# What piece convinced you?



## Bas (Jul 24, 2012)

I suppose that some of you have been grown up with classical music, 'got' it from your parents. However, some people are less lucky (or not influenced, I don't know what is to prefer) and had to discover Classical music for themselves. I'm eager to know if there is a certain piece you heard that convinced you to go and discover this wonderful world of musical treasures. What is your story? Do you still like it, how is your taste changed?

Let's start with my own story. The very first piece that convinced me is by Brahms, the Piano Quartet no.3 in C minor, opus 60. I was clicking around on youtube and a passion was born! I still like this piece, but the main accent in the collection I've been collecting ever since has moved to the baroque era.






*Edit*

Convince is perhaps not the right word. You can also read this question as if you were asked what piece draw your attention towards classical music.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Russian Easter Overture by Rimsky-Korsakov


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

Probably Pachelbel's canon, the first piece of music I remember loving, when I was about 8. But then I lost interest in classical music for about a decade. The piece that brought me back was Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 1 in D minor. I've been an avid listener ever since, working forwards and backwards from Schoenberg.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

The overture to "La Gazza Ladra" by Rossini and the Carmen Suites by Bizet.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Convincing suggests severe doubt about something beforehand, but in many cases it could simply be bringing something to forefront of someone's attention which you hadn't thought about much before. It's hard to remember but the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik will have been one piece.


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## Bas (Jul 24, 2012)

starry said:


> Convincing suggests severe doubt about something beforehand, but in many cases it could simply be bringing something to forefront of someone's attention which you hadn't thought about much before. It's hard to remember but the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik will have been one piece.


You are absolutely right.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Saint-Saens: symphony no. 3, finale. Reworked by Australian composer Nigel Westlake for the movie "Babe." When I was a toddler I used to get two straight wooden things, usually pencils or chopsticks (whatever I could find, really) and position them as if I was playing the violin while humming the melody. I had a keen interest in the violin but that interest was forgotten and I still hadn't really formulated an opinion on which music I liked best until a few years later.....

My second experience in which I was "convinced" about classical music was when I stumbled upon the debut solo album of Kazakh/Australian classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan. The music of Albeniz and Vill-Lobos and even arrangements of Chick Corea which were on the album convinced me to learn classical guitar. I got around to learning that instrument when I was about 8 years old and I've never regretted it! I love playing the guitar and I love the repertoire. 

Around the same time (8 or 9 years old) I was pretty sure I liked classical music but I only really got into it from my school friends who introduced me to works like Bach's Double Violin Concerto, Beethoven's symphonies, arias from Mozart's operas, Mozart's 40th and 25th symphonies, Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz and I discovered for myself Mozart's Horn Concertos which quickly became favourite pieces of mine!

However much these actual pieces of music convinced me to get into this music, the biggest influence was probably the school textbooks on music I found on a few shelves at home amongst books on linguistics, astrology, gardening and whatnot...it encouraged me to really build up a knowledge of music! I knew about basso continuo before I had ever payed attention to Baroque music, I understood sonata form well enough by the time I was 11 to analyse the use of each subject in a Beethoven symphony, I could work out how to write transposing and concert pitch parts for instruments like the horn and the b flat clarinet and I knew what aleatoric music was before I had ever heard anything by John Cage! I would definitely say books and hunger for knowlegde had piqued my curiosity of classical music the most. Much more so than any actual piece of music!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Schubert's unfinished. Hearing that one day convinced me that I needed to explore this strange world of classical music. It became my first CD (in 1986, just when they started to become popular), and it remains an absolute favourite.


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

I got into classical music at the age of 14 by listening to an LP record of works by the Strauss family that my grandparents had. I liked it and it convinced me to buy my first CDs of classical music. The first was a "Best Of" collection by Bach. The other one was a double CD collection by Beethoven. The first contained several works, including Symphony No. 5 and the Moonlight Sonata and the second contained Symphony No. 9. I think that was sometime in 2004 or 2005. The rest is history.


