# Your entry into classical music



## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

What composers did you start with to get into classical music, how did your journey begin and what were the milestones along the way?

For example....

someone gave me a cd of Beethoven sonatas, which I liked but they didn't really light the fire. A little later I listened to Tchaikovsky on YouTube, this was the first classical music I really liked, then I listened to Sibelius which I also really liked, the next composer that was a land mark in the journey was Wagner, which completely blew me away and I was obsessed with for a while, I then came to love Mozart, especially the piano concertos. In-between each milestone I have listened to and enjoyed many pieces and composers. 

What was your journey and who were the composers that opened the door and led the way?

(You don't need to write an essay )


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Schubert, Grieg, Mozart, Debussy, Beethoven were IIRC my first classical music CD's, and it was love at first 'sight'. The first famous composer that caused me more problems was Stravinsky (Sacre). After I cracked that, the 20th century opened up for me.

Opera was the last genre I tried to get into. Famous names like Mozart and Verdi did not do it for me (they still do not), but Wagner, R Strauss and Puccini (and later Britten) did.

It's been a journey of 35 years by now, and I like composers from Bach to contemporary - but I also still can not really appreciate some of the big names from that period of four centuries.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Important milestones in the musical life of Kjetil: 
At 5, Mozart was my first love and still my #1  
Ca. 10: Kjetil discovers Queen. 
pre 18: Prokofiev & Bartok got me into more modern music.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

I started with Beethoven , Schubert thanks to my father and it's a lifelong love affaire with those two... He introduced me to Mozart , Bach and Händel too
After that I discovered Russian music (Tchaikovsky and then Prokofiev, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky,...which led to Shostakovich)

I continue to broaden my outlook on classical music and TC has been of influence! I have discovered some great works thanks to you all on TC.

I think I am relatively young (40s) compared to others on TC ... this site has helped me discover more , thanks!


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## arapinho1 (Oct 11, 2020)

Wow, I am 27, don't tell me I am the youngest one here  
Usual stuff, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I heard CM as a small child, on my mother's 78s: Borodin's _Polovtsian Dances_, bits of well-known opera overtures, Rachmaninoff's PC #2, Grieg's _Peer Gynt_ suite, Tchaikovsky _Nutcracker_, etc. Later, as a young teen, I explored more fully the Russians and the other "nationalist" composers of the late 19th-early 20th centuries. And the Impressionists. Everybody else tagged along after that in due course. I think of myself as a "Bach to Bartok" listener, neither going earlier than Bach nor more "advanced" than Bartok.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

arapinho1 said:


> Wow, I am 27, don't tell me I am the youngest one here
> Usual stuff, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky


Oh sorry :tiphat: ,... I was only assuming... as often I am one of the younger visitors to concerts where I live...


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I heard various things as a child through radio, movies and television that I liked, but usually I didn't know who they were. My family going back were/are all musicians (but none of them classical). I heard various names though: Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, but I didn't necessarily know who wrote what. 

When I was old enough to purchase recordings I randomly purchased items based on the names I had recognized and I found several of the things I had heard as a kid and continued to explore ever since.

My local music store was very limited for selection (and apparently upon recollection mainly sourced from EMI) so I only purchased what I could find there.

The first few things I purchased were:
Otto Klemperer's Beethoven Symphonies.
Samson Francois's Chopin Piano Works.
Daniel Barenboim's Mozart's Piano Concertos.
Andre Previn's Tchaikovsky Ballets.
Yehudi Menuhin's Bach Orchestral Works.
Wolfgang Sawallisch's Brahms Symphonies.

As far as milestones. Hearing the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th on my local PBS station although I had no idea which symphony it was from. They only had said Mahler. I immediately went out and the only record they had at my music store was Harold Farberman conducting Mahler's 6th. I was disappointed that the Adagietto wasn't on there but I was absolutely blown away by what I heard. After that I special ordered a Mahler Symphony cycle which was Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic and I have been addicted to Mahler ever since.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

arapinho1 said:


> Wow, I am 27, don't tell me I am the youngest one here
> Usual stuff, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky


