes.
Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor. He's better known for "Land of Hope and Glory"; the Cello Concerto was written in the wake of WWI and it shows.
NotWise
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If you like the Opera pieces then try Puccini's Nessun Dorma. It's one of the great arias for tenor.
I'm not a fan of opera as theater, but some of the arias taken on their own are thrilling. I posted this link on another thread as a theme song for a character. In this case it would be a theme for a character I want to write, not one I've already written.
NotWise
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The same CD that had the cello concerto also had "Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra", which is here in a different recording.
I don't always like Glass, but the energy in this thing is undeniable.
A friend of mine choreographed a piece to the Concerto Fantasy a few years ago, and for the cadenza he had everyone improvise--not just the dancers, but the lighting and stage crew as well. It didn't work out well because someone on the stage crew filled the stage with fog. The audience couldn't see the dancers. The dancers couldn't see each other. It was a mess.
CyranoJ
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Alan Hovhaness is little known and to my mind criminally underrated. A modern American composer with a curiously... almost Gregorian sensibility? I'm not sure how else to put it. He thrives on gorgeous harmonies and expansive soundscapes; music of mystical contemplation, the kind of music to watch the stars by.
Maybe "Gregorian" comes to mind because his best-known composition is The Prayer of St. Gregory. But there's so much more (and better) where that came from, like the Celestial Gate symphony whose first movement can be found here. Search him on YouTube and there are many, many more riches.
beachbum1958
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You Sir, are a man after my own heart! Lakmé is a beautiful opera, and 'The Flower Song' duet is its most memorable and haunting aria; I think Delibes outdid himself with that piece, and whenever I need a moment to collect myself, that's what I'll play. May I also suggest you audition 'Vissi d'arte', the aria from Tosca, Act II, and 'Va Pensiero' (The chorus of The Hebrew slaves) from Nabucco, Act III, by Verdi.
NotWise
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A few years ago I was driving through a mall parking lot and getting tired of people thumping their bass. That aria came on the radio, so I rolled my windows down and turned the music up.
Bramblethorn
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Yes, that's the one I have.
My first exposure to Glass was via a high-school music teacher. He was a prat and I had good reason to dislike him, so he managed to turn me off Glass for years.
Then back in my first Literotica story I wrote myself into a situation where I needed a cello piece that seemed a bit avant-garde, went looking, and came across the Glass concerto.
I caught the Sisters of Mercy in Melbourne a few years back. They had four smoke machines going, so for most of the performance we could only see murky shapes moving around in the haze. For all I know they stuck on a tape recording and had a stage hand move cardboard cut-outs around.
SamScribble
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If you want to try something a little 'off to one side', lend an ear to some of Michael Nyman's work. MGV is pretty good. 
NotWise
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In the second chapter of "Unlikely Angels" (written before I signed on at Lit) Elsie plays the last movement of Rachmaninov's Sonata No. 2 to introduce herself to the brother she's never known. She plays it on a baby grand in the back of a bowling alley bar. Ellis (her brother) is confused.
And Yuja Wang is incredible.
Dual_Triode
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If you like choral music, I recommend the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.
NotWise
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Anything by Beethoven was probably in the 30-or-so recommendations the OP didn't want, but I'm going to propose his Grand Fuge.
It was ignored when he wrote it. It took 100 years for the later geniuses of classical music to catch up with his thinking. Maybe Beethoven should have been a better teacher.
It was ignored when he wrote it. It took 100 years for the later geniuses of classical music to catch up with his thinking. Maybe Beethoven should have been a better teacher.
NotWise
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On the vein of other of Beethoven's late music that isn't often heard there's his Missa Solemnis. It was written late in life--about the same time as his 9th symphony--and it shares some of the same features. It isn't often recorded because of it's length, but when I listen to it time stands still.
SamScribble
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Slightly off subject: I remember someone once telling me that the size of a CD was in response to Herbert von Karajan's question: 'How much space would be required to store Beethoven's Ninth Symphony?' Until von Karajan posed the question, the engineers were thinking of a CD the size of a 12-inch platter.
NotWise
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I don't know about Karajan's involvement, but my understanding is that the size of a standard music CD was set to hold the 9th symphony because that was the longest single piece of music usually recorded.
CyranoJ
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Another entry: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
Handley_Page
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The player by whom others are measured; positively heart-rending.
R. Vaughn-Williams. A brilliant piece.
And there's "the Lark ascending", too.
NOIRTRASH
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jaF0
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All I see is an unidentified link. No information as to what it is.
oggbashan
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Classical rip-offs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iho6Wi3fsag
Rossini Willem Tell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X2INwgEYQk
Show them how to dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jisNh8jP_g
In colour but not so energetic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OTjUxmmljM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iho6Wi3fsag
Rossini Willem Tell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X2INwgEYQk
Show them how to dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jisNh8jP_g
In colour but not so energetic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OTjUxmmljM
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ishtat
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Sure it wasn't Bach?
beachbum1958
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IWillEndYou
Virgin
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...............
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