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

Beethoven's piano concerto 1 via a YouTube video of a Krystian Zimerman performance.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Saint-Saens: symphony no. 3, finale. Reworked by Australian composer Nigel Westlake for the movie "Babe." When I was a toddler I used to get two straight wooden things, usually pencils or chopsticks (whatever I could find, really) and position them as if I was playing the violin while humming the melody.


Speaking of babes! That was recent movie, wasn't it? 

It was a film soundtrack for me too, 2001: a space odyssey with all those uncanny Ligeti pieces. Yet when I got into classical full tilt, it was mostly mainstream for a number of decades until recently.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I grew up with classical music routinely coming at me from the radio & tv, and in my beginner violin lessons. I wasn't 'grabbed' by it especially. It wasn't something that my family *did*.

But I do remember when I was 12 or 13 being set Handel's March from Scipio (Eta Cohen's violin tutor book 2) and it suddenly occurring to me, you know, this is really *nice*! An epiphany, when I look back.


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Saint-Saens: symphony no. 3, finale. Reworked by Australian composer Nigel Westlake for the movie "Babe." When I was a toddler I used to get two straight wooden things, usually pencils or chopsticks (whatever I could find, really) and position them as if I was playing the violin while humming the melody. I had a keen interest in the violin but that interest was forgotten and I still hadn't really formulated an opinion on which music I liked best until a few years later.


Awwww CoAG, that's adorable.


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

My love of music did come from one parent, my Dad, but not in the sense that that's all he played - he had music from all periods and genres. So I wasn't bought up on just one style per se. I used to go and visit Dad and was allowed to choose music to listen to, some of it ........ eeeeeekk, me no like; but others just clicked.

At TC we've been having this discussion about music being intellectual or emotional in its elicitation and when your a child listening to classical music and it touches something in you I can only describe it as emotional. I don't know how COAG found it having read of the intellectual bit first...... a comment or so would be great.

The piece itself was Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony at the age of 5, from there I continued to explore this type of music till Dad had nothing left for me to listen to and my search continued elsewhere. I love piano music above all else and this has been a constant for me, I dip in and out of other mediums for music, symphony, quartet, opera etc.

Oh there's so much more to tell but that's it for now, it's nice to read how others came to classical music.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I was introduced to Classical music at a very young age. In fact, it was quite nearly the only kind of music I was allowed to listen to as a child. Rock music was strictly forbidden! 
My earliest musical memory consists of sitting in front of a speaker, listening to Wagner's Tannhauser overture. I was five years old. I remember being completely mesmerized.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

I fell halfways asleep listening to Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony. Great experience.


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## Llyranor (Dec 20, 2010)

Barber's Adagio for Strings. I was actually introduced to it from a videogame, Homeworld (in which they played the choral arrangement, Agnus Dei).


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

The real breakthrough came with Stockhausen's _Opus 1970 "Stockhoven-Beethausen"_, which I first heard in about 1974. I had grown up! The kiddie stuff no longer did it for me


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## PianistFingers (Aug 5, 2013)

How amazing classical music made me feel when I was stressing during my final exams!


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Appalachian Spring firstly, and secondly the last movement of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, as well as Händel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Still, Appalachian Spring was my first love, even if followed up swiftly and successively by multiple different and better pieces.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Shostakovich's 13th symphony. (Story here.)


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## TitanisWalleri (Dec 30, 2012)

This video right here convinced me. I had been told by my high school band director to check out The Planets, and when I finally did, I was hooked. Holst will always hols a special place in my heart for intoducing me to classical music.


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

Mahler Symphony No. 2. 

Actually cheesy as it is, what made me start was watching Amadeus. After watching it I was intrigued: Was I missing the best music human kind has ever created by ignoring classical music?

Then I proceed to get some Mozart pieces and liked a lot. But when I watched a performance of Mahler's 2nd on YouTube I felt my life changing in the first 10 seconds of music.


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## Jaredpi (Jul 4, 2013)

Didn't really hear classical music as a kid (except for in the background before Christmas). There wasn't really one piece that I particularly cared about or wanted to know how to play. I started liking classical music when I was accidentally put into orchestra in seventh grade. I now love it and am glad for being put in orchestra .