I'm turning 24 in less than a month 

As for the topic of this post. All my life I loved Beethoven and I knew the usual suspects (bach, mozart, chopin, debussy, a bit of mahler), but I devoted myself almost entirely to popular music (jazz, rock, punk, post-punk, new wave, industrial, electronic music, singer-songwriters, etc.) Between 2015-2019 I only listened to music released during the 21st century in order to write a book about it, which I did. After that I was burnt out and decided to explore classical. I started mostly with Bartók and Mahler, musicians who always intrigued me. After listening to Mahler's 2nd I completely fell in love with "classical" and thanks to the pandemic I could traverse the entire history of western music from Hildegaard von Bingen to composers writing music today. Today it's 98% classical for me, 1.5% jazz and 0.5% other types of popular music.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> I'm turning 24 in less than a month
> 
> As for the topic of this post. All my life I loved Beethoven and I knew the usual suspects (bach, mozart, chopin, debussy, a bit of mahler), but I devoted myself almost entirely to popular music (jazz, rock, punk, post-punk, new wave, industrial, electronic music, singer-songwriters, etc.) Between 2015-2019 I only listened to music released during the 21st century in order to write a book about it, which I did. After that I was burnt out and decided to explore classical. I started mostly with Bartók and Mahler, musicians who always intrigued me. After listening to Mahler's 2nd I completely fell in love with "classical" and thanks to the pandemic I could traverse the entire history of western music from Hildegaard von Bingen to composers writing music today. Today it's 98% classical for me, 1.5% jazz and 0.5% other types of popular music.


Like I was a grunge fan in the early nineties and played guitar in a Nirvana cover band ... I went to Wakken festival and tried out Roskilde, Werchter etc... After all that I devoted myself to the music my father introduced me to when I was younger (before puberty ;-) )...


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## Mark Dee (Feb 16, 2021)

I was very small when I saw some of my parent's records - they weren't really into classical but I do remember seeing some Concert Hall 7" singles and a José Iturbi plays Chopin EP. My eldest brother (no sadly passed) bought me a copy of Saint Saens Symphony No. 3 when I was about 10. I don't have that copy now, but it did make an impression on me. I bought a few second hand LP's from a beloved local secondhand shop in the 80's - definitely remember buying the Szell/Cleveland Orchestra playing Mozart's 40th and 41st on CBS. When Poundstretcher was around in the early 90's I gorged myself on Pilz Vienna Masters CD's at a pound each. In my mid 20's I started buying the Classical Collection from Orbis (I think it was £2.99 for the magazine and the CD), and bought the first 30. All those CD's were sold on as I had a purge in the late 90's when our children were small and I needed the space and the money. Only in the last 18 months/2 years have I taken classical music more seriously than I had in the preceeding few years and in the past 12-18 months have now built up a small collection on vinyl (about 100 LPs) and about 300 CD's, plus a few downloads from classicselectworld.com and archive.org. So it's been a bit of a rollercoaster but classical has always been around in my life in some way, shape or form for the best part of 50 years.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I’m turning 20 this month, and I have been listening to classical for four years now. It’s been a nonstop journey of enriching discovery. Going really far back, the first two pieces of classical music I heard that I fell in love with were Pachelbel’s Canon in D and Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca (now I can’t stand those, but my younger self thought they were the most beautiful things ever). But later on, it was Chopin’s music that got me. I pretty much listened to only him for months on end, then expanded into more solo piano music. Being a pianist, at first I wasn’t interested in any other genres, but Beethoven’s 3rd and 9th got me into orchestral and everything else came naturally from there. Bach and Brahms didn’t click for me at first and now they are my two favorites, far above everyone else. Neither did opera - in fact, although I had been listening to it infrequently before, I would say that I really only started loving it a couple months ago when I started a chronological listening survey of the history of opera (I’m up to the 20th century now). Since I discovered it, CM has become a huge part of my life and I can’t ever envision its role diminishing for me.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

For me it was a neighbor who was throwing away a bunch of records that I took from his garbage - I was maybe 6 or 7. They were classical, although I didn't know it then. I kept them for a long time: Beethoven Emperor and violin concerto (Heifetz); Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique (Munch), Delibes Sylvia excerpts, and the favorite: Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty excerpts - and that one I still have 60 years later. I played those records to death. And then there were the great movies on Shock Theater that attuned my ear to that late romantic, lush orchestral sound. But living in the sticks that was pretty much my musical life. Then I started my Ham Radio interests and spent a lot of time at Radio Shack. There was a time that they carried LP boxed sets mined from the Vox catalog. The one I bought was Great Russian Masterpieces - and that was the last piece of the puzzle. I went to the public library with its large classical LP collection and listened to everything I could. One of my favorite records to check out was the Mahler 7th (Bernstein), but it still seems funny all these years later that I couldn't stand the 2nd. Oh the memories.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

HerbertNorman said:


> Like I was a grunge fan in the early nineties and played guitar in a Nirvana cover band ... I went to Wakken festival and tried out Roskilde, Werchter etc... After all that I devoted myself to the music my father introduced me to when I was younger (before puberty ;-) )...


I still love all kinds of music though, and I'm sure I'll go back and forth for the rest of my life. That is a testament to the glorious richness of Music!


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## perempe (Feb 27, 2014)

I saw some arias on youtube 8 years ago, liked them. I searched for tickets, and bought to Rigoletto because of Erkel Theatre's affordable ticket prices. (My first ticket was about 1 euro without restristed view.) I'm a fan of opera ever since. I saw 50+ operas, some of them several times. (I saw Tosca 10 times.)

