# Classical music gems that got you into Classics



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

As I already stated on the forum, I loved Classical music since childhood (though I'm still a young adult, so I have years to go to enjoy it); one of the first Classics I've listened to was Mozart's 40th symphony, and loved it to the point I wanted it played in elementary school for a holiday! Beethoven's 9th symphony is another of those; both remain favored till present day; what musical pieces do you cherish?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Here are a few that opened the door for me:

Dvorak - Symphony 9
Grieg - Peer Gynt suites
Mussorgsky/Ravel - Pictures at an exhibition
Schubert - Symphony 8
Smetana - Moldau


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I came to classical music via the fun stuff - especially Kronos Quartet. Several of the albums I got early on are still favorites - Black Angels, Golijov's Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, Glass's string quartets. 

Another work I liked before I really got into classical music was Takemitsu's From Me Flows What You Call Time. 

In terms of "classical" classical, Chopin's funeral march and Mozart's Requiem were among the first works I can remember really liking.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

My first exposure to Classical Music was when I took lessons starting at the young age of 3. But I didn't really start listening for pleasure until shortly after college.

I listened to most of the "hits" at home on youtube, bought CDs at the bookstore and listened to the Classical Radio station here in Cincinnati. I still have a long way to go in my listening.

I like jumping around though!


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## StrE3ss (Feb 20, 2019)

Beethoven symphony 5 and 7 Kleiber, this is my first listen of classical music. Then Mozart 39,40,41


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

I'll take the road which lead from there (Progressive rock) to here...

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - "The Barbarian" - Béla Bartók -






ELP - "Knife Edge" - Leoš Janáček -






ELP - "Pictures at an Exhibition" - Modest Mussorgsky -






ELP - "Hoedown" - Aaron Copland -






ELP - "Jerusalem" - Hubert Parry -






ELP - "Toccata" - Alberto Ginastera -






ELP - "The Enemy God Dances With The Black Spirits" - (Scythian Suite) - Sergei Prokofiev -






ELP - "Two Part Invention in D Minor" - J.S. Bach -






ELP - "Fanfare for the Common Man" - Aaron Copland -






ELP - "Nut Rocker" - (The Nutcracker) - Tchaikovsky -


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Khachaturian: Gayane ballet suite
Rachmaninoff: PC No.2
Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
Tchaikovsky: PC No.1
Stravinsky: Firebird

Russians. I blame it all on the Russians.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Strange Magic said:


> Khachaturian: Gayane ballet suite
> Rachmaninoff: PC No.2
> Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
> Tchaikovsky: PC No.1
> ...


:lol:
No Prokofiev?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Oh yes. As a kid, Peter and the Wolf, and the "Classical" Symphony and LT. Kije. Russians. Also Gliere: Russian Sailors' Dance, from The Red Poppy Suite.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker did it for me. The delightful melodies, warm orchestration, little unique vignettes gave me a passion for classical music and symphonic music in general. I still have the recording I listened to, Philharmonia Orchestra w/Efrem Kurtz. And I still consider it among the best recordings of The Nutcracker despite having listened the heck out of it.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Khachaturian: Gayane ballet suite
> Rachmaninoff: PC No.2
> Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
> Tchaikovsky: PC No.1
> ...


Me too! My road to perdition began with a set of LPs sold by Radio Shack - Great Russian Masterpieces. Glinka's Russlan & Ludmilla overture, some Khachaturian, Stravinsky (Petrushka), Liadov, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. So intriguing and exciting - on to Tchaikovsky symphonies, Scheherazade...couldn't get enough of the Russian Nationalists. Then came the Reader's Digest set of Beethoven symphonies and those opened up a whole new world to explore.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

My obsession with classical music is new. Before this, some pieces I liked were Schubert's 8th and 9th symphonies, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa and Für Alina, and then Gorecki's 3rd symphony. But after hearing Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variatons a few months ago, I became hooked pretty quick. It's been all downhill from there :lol:


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## DBLee (Jan 8, 2018)

I've listened to classical music to some extent for decades, but not extensively--typically not much more than what my musical education required. But it was only in the past few years that I finally started "getting" Mozart--his string quartets, his piano concertos, his symphonies (particularly 25, 29, 32, 38, 40, & 41)--that I really started spending time listening to classical by my own choice.


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

The 2nd movement of the pathetique sonata got me into the rest of the pathetique sonata—which in turn got me into the rest of his sonatas.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

In terms of opening my door, the two that did it for me were Shostakovich's 5th symphony and the Vaughan Williams 9th.