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Jaredpi said:


> Didn't really hear classical music as a kid (except for in the background before Christmas). There wasn't really one piece that I particularly cared about or wanted to know how to play. I started liking classical music when I was accidentally put into orchestra in seventh grade. I now love it and am glad for being put in orchestra .


Accidentally put into an orchestra, you say? What a most intriguing display of luck :lol:


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Seeing this when I was a kid in the 80's probably helped plant a seed.






Symphony 25 was probably the first thing that instantly grabbed me while watching the movie for the first time. I still love that Symphony (in actuality I love ALL of Mozart's Symphonies) and my interest in his music has never waned.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Bix said:


> At TC we've been having this discussion about music being intellectual or emotional in its elicitation and when your a child listening to classical music and it touches something in you I can only describe it as emotional. I don't know how COAG found it having read of the intellectual bit first...... a comment or so would be great.


Music came to me early, not later, so I'm not able to tell of the experience as in the OP (Tremendous thread, by the way, love reading these.)

With no other music in my home, it was somehow noticed I was extremely taken with music, and so I was provided with a record player and several LPs when I was somewhere between the age of four to five years. (Thank you, family Prokofiev, Janacek, Rimsky-Korsakov, Landowska playing Bach on harpsichord are the ones I most recall.

My reaction, and I'm curious about others who found classical "later," was I suppose emotional, but what was most directly manifest was my being completely physical along with the music, dancing about to it, enlisting toys as sundry as a toy truck, a tin wind-up peacock which walked and spread its tail, wooden blocks, etc. as the confederates in the corp de ballet of those spontaneous productions.

Music is vibrations, and those touch us physically, all over, even through our clothing. The intellectual, no matter how prescient the listener, usually comes on the tail of having been completely bowled over, taken with, seized, by those vibrations and the sound they make.

The first reaction may then be called "emotional" but for me it was more like a full force blow to my entire body (and, I suppose, soul). In retrospect, it was my first conscious experience of sensuality. (And Ziggy I'm sure could say something about that, but we'll let that one lie.)

I think for many, even after the integration of the cerebral aspects of knowing about music, the sensate, sheer visceral experience is still part of what we seek and expect when listening, and it can be so strong as to be considered actually erotic. That sensual / erotic quality, coupled with the emotional and the cerebral, makes music one of the most powerful of the arts, i.e. it affects us on all these planes at once.

Later, age six, I was offered piano lessons, which also very much "took." A fine teacher and Bartok's Microkosmos made my ability to read notes in both clefs seem near innate, with rhythm needing only a little more work. Selections from the Schirmer edition Beginners Bach were another part of this.... I'm sure that is where all the cerebral aspects began, though the completely visceral sensation is what first pulled me in.


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## Karabiner (Apr 1, 2013)

Bach's 1st Harpsichord Concerto


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

It was this particular piece (and this particular video) that got me, a convinced metalhead at that time, to realize that classical music can be not only tame, bland and "relaxing", but also powerful, gripping and passionate. Since then I have learned to hear the passions in many pieces that I would have perceived as bland before (like Shubert's string quartets and piano trios), but this is still the very best music in existence for me.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. Wonderful piece that pulled me into classical music.


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

Karabiner said:


> Bach's 1st Harpsichord Concerto


That was one of my early favorites too. Don't know if it was THE ONE. Maybe Dvorak's 9th Symphony.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Dustin said:


> Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. Wonderful piece that pulled me into classical music.


I use that one as my wake up alarm!


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## AClockworkOrange (May 24, 2012)

For me, the explanation is in my username.

A Clockwork Orange was the text to be covered when I was studying literature at A-Level. After reading the book we compared it with the film. Long story short, Beethoven's 9th was an awakening and the various overtures just pulled me in deeper. This led me to buy this album:
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Kirsten Flagstad in Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, Toscanini conducting Rossini Overture and Bliss conducting Elgars Pomp and Circumstance all superb. Furtwangler's Beethoven 9th was the epiphany for me and blew the doors off of the hinges in a big way and I became a fan of both conductor and composer in that moment. To this day, it is my favourite Beethoven 9th - I have heard many versions - cleaner Furtwangler recordings, modern recordings and a period recording but none of them hold my interest like this one. One of the three greatest musical discovery I have ever made in my life (for what it is worth the two others are Queen and anything Ronnie James Dio lends his voice to).