I became a concert goer as well. Our opera company used to hold 10 concerts a season. In my first concert in April 2014, Bringuier conducted the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. L'Après-midi d'un Faune, Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 (with Perényi), Daphnis et Chloé; it was fantastic.

In February 2015, I went to my first Miskolc SO concert to hear a Dvořák program. (Perényi played the Cello Concerto before his 9th.) I stopped attending their concerts in 2018.
In the fall of 2017, I bought a BFO season ticket. I'm a fan of the orchestra ever since.
I'm visiting concerts of the Hungarian Radio SO since 2018 & The Hungarian National PO since 2019.

I also enjoy free concerts - Liszt Academy's student concerts, chamber music in Aranytíz (& various places), organ recitals.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't even remember how I was aware of the great composers beyond the household names because nobody in my family was in to music. But I began to move away from commercial rock music at age 18 when I discovered public radio where I became exposed to jazz and classical. I was initially drawn to romantic composers including Borodin, Rimsky, Franck, and Beethoven. And the Bach Brandenburg Concertos. But it was very slow going until CDs came out. After that I bought about 20 Telarc titles at my favorite audio dealer. Debussy, Shostakovich, Grieg, etc. A few years later I got into Stravinsky, Bartok, and just kept going. And then I discovered this place over a decade ago which really helped me burn up all of my disposable income on composers I'd never heard of before.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I grew up in the 1970s and spent a lot of time watching cartoons on TV: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom & Jerry, Mighty Mouse, Popeye, the Flintstones, etc. My mother used to say that I could draw before I could talk, and I loved to draw cartoons as much as I loved to watch cartoons. My big dream as a child was to work for Walt Disney Studios as a cartoonist. I know it sounds like a strange dichotomy for a guy who loves classical music recordings and art museums, but I still crack up at the cartoons I grew up watching.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure watching all those old cartoons put the sound of classical music in my ear as they constantly made use of classical music: Wagner (_What's Opera Doc?_); Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry paid home to Liszt's _Hungarian Rhapsody #2_; Rossini and Johann Strauss were used over and over again, and many others. Apart from that was the original _Star Wars_ trilogy which were part of my coming of age, and I was as captivated by the _Star Wars_ message and mythology as I was by John Williams' classically-inspired score. Also, there was the original _Cosmos_ TV show with Carl Sagan and the soundtrack album which made use of Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Hovhaness and others. Having grown up with grandparents, I was subjected to the _Lawrence Welk Show_ on Saturday nights and when George Cates came out to conduct the orchestra, I _thought_ it was classical music because to me Cates looked the part of a "great conductor". That's where I think it all began:


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

My love for classical music actually came from listening to progressive music. But it took me a awhile.

Originally I was (and still am) a big fan of prog bands that were influenced by composers of the Classical, Romantic and early 20th century. Bands like: YES, Genesis, Gently Giant, PFM, Banco, King Crimson, Echolyn, etc. But when I tried to listen to the composers of those periods, they didn't really do much for me.

After a while, I got more into bands in the prog subgenre known as "avant-prog". As the name implies, these bands are more avantgarde, when compared to the above bands. These bands are much more influenced by composers of the second half of the 20th century (to the present era). Bands like: Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, Thinking Plague, Aranis, and many more. These bands looked much more toward Ligeti, Penderecki, Carter, the 2nd Viennese School, etc. for their influences, as opposed to the earlier eras that the bands listed previously used for influences.

It wasn't until I began to explore these composers, that my love for classical began. 

I still have a fairly large collection of earlier era music (Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc., etc.), that I listen to on a fairly regular basis, in hopes that it will click with me one day, but so far, not happening. So, at least for now, my classical music listening is almost entirely from post WWII. But I won't give up on earlier music.

Just for a reference, prog website, progarchives.com, describes avant-prog like this:

Avant-prog is generally considered to be more extreme and 'difficult' than other forms of progressive rock, though these terms are naturally subjective and open to interpretation. Common elements that may or may not be displayed by specific avant-prog artists include:

- Regular use of dissonance and atonality.
- Extremely complex and unpredictable song arrangements.
- Free or experimental improvisation.
- Fusion of disparate musical genres.
- Polyrhythms and highly complex time signatures.

Most avant-prog artists are highly unique and eclectic in sound and consequently tend to resist easy comparisons.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I had the same background appreciation of orchestral music (John Williams) and classical (Looney Tunes and Beethoven 5) as most Americans who grew up in the 70s-90s. But this episode of TNG really sparked my imagination musically:






(they misname the piece and there are only 4 players for a sextet, but whatever  )

After this I sought out some Brahms and bought some of his string music and a symphony cycle.