Subsequently, I listened to some of Tchaikovsky's music, closed the door, and went back to hard rock for quite a few years.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

For me it was some famous waltzes by Johann Strauss II (Voices of Spring, The Blue Danube, Roses from the South), the suites of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, and the soundtrack of 1492: Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis. I remember being absolutely enthralled by all that music, and automatically I felt it gave me more pleasure than other music genres.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Gordontrek said:


> Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker did it for me. The delightful melodies, warm orchestration, little unique vignettes gave me a passion for classical music and symphonic music in general. I still have the recording I listened to, Philharmonia Orchestra w/Efrem Kurtz. And I still consider it among the best recordings of The Nutcracker despite having listened the heck out of it.


I just LOVE The Nutcracker! One of my favorite pieces of music of all time!


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I listened to Copland's "Appalachian Spring" incessantly as a teenager. I got into Brahms by watching Star Trek TNG as a teen as well. I ended up purchasing a Brahms symphony collection and a Strauss waltz collection, which were my classical mainstays for a long time. 

After 2016, I felt a hunger to listen to more. I went to many free concerts. My current deep dive started about a year ago. I bought a Karajan box set and haven't looked back, expanding my collection further and further. The hunger is insatiable now.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

MatthewWeflen said:


> After 2016, I felt a hunger to listen to more. I went to many free concerts. My current deep dive started about a year ago. I bought a Karajan box set and haven't looked back, expanding my collection further and further. The hunger is insatiable now.


Once you have collected many thousands, your hunger for more collecting will likely decline. Just give it time.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

My path to getting into classical, was not classical.

I was, and still am, a big fan of prog rock and most of its subgenres. Prog is highly influenced by classical, mostly that of the Classical era. But even then, when I tried to listen to classical of that era, it really didn't do much for me. 

It wasn't until I expanded my prog listening to the more avant-garde subgenres (avant-prog, RIO, Zeuhl) that I began to listen to classical. Most of the bands of these subgenres are influenced by the composers of the 20th century and contemporary eras. As soon as I stated listening to music from these periods, I became a classical fan. 

At first it was probably Stravinsky, Bartok, Briten, Barber, Sibelius, that got me into classical. But I didn't become a fanatic until I discovered, Carter, Schoenberg, Magnus Lindberg, Berio, Joseph Schwantner, Ligeti, Penderecki, Berg, Webern, and many others.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Mozart was my gateway into classical. I don't know if it was one work that did it, but I think hearing the adagio from the Piano Concerto #23 in Amadeus is what prompted me to explore his music.


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## MrMeatScience (Feb 15, 2015)

I got into this stuff when I was about 10 or 11. The first three that jointly blasted open the gates were Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin, and Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande. I then leapt forward into Xenakis/Stockhausen/Ligeti etc. in my early teens, and the center of my tastes has been moving backwards in time slowly but steadily since then. I expect plainchant to be my favorite stuff by the time I'm at the end of the road.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

As children our father joined a record club and told us boys that we needed to listen to this stuff.

One was Grieg Peer Gynt suites and I can't remember which recording.

The other was Beethoven's Symphonies in a box set. A cheapo pressing. My brothers could take it or leave it but I listened regularly and had the set into my early adulthood when I realized that it was worn out and let it go on to it's eternal reward.


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## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> As I already stated on the forum, I loved Classical music since childhood (though I'm still a young adult, so I have years to go to enjoy it); one of the first Classics I've listened to was Mozart's 40th symphony, and loved it to the point I wanted it played in elementary school for a holiday! Beethoven's 9th symphony is another of those; both remain favored till present day; what musical pieces do you cherish?


For me it was all the big Modernist and "post"-Modernist composers of the 20th century, they tickled my pleasure spots so to speak and made me addicted. Basically, from there you inevitably start tracking backwards all the way down to the Medieval Genius'


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## Steerpike (Dec 29, 2018)

I had a maths teacher who liked Sibelius, and I recall a lesson in which we were all beavering away on some work he'd set, and he put on a recording of the Karelia Suite. My father also quite liked classical music and had a meagre collection, but I recall quite often putting on some of his records late at night before turning in - Holst's The Planets, and Beethoven's 4th and 7th symphonies spring to mind.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Handel's Messiah and, in particular, the Hallelujah chorus which I sang in high school and church as an adolescent. The greatest influence on me after that was the score to Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" in 1971, in particular the Purcell march from the Funeral Music for Queen Mary that did not appear on the score LP as well as the Rossini overture.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The first classical LP I ever took to my room to listen to was Mozart symphonies 35 and 40 conducted by Bruno Walter. Not exactly gems - more fully nutritious music! I loved it and didn't look back: I was hooked for life.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

The piece that truly got me into classical music is Tchaikovsky's piano concerto no.1. Played by the young Evgeny Kissin and conducted by Karajan. Not the best rendition ever but I was so impressed by the power and tension of the orchestra. It was just beautiful, decent music.


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