So for my plunge in the world of Classical Music... I blame Anthony Burgess :lol:


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

I think the timeline went something like this:

1. The Four Seasons & Beethoven 5th when I was little: Classical music is pretty cool, but I kept listening to popular music mostly.
2. Mozart: 40th & Requiem when I was about 16: Even cooler! Kept listening to popular music mostly.
3. Ravel Piano Concerto in G + Gerswhin Rhapsody in blue & an american in paris: Awesomeee! I tried listening then to debussy, schoenberg, rites of spring, and some other stuff but it just didn't click, and kept listening to popular music.
4. Rite of Spring way later, some day, with a little help from my friends, more mature: It blew my socks off. And that changed everything. I still love non-classical music but currently I'm obsessed with exploring that previously unexplored world.


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## TrevBus (Jun 6, 2013)

Seeing Fantasia and hearing all the music it contained, got me more attunded to that world. To be more specific; Beethoven's Sym. #6. However, I do come from a musical family, so there is that.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

The 1st movement of Chopin's 1st piano concerto.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

An old cassette which contained Bach's Double Violin Concerto, Italian Concerto, Violin Concerto in A minor BWV 1041, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, and Brandenburg Concerto No.4. That happened when I was ten or so. I've been in classical music since then.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

When I was young, my mom took me to see the Nutcracker Ballet several times at Lincoln Center in New York. I liked it, but I never really listened to classical other than that work a few others I heard from my mom. I continued listening to popular music into my early 30s. When I started living with my wife, she was practicing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. I found it rather enjoyable. 

But probably the first time I was ever truly stunned by a musical work was when I heard Elmar Oliveira play the Tchaikovsky with my wife's symphony. From the first solo violin notes through the finale I was transfixed by unimaginably wonderful music. I never thought I could have a musical experience like that. Although it still took me a decade or so before I listened to classical music hours a day, I was hooked and never looked back.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I knew/liked a lot of classical music when I was little, but I didn't know any composers really, just a few big names. Beethoven, Rossini, Mozart, etc. but didn't mean much to me. Then in 6th grade, I heard Jupiter from the Planets by Holst, and I consider that the definitive moment when I realized I _really _liked this stuff, not just a little. The rest is history.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I always liked Bach´s Brandenburg Concertos, Vivaldi´s Four Seasons, Beethoven Sonatas and the later Mozart symphonies, even when I wasn´t really a classical music listener. But an album with the Surprise Symphony, the Emperor Quartet, the Trumpet Concerto by Haydn, as well as hearing the Farewell symphony on the radio made me a classical music ´fan´.


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## MiniJamesW (Jul 24, 2013)

As a little kid I listened to almost exclusively Classical music and soundtracks but I didn't really love it. A few pieces really "convinced" me. Through electronic music I got into Stockhausen but I didn't really love him as a "classical composer" more as an "electronic composer." So I really got into classical music through two pieces. When I read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I got interested in Leoš Janáček's Sinfonietta, and I loved that piece. Then I re-listened to George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue more attentively and I was hooked. I've been exploring more and more classical music ever since


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Moldau, Smetana (Age of 9)
Hungarian Dances, Brahms (Age of 13)
Symphonys No. 6 & 9, Beethoven (a few months later)


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

I kind of wish I had an earlier exposure to some of the great "big name masterpieces" mentioned in this thread, but none of my parents listened to classical music, and I was too young to find the proper resources to navigate my way through the different styles/genres/composers beginning from their greatest masterpieces. Some of the pieces that got me really into classical music were:

Mozart's Divertimento in D (It brought me an incredible amount of happiness every time I listened to it. For Little Feathers, it was the most wonderful and perfect thing in the world!)

Haydn's Symphony No. 82 "The Bear" (This was my introduction to symphonic music and Papa Haydn.)

Mendelssohn's Song without Words Op. 67 No. 2 (The beginning of my love for Mendelssohn that only grew stronger as time passed!)