My more recent mega-deep-dive was inspired by the state of affairs of the past several years. Diving deep into wide repertoire was occasioned by wanting an escape valve from the tumult of the present.


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## Ned Low (Jul 29, 2020)

I was watching Kuberik's A Clockwork Orange and heard Beethoven's 9th for the first time and instantly fell in love with it. That was my intro to both classical music and Beethoven.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

My dad was a big fan of classical music and an amateur violinist/vocalist. So I heard a lot of music in the house, most of it from the Romantic period and not attractive to me. So I went to the Boston Public Library, used the listening booths, and was highly impressed with Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams, and David Diamond. As a teenager, I dropped classical and turned to rock music until I hit my 30's and got sick of it.

I decided to go back to classical and started with baroque music, mostly Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi (all of it on modern instruments). The problem was that the music didn't sound fresh but sour and rather lethargic. So I turned to period instruments which was a big revelation for me with Bach and Handel; with Vivaldi, nothing helped. Bach became my main man and remains so to this day.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I came from a'60s Rock (early years) and Jazz background (I performed as a professional Jazz bassist for 20+ years) and that has remained an important factor in the kind of Classical music I've been drawn to.

The first composers I enjoyed were, listed roughly chronologically -

Gershwin
Ives
Cage
Stockhausen
Stravinsky
Bernstein
Webern
Boulez

This covered a period from when I was 13-25 years old. I entered music school when I was 18 and was introduced to the standard repertory. These composers were my favorites and have remained so: Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Satie, Debussy, Poulenc, and Duruflé. Because of the Duruflé _Requiem_ I became interested in Chant and early music in general, which has occupied a large part of my listening ever since. Period instrument recordings are generally what I prefer.

But my primary orientation has remained for 20th century music and now 21st century music.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Going to the movie theater to see Disney's Fantasia when I was four was pivotal for me. It was spectacular and unforgettable, especially The Rite of Spring, Prelude to the afternoon of a faun, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. At around that same time I would sit on the floor in the middle of the music stands while my father played string quartets. Magic.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Beethoven and Dvorak were my way into CM. Then Schubert, Mozart, Schumann and bits of Tchaikovsky. All the big hitters really. I also got a few Mahler symphonies early on (especially the 1st) but Brahms took me some time for some reason. The rest has just come on logically. And to think it all started with a James Last LP of my dad's.....


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

As a junior high schooler I was pretty much one of the lemmings who followed rock music via an AM transistor radio. It was while taking a mandatory Music Appreciation class (a one day a week kind of course) that I came to exposure to classical music. The instructor was not the most inspirational teacher in the world, but he did have a box set of records featuring "moments" of Great Classical Music, and part of the class was spent playing a handful of pieces each session, and he would later quiz us on our memory of the work and composer. I had never heard any of the pieces before and I can't remember any of them, except for one piece. It was the closing minutes of Tchaikovsky's _Capriccio Italien_. Don't know what it was about that particular chunk of music over any of the others, but it grabbed my attention in an unforgettable way.

I had a small record player at home for my handful of rock/pop records (one of those small box units with a big chunky ceramic cartridge and a heavy duty needle which was not kind to vinyl grooves) so I looked round at a local record store for a copy of the _Capriccio Italien_. I found it on an album along with the _1812 Overture_, and I also found a piano concerto with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Loren Maazel by the same composer, so I bought them, took them home, and started to listen. I literally wore out both albums with that record player. But, life has never been the same since.

My earliest explorations into classical music consisted of hunting down more music by Tchaikovsky, but it led to other works and other composers, and it wasn't long before I encountered Beethoven and Schubert and Bruckner and Dvorak. Having a penchant for exploring, I slowly began taking chances on classical music by folks I had never heard of before (Nielsen, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Penderecki -- and others that had not been on the music teacher's record "moments"). Some of the stuff I liked, some I didn't. I was slow to pick up Bach and Stravinsky, I recall. I didn't care much for _Rite of Spring_ when I first heard it. Today I wouldn't want to be without it and have collected at least 50 versions. It took me quite a while to embrace Bach. I remember wondering why anyone would want to hear all of those boring and same-sounding Cantatas; today I have several different sets of the Cantatas and consider Bach the supreme composer.

So I started off with classical music in the Romantic period. High points of development as a fan included my discovery of Bruckner and Mahler, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, my introduction into the strange world of contemporary music (by way of a disc featuring Penderecki and Xenakis -- which prodded an interest in avant-garde music in general), my encounter with a box set of the nine Beethoven symphonies, and a record of the quartets of Debussy and Ravel and a box of records of music by Bartok. And, of course, my eventual realization of the greatness of J.S. Bach!