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Around the same time (8 or 9 years old) I was pretty sure I liked classical music but I *only really got into it from my school friends who introduced me to works like Bach's Double Violin Concerto, Beethoven's symphonies, arias from Mozart's operas, Mozart's 40th and 25th symphonies, Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz and I discovered for myself Mozart's Horn Concertos which quickly became favourite pieces of mine*!


So lucky! My peers in school when I was that age (8 or 9) thought I was weird when I talked about classical music.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Feathers said:


> So lucky! My peers in school when I was that age (8 or 9) thought I was weird when I talked about classical music.


How singularly odd 

P.s. I looked for a font which conveys a sense of dripping irony, but could not find one.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

PetrB said:


> How singularly odd
> 
> P.s. I looked for a font which conveys a sense of dripping irony, but could not find one.


:lol: Maybe this face will do? ""


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Music is vibrations, and those touch us physically, all over, even through our clothing. The intellectual, no matter how prescient the listener, usually comes on the tail of having been completely bowled over, taken with, seized, by those vibrations and the sound they make.
> 
> The first reaction may then be called "emotional" but for me it was more like a full force blow to my entire body (and, I suppose, soul). In retrospect, it was my first conscious experience of sensuality. (And Ziggy I'm sure could say something about that, but we'll let that one lie.)
> 
> I think for many, even after the integration of the cerebral aspects of knowing about music, the sensate, sheer visceral experience is still part of what we seek and expect when listening, and it can be so strong as to be considered actually erotic. That sensual / erotic quality, coupled with the emotional and the cerebral, makes music one of the most powerful of the arts, i.e. it affects us on all these planes at once.


Well elucidated and all I can do is totally agree.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I was always encouraged to like classical as a child but what really did it for me was the first time I heard Grieg's piano concerto. I never went back. This was around twelve.


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## BlackDahlia (Aug 12, 2013)

Beethoven's Egmont overture. Played it in the 9th grade concert band in school.

My eyes (ears) weren't _fully_ opened to classical music until I sought out the real version of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition (after hearing Emerson, Lake, & Palmer's attempt at it), but Bee's overture to Egmont was the first time that I heard something I knew as classical, and said to myself, "Hey, this is pretty good."


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## Guest (Aug 13, 2013)

My parents nor my friends didn't listen to classical as a child. But I found a CD by myself age 7 of the Heroic symphony from Beethoven, and I was pretty much converted. Especially the Marcia Funebre, even as a child, this haunting movement is very strong and talked to me.


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

My Dad played classical music whenever he could & I grew-up with no choice but to listen to it! But I'm thankful that it was like that as listening to music has provided me with incalculable pleasure thoughout my life.
It didn't stop me from enjoying other forms of music....I was one of the first to join The Beatles Fan Club & I remember going to the local hall to hear my then fave group The Rolling Stones... but not be able to listen to a note of their music, due to the constant high-decibel screaming of the legion of fans.
For me Music is the greatest of the Arts.


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## pendereckiobsessed (Sep 21, 2012)

I originally was going to say that it was Bartók's 4th String Quartet, but the seed was planted by a vastly different composer.

Before I really was obsessed with Classical music, I was in Orchestra and loved it. I loved playing and the rush that it could have. The first piece which really made me get into Classical music and all the deep and rich emotions that it can produce was Shostakovich's Viola Sonata op.147. This piece really showed a richness and darkness of emotion which I had never experianced before. (Sadly, I could never pronouce his name right until 2 years ago when I was talking about Shostakovich and someone corrected me to how to say it correctly  ) 





From the get-go I was obsessed with modern music, which was even more furthered when I discovered one of Bartók's masterpieces, his fourth string quartet, which gave me a love of a composer which I have never lost, even though many obsessions have died (Like Penderecki, Shostakovich for a time, and others too).





[Not saying I only love Modern Music, but it was my first love ]


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I heard Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye (the whole ballet), in Jr High and was hooked. I tried "composing" little pieces that sounded like fragments of it. Soon thereafter, a music teacher saw those pieces and got me started with Piston's Harmony, Counterpoint and Orchestration. By the time I got out of High School, I was composing. I majored in Composition in college, but should've majored in Theory only (two separate degrees at my school.) I could've earned my living teaching music theory....