Today I have a disc collection that numbers in the several thousand pieces, and I've heard "classical music" of every era and every genre nearly every day of my life. But I still hold a special fondness for _Capriccio Italien_ by Tchaikovsky. It will never wear out its welcome in my listening room. And I treasure that first Tchaikovsky disc I purchased, which is still in my record collection today, albeit a disc that shows (and sounds) its often-played status. (Which likely explains why I have replaced it a couple of times over the course of the years, to always have a fresh, clean copy to listen to and to confront my now pricey and delicate cartridge/needle -- which I'm cautious about risking on "scratchy" old records.)


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

fluteman said:


> Going to the movie theater to see Disney's Fantasia when I was four was pivotal for me. It was spectacular and unforgettable, especially The Rite of Spring, Prelude to the afternoon of faun, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. At around that same time I would sit on the floor in the middle of the music stands while my father played string quartets. Magic.


Disney's _Fantasia_ was a gateway to CM for numberless folks of a certain age. Walt's amazing gift to millions!


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Strange Magic said:


> I heard CM as a small child, on my mother's 78s: Borodin's _Polovtsian Dances_, bits of well-known opera overtures, Rachmaninoff's PC #2, Grieg's _Peer Gynt_ suite, Tchaikovsky _Nutcracker_, etc. Later, as a young teen, I explored more fully the Russians and the other "nationalist" composers of the late 19th-early 20th centuries. And the Impressionists. Everybody else tagged along after that in due course. I think of myself as a "Bach to Bartok" listener, neither going earlier than Bach nor more "advanced" than Bartok.


Me too, on the Bach to Bartok thing. I don't know how to define advanced or early, but Bartok and Bach seems exactly right.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

On the topic, my parents' LPs when they were out. Sibelius mainly.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Over several years as a child, I listened to a small group of works:

Mozart - Symphony no. 28
Bach - Sheep May Safely Graze
Tchaikovsky - Symphony no. 6
Beethoven - Symphony no. 9
Vivaldi - Spring
Vivaldi - Concerto alla rustica
Vivaldi - Concerto for Two Cellos
Vivaldi - Goldfinch Concerto
Clarke - Trumpet Voluntary
Pachelbal - Canon in D
Mozart - Horn Concertos
Beethoven - Symphony no. 5
Beethoven - Symphony no. 7
Schubert - Trout Quintet
Mendelssohn - Wedding March
Mendelssohn - On Wings of Song
Haydn - Cello Concerto no. 1
Rorem - Symphony no. 3
Anonymous - Cuncti Simus Concanentes
Williams - Star Wars
Haydn - Symphony no. 94/2
Mozart - Symphony no. 40/1
Mozart - Symphony no. 41/1
Dvorak - Cello Concerto movement 1
Rorem - Symphony no. 1
Dvorak - Symphony no. 9 "From the New World"

After Dvorak, my consumption of classical music started skyrocketing. Soon, I branched out to listen intently to the major works of Dvorak and, later, Bruckner.

This was four years ago. 

I began to listen to Baroque choral music. A few months later, I became obsessed with the Grosse Fuge. That prompted me to spend months listening to the other late quartets of Beethoven. 

Two years ago, I familiarized myself with Haydn and Mahler. Later, I went on Bartok and Xenakis binges.

A year ago, my consumption of unfamiliar classical music began slowing down. By then, I knew a good portion of the standard repertoire, and I started to search for the best interpretations of my warhorses.

I still have a lot more to learn. I've only listened to a handful of operas. My knowledge of the piano repertoire is weak. And while I know the limited amount of Baroque pieces in the standard repertoire, my knowledge is fairly basic beyond JS Bach.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

arapinho1 said:


> Wow, I am 27, don't tell me I am the youngest one here
> Usual stuff, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky


I am 22, and only got into classical mysic in earnest four years ago.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> I still love all kinds of music though, and I'm sure I'll go back and forth for the rest of my life. That is a testament to the glorious richness of Music!


Completely agree, just like me...I'm a fan of music in general too


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mine started with some great works:
- Bach's Brandenburg concertos, orchestral Suites, violin concertos
- Mozart's late symphonies, some chamber music
- Vivaldi's Four Seasons
These were works that naturally captured my listening attention, so I listened to them over and over like a kid singing _Row, Row, Row Your Boat_.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

In my home Radio 3 was tuned into quite often from the 1960s and my mum would always turn the set up when an opera aria or chunk came on that she liked. I preferred rock and pop, but still liked the classical stuff I heard on the radio. Later, I discovered a couple of LPs in the house, Tchaikovsky ballet suites and Prokofiev's Kije c/w Kodaly's Harry Janos and I played them often when no-one was around. 

My eldest brother was a Beefheart/Zappa/Bartok fanatic and I had all that in my ears most days. As a teenager, classical music didn't really figure very much, although I did have an LP of Bartok's String Quartet #1 coupled with a Shostakovich Sqt (number 3?). 

Around the mid 1980s, I'd become bored with rock/pop/prog/indie/punk etc and proactively sought out jazz and classical for my music fix. I listened to tons of Blue Note Jazz, but it was the symphonies of Bruckner, Mahler and Sibelius that really did it for me. The last 30 years has been just one long adventure in anything and everything that gets labelled classical.

I listen to all different musics on a regular basis, but when I have proper long session, it's always classical. I can listen to one Led Zep/King Crimson/Radiohead at a time, but I'll often listen to classical music all morning and afternoon.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I had classical piano lessons as a child then at university had duties as a classical/jazz host . I don't know why .


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Learnt violin at school - suzuki-assembly-line style in a group. Kept going just cause it was fun playing in groups at school. Then the orchestra played (arrangement of?) the overture to the Royal Fireworks. Wow! What a buzz to play this. Mum & dad bought me the Argo/Marriner/ASMF LP. Dad had a large and eclectic LP collection anyway - lots of musicals, Herb Alpert, a heap of mono classical too. I began to experiment, having more-or-less bailed on top-40 compilations post-Handel (I was 14). Klemperer's (stereo) Beethoven 5 pressed lots of buttons. Oh, there's a 7th symphony too. This Brahms 1 is pretty good. And so on... 40 years later...!
Still play violin in a community orchestra too. Still a blast.


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

The Tchaikovsky Piano Cto 1 got me hooked. My father had it on a cassette. Then on to Brahms, Beethoven , Rachmaninov , Sibelius and so on. Great journey


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Disney's _Fantasia_ was a gateway to CM for numberless folks of a certain age. Walt's amazing gift to millions!


Yes, and not just Walt, but that extraordinary showman, Leopold Stokowski, who cared very much about introducing children to classical music. No doubt it is for that reason that when I was eleven, along with a group of other children I was able to meet and shake hands with him after a concert. (I'm guessing he did this frequently.) He gave me the biggest and most genuine smile you could imagine.


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## Bkeske (Feb 27, 2019)

My sister took ballet lessons in the 60’s. My mother used to take me to the studio lessons, and I would sit back behind the glass, and watch. And when rehearsing for an upcoming recital/performance, the classical music was ‘piped in’. Then the performances at an actual theater/hall with full musical score supporting the ballet. Although for many many years I continued to be smitten with ballet, it was the musical accompaniment that also became attractive to me. So, it was ballet that created my initial interest. 

In addition, back in the 60’s my parents had an old console stereo, and purchased ‘the kids’ some albums to play. One, to this day, I remember listening to with incredible enjoyment and was almost transfixed by; Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Yes, the story was fun, but what struck me the most was the emotion and story telling of the music itself.

While growing up as a teen though, I mostly listened to rock, and derivatives of ‘rock’ music. It was hard to escape the Beatles in the 60’s, and all that followed. I eventually became a Dead Head, but also listened to stuff like Lou Reed, Fairport Convention, Mahavishnu Orchestra, John Mahal, Kottke, Neil Young, Eno, yada yada yada. Then in the mid-late 70’s, punk, post-punk, alternative, ‘new wave’, early ‘indie’ stuff. Growing into adulthood, I became smitten with jazz, ‘real jazz’, not 80’s David Sanborn kind of crap. And interestingly, perhaps because of my love of the Modern Jazz Quartet, it lead me ‘back’ to exploring classical, really for the first time. But it never really stuck, primarily because I got busy with ‘life stuff’, and no longer sat and listened to music for hours at a time. Over the past few years, starting in my mid-late 50’s and now into my 60’s, music has ‘called to me’ once again. But, I soon got tired of all my old music, (although I do still listen to a lot of it), and nothing ‘current’ or ‘new’ really does anything for me. And it was then that I decided to begin a deeper exploration into classical, as I always had a desire to do so. It has been fascinating. I now have as many classical LP’s, CD’s, etc. as all my other music combined. In a relatively short period of time. I wish I had began the journey much sooner.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I really "Like" and like everybody's posts on this subject! Love of music is a great bond among people, and music is one of the few Very Good Things that humankind has come up with that 99% of the time is a "harmonious", shared enterprise. As I watch my concert CM videos on YouTube, I am struck by the gathering together of many hundreds--or thousands--of people in peace and benevolence to hear and appreciate the quite sophisticated efforts of the group on stage to create a rather unique experience. An inspiration, considering our often less positive behaviors as a species. :angel:


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Im sure that's an older thread like this somewhere on the site that people would like to read, too. I recall people recounting how they got into classical music and their journey to the site once before in this forum. I definitely recall writing about that on here. I can't find that particular thread though.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

High school band was my first major intro to the area. We often played transcriptions and Chorales as well as standard marches and pop tunes. Rimsky-Korsakov/Russian Easter Overture really excited my young mind. I quickly went to Stravinsky and then to Mahler. The NBC Toscanini repeat broadcasts were neat, as well as "Music 'til Dawn", on several late night radio stations let me hear many things new to me.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Off topic, but there's also the question of where your journey has currently reached (as a follow-up to where it started).