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## Harmonie (Mar 24, 2007)

I first really got into classical music 9 years ago. Back then I would go to my grandparents every summer, and I was on that visit. I don't really remember how exactly it happened - I must have had some pre-interest in classical music. Perhaps because I've always been a band nerd - but I had interest in one of my grandma's tape collections of classical music, and she let me listen to it. You could literally say this changed my entire life. I became attracted to one piece and particular, and that was this one (and this is the exact recording):






This movement of this piece simultaneously made me fall in love with classical music AND the bassoon. I know that sounds silly, as it's not even a soloistic piece for the bassoon, but those exposed bassoon parts in that movement made me fall in love with it. I had some predisposition to the instrument in the school year before, but when I heard it in this piece I knew I _had_ to play it.

Loving that particular recording made me start searching for it on CD so I could listen to it outside of the tape, I ended up with several Handel CD's, in which I began listening to the other parts of Water Music, and other Handel pieces. I then started branching out... I heard of Mozart's Bassoon Concerto and wanted to hear it, so I bought a CD, which also included the flute, oboe, and clarinet concerti. From there on, I had decided Classical was my favorite type of music (mainly because of the instruments used - instruments are HUGE factor in my enjoyment of music) and went on exploring.


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## billeames (Jan 17, 2014)

Beethoven 9th at age 27 (crazy), Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez Pepe Romero.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

david johnson said:


> Russian Easter Overture by Rimsky-Korsakov


Even though I grew up with classical, hearing Russian Easter Overture at age 8 convinced me that classical music was the most amazing supreme genre of music there was


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I've told the story a lot of times - my first "wow" work was Crumb's _Black Angels_ by Kronos Quartet.

My second was probably Mozart's Requiem - the Karajan '62 recording, not remastered.

Beethoven's 5th was the work that got me into careful listening, sort of began to teach me how to "listen" to music.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

The first piece that convinced me that classical music could possibly be alright: The Nutcracker

The first piece that convinced me that classical music was superior to anything I was listening to at the time: Brandenberg 3


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

violadude said:


> The first piece that convinced me that classical music could possibly be alright: The Nutcracker
> 
> The first piece that convinced me that classical music was superior to anything I was listening to at the time: Brandenberg 3


Curiously conservative for you. How old were you at the time?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> Curiously conservative for you. How old were you at the time?


I was 11.

The reason that the Nutcracker caused some interest was simply because I thought it was cool that each section of the ballet represented a different part of the story. I wasn't used to music doing that really, at least not consciously.

The reason Brandenburg made me think that Classical Music was way better than the pop music I was listening to was because I liked that it was just generally packed with more "stuff" than pop music. I realized that most pop music just kind of repeated the same tune a couple times and then it was over while the Brandenburg explored a lot more possibilities.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

September 1975, Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony during a commemorative radio show for the recently deceased composer. I had heard "Classical" music prior, but nothing had stuck or made me want to dig deeper!

/ptr


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

As a kid, Ravel's Bolero, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1 and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites.

Edit: Add Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Brittens's Young Persons' Guide to the Orchestra.


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## jimeonji (Apr 26, 2014)

the very first time, maybe about two years ago? was playing Beethoven's Pathetique sonata and then listening to his other famous sonatas, in addition to the famous concertos (Rach 2 & 3, Beethoven 5, Tchaikovsky 1) and Chopin. I then fell away from it, probably because I wasn't enjoying what I was playing anymore.

my interest was revived when I listened to Rach 2 again earlier this year (this time, I found Richter!) and I proceeded to relisten to what I loved before, and some more - Prokofiev, Brahms, Ravel. I learned that listening to classical was a step by step - the first time I got into classical I listened to Prokofiev's 6th piano sonata and I was scared away; but now I can appreciate it, having gone through the more accessible greats and moving from there. Clearly I still have a lot to listen to and get into and learn, but slowly I'm getting there. 

(is this my first post? hooray!)


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## Goobertastic (Jun 10, 2014)

I went through a phase were I couldn't stand music anymore ( a very sad time in my life) until I discovered my fathers recordings of Corelli and Sainte Colombe.


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