I started with romantics (the most Tchaikovsky-influenced bits of Sibelius, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov) and progressed to like more or less conservative early 20th century composers (the rest of Sibelius, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Ravel, Poulenc, etc), going as far into modernism as Bartok, but not into anything more avant-garde. At the same time, Bach and Beethoven were unavoidably so great as to be impossible to ignore.

As time has passed, I've become more convinced that there is little for me in more modernist stuff, and have gradually drifted more in the direction of appreciating the missing classical and earlier romantic stuff. Haydn came to me in the last few years, and most recently I have got more into Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens. When I was younger I would have assumed names like these were just failed attempts at being Beethoven or Brahms, and not given them a listen-in.

What I can't see happening is a move into the sort of music where it is more concerned with writing down what the "concept" is than just listening to it. I also don't do much vocal music - and particularly opera, and can't see that changing.
Gaping hole: Mozart. A little resonates, but not much - it may come. 
Tiny hole: Schumann. I suspect I'm missing something. On the other hand, I don't think there's very much to miss. Any Schumann piece more than about 1 minute long rapidly becomes too long. :devil:


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Merl said:


> Im sure that's an older thread like this somewhere on the site that people would like to read, too. I recall people recounting how they got into classical music and their journey to the site once before in this forum. I definitely recall writing about that on here. I can't find that particular thread though.


Yea I thought there probably had been but couldn't find it.

As SM mentioned its for the love of the music why were here. Classical music is cut off to so many people. There is a prejudice as its seen as not cool and old by many. So its nice to read everyone's story's and how they came to discover and love CM.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The first work I heard in its entirety was at school when I was about 11 - and it was _Peter & The Wolf._ Before then the only bit of classical I really recognised was the opening to Beethoven's 5th. At some point around then we also sang the words to Schubert's _Trout_ and _Lindenbaum_ songs in English while the teacher played what I remember to be a badly-tuned upright. Another school lesson a couple of years later focused on Kodály's _Háry János Suite_ which made more of an impression (I never forgot the Viennese clocks and the looming French army bits) but other than possessing two or three rarely played budget-priced Wagner 'bleeding chunks' albums I didn't start collecting classical music properly until I was in my mid-30s after I purchased Solti's Ring Cycle, which was a cut-price inducement to join a now defunct mail-order company.


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## Alinde (Feb 8, 2020)

Via largely self-taught playing of the music I found in the piano stool of our small-town pub*. I didn't know about the ABC - our radio didn't seem to be able to receive it (I am old). I regularly murdered Chopin and others. They asked me to stop (I suppose there had been complaintsL) but I didn't. 

So I wasn't much of a pianist but, when I went away to boarding school to get educated (no radio to listen to there either) and later to university, it turned out I was a better singer than pianist so, from then on I had wonderful opportunities of performing Renaissance and other music for small ensembles and many choral works. Solo piano and vocal music are still my favourite genres. 

Because I was now mixing with people who were more clued up than I was, I began to collect second-hand LPs - the first three were Haydn's Emperor Quartet, Beethoven's Fifth and Aus dem Neuen Welt. Bliss! 

It took me decades to appreciate good popular music. 






*how did it get there?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bach and Beethoven when I was taking piano lessons as a kid.


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## Chilham (Jun 18, 2020)

.........................


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

OK, one last story. For my 7th birthday, my parents took me to my first classical music concert in glamorous New York City, one of the first if not the first time I'd be permitted to stay up past midnight, and the biggest night of my young life to that point by far. But once we were seated in New York's Town Hall, a businesslike fellow in a gray suit walked onto the stage and announced the concert would be cancelled as the conductor had not appeared. I was crestfallen. Just as he started talking about ticket refunds, a voice came from the balcony: "No! I'm here!" and Peter Schickele came swinging down from the balcony to conduct what I later found out was the first ever PDQ Bach concert. I still was crestfallen, as it seemed to me this would be a comedy show and not a real concert. But of course, Schickele turned out to be so good I immediately became a fan, and have been one ever since. 

I never found out how my parents got wise to PDQ so early on, but at this time my younger sister was in a dance class given by Schickele's wife Susan, whom Schickele had met at Juilliard where she was a dance student. Clearly that had something to do with it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

^^^^The mid-1950s gave us the ever-remembered Hoffnung Music Festivals, from which I think the excellent PDQ drew inspiration. Here is the famous _Concerto Popolare_ from one of the festivals. And there are other videos available.






Wikipedia has a fine entry on Gerard Hoffnung and his contributions to serious music:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffnung_Music_Festival


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^The mid-1950s gave us the ever-remembered Hoffnung Music Festivals, from which I think the excellent PDQ drew inspiration. Here is the famous _Concerto Popolare_ from one of the festivals. And there are other videos available.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


SM there's a funny story about Malcom Arnold who walked into a London electrical goods shop with Hoffnung and asked a bemused assistant to switch on several different Hoovers so he could listen to their motors hum in order to assess the tunings for his 'A Grand, Grand Overture' written for the 1956 festival....iirc they were in Bflat.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^The mid-1950s gave us the ever-remembered Hoffnung Music Festivals, from which I think the excellent PDQ drew inspiration. Here is the famous _Concerto Popolare_ from one of the festivals. And there are other videos available.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have, or had, a Hoffnung box LP set inherited from my parents.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

One of the threads I was talking about is linked below but there's another bigger one which I can't find. It's annoying me. Lol

Your journey through classical music

Edit: I finally found it. I knew if I hit the right keywords I'd finally find it.

How did you get into classical music?


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## pablobear (Mar 4, 2021)

Made account cuz I felt like I have somewhat of a unique experience. I turned 21 last month, so I got into this much later than most of you all...

Growing up, I've always liked classical, but wasn't really into it. I'd listen to the chopin nocturne, turkish march, and some other random stuff I can't quite remember right now...

During the pandemic, I got into playing piano/keyboard, because I always wanted to play an instrument. My brother was a big inspiration to me, he can play many instruments really well, but he's not super into classical...

Anyways, I started off listening to like the flashy technical **** in my 20s, Liszt pieces like HR6, HR2, and La Campanella. OH! Also, I was into like fantasie impromptu and **** like that. I mainly listened to the YouTube synthesia pianists, but I found out about Cziffra's HR6 recording and I was like awestruck. That was like the first thing that got me super into it, then I e-mailed my teacher who was a pretty big classical nerd and she recommended me Rachmaninoff... 

From there on out I was hooked, I listened to a good bit of Tchaikovsky since he was similar, and later Scriabin who is my second favorite composer. 

Now I am hooked, I've been into it since May, but oh boy... I have a lot more knowledge now, and I love it... There is definitely some great basic pieces I'm missing out on, but most of the stuff I listen to is Rach/Scriabin. I mainly listen to Horowitz, Ashkenazy, Sofronitsky, and I've been finding out about a lot of old maestros who have that "old" sound people seem to talk about so much. I definitely prefer that style way more, and I'm finding out a lot of tricks to make me similar stylistically to those guys...

Some cool stuff I found out is kind of obvious: playing bass light and melody loud, making the middle note sing in a chord, more freedom in interpretation, and playing with a conscious technique has made me a lot better when I try to play some stuff...

Currently, I'm working on the first like 4 minutes of the 2nd movement of RPC2, some other piece my teacher is going to assign me (he doesn't know the name lol but he will tell me on Thursday I assume), and I also have a pretty decent interpretation of the first page of prelude in C by Bach, but it's pretty awful compared to anyone good lol. 

I also can play scales across all the octaves in C-maj/amin, and can do most scales pretty well, scriabin mystic chord, and some other random technical exercises... It's been great fun, I can't wait to become good enough so I can play the rach/scriabin preludes, and more stuff.


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## BoggyB (May 6, 2016)

I'm not ashamed to say that in my first few years of being a fan, I frequented that "Burger King" of the classical music world, which is Classic FM (on British radio). Their practice of cycling through "Best of" tracks was (and is) a good facilitator of exposure and early exploration. Having now found my niches, I only flick CFM on from time to time, to see if I can recognize the piece.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I was raised on Russian music from a young age — Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Prokofiev — by my mother, who was a singer and church organist. As a teen my tastes broadened to include rock, prog rock, jazz, and blues. Discovered a fair amount of classical rep as a teen because parents of my friends had good classical record connections and season tickets to the symphony which occasionally fell into our hands.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Strange Magic said:


> I really "Like" and like everybody's posts on this subject! Love of music is a great bond among people, and music is one of the few Very Good Things that humankind has come up with that 99% of the time is a "harmonious", shared enterprise. As I watch my concert CM videos on YouTube, I am struck by the gathering together of many hundreds--or thousands--of people in peace and benevolence to hear and appreciate the quite sophisticated efforts of the group on stage to create a rather unique experience. An inspiration, considering our often less positive behaviors as a species. :angel:


I reckon there's a very good case to say that humanity's greatest artistic/cultural achievement is the symphony orchestra.


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