# First Love



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Building upon my other thread: _Bearing Witness to Our Love_ I thought I would start a thread in which we might share the experience of our first classical music crush... the first piece or pieces of music that drew us down the path toward true love of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Schubert's Unfinished. Still one of my favourite pieces.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Appalachian Spring.. (Then Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony -- I lost track after those.)


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Below the age of ten: the Ritual Firedance; Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy; 1812 Overture.

Teens: Handel's March from Scipio; the Ride of the Valkyries; In the hall of the Mountain King; Bach, Gavotte in D Major; Purcell's Rondeau

Adulthood: Air on a G string; The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba - & also *in Galway* (da Dana)!

Third (& Best) Age: Lully, suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme; Rameau, Les Indes Galantes; Mahler's 2nd 'Resurrection' Symphony; Granville Bantock, Pibroch for Cello & Harp.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Though the movie _2001: a space odyssey_ initiated my awareness that classical music could be cool, Dvorak's 9th (called the 5th back then) was my first love.

We've since broken up though . . .


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Chopin's nocturnes. Bought at a record store at a time in my life that I was very (very) into very (very) abrasive music.

I listened to them every night for years. Interestingly, it did not prompt me to search out for more classical, which happened significantly later.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

As a child: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Handel's Royal Fireworks Music and Water Music, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
As an adolescent: Beethoven's Ninth, Bach's Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D
As an adult: Mahler's Sixth, Brahms's Fourth


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> As a child: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Handel's Royal Fireworks Music and Water Music, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring


Rite of Spring as a child? The full piece or the part played in Fantasia? What must you parents have thought :lol:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Cheyenne said:


> Rite of Spring as a child? The full piece or the part played in Fantasia? What must you parents have thought :lol:


Fantasia soundtrack, on constant repeat. Those records are completely unplayable now, scratched and warped by overuse.  It has the majority of the piece, and although I have trouble listening to that mangled version nowadays, I still have a place for the movie, despite its flaws.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

She was fifteen and I was six years old, and she used babysit every Friday night. I couldn't breathe in her presence. She chewed gum and blew bubbles that were angels wings to my wide eyes...oh wait, musically?

#21! 

Donks ago, so long now I think it was before the babysitter first caused a calf to blush...


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I liked what I heard of Tchaikovsky since I was little, but it was mostly samples. It wasn't until I listened to the complete _Swan Lake_ that I realized how amazing of a composer he really was.


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## PrimoUomo (Jul 7, 2013)

Handel's Water Music, at the age of 3.
It was this piece of music that later got me to love classical music.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

It wasn't the work that got me 'into' classical music (no idea what that would be), but Dvorak's 9th was the first wowsah. Heard once per year or so, I still love it.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

John Dowland played by Julian Bream.


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## chrisco97 (May 22, 2013)

I had always liked pieces like _Fur Elise_ and _Ode to Joy_ from Beethoven's Ninth, but the piece that got me to want to explore the world of classical music was *Bach's* _Brandenburg Concerto No. 3_. Every since the first time I heard it all the way through I have loved classical music with a passion.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not sure about my first crush because that was probably too long ago, but I remember my first true love. I had not cared much about classical music throughout my youth, and I was rather unfamiliar with most of the music. I just moved in with my future wife, and she was working on Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. I heard it practice it over and over, and in the beginning I just thought it sounded different from what I generally listened to (popular music). There were parts (mostly double stops) that sounded really strange, and I wondered why Tchaikovsky put them in the concerto. 

After awhile I became very familiar with the work (at least the violin part). I came to love the melodic lines - so much more beautiful than anything I had heard in pop music. The runs were spectacular, and my pulse quickened a bit as I anticipated them. We had (and still have) a recording by Heifetz where he plays the work absurdly fast - almost inhumanly so. It was magical. The cadenza in the first movement was a wonderful mixture of technical brilliance and gripping melody. And then something amazing happens. As the cadenza comes to a close, one hears the violin trills, and the orchestra comes in with the most unimaginably beautiful sounds. That period immediately after the cadenza was the most gorgeous music I had ever heard. I almost couldn't wait for the cadenza to end (even though I loved the cadenza).

A few years later I heard Elmar Oliveira play the concerto with the orchestra my wife played in. From the first solo violin notes through to the triumphant ending time froze, and I was completely enthralled. I was truly and completely in love.


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## Muddy (Feb 5, 2012)

The Time Life "Great Men of Music" series first introduced me to Tchaikovsky. His 6th Symphony. His piano concerto and his violin concerto. And that was it. Mozart and Beethoven soon followed.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

when I was a kid, my mum's vinyl music collection consisted solely of classical music. I learned pretty quickly how to work the turntable and would listen to The Nutcracker on repeat. The other things she thought I would enjoy were The Four Seasons (they grew on me fairly quickly) and Mozart's sonatas (those had to wait until my early teens, after Beethoven). Back to The Nutcracker, I remember thinking it was the loveliest thing in the world.


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

It was definitely 'Dame, de qui toute ma joie' by Guillaume de Machaut. I realize that beauty is subjective, because some people think it's cluttered and weird, but I feel tears of joy welling up when I listen to it and feel that there are good things to be discovered in life and classical music of course


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## WavesOfParadox (Aug 5, 2012)

The Rite of Spring started everything for me. I owe Stravinsky so much.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Undoubtedly, my first real experiences of classical music were from TV and film: _The Little Rascals, Bugs Bunny, Fantasia,_ etc... After that I was exposed to organ music and choral music through church. My mother sang soprano in the choir of the Lutheran Church and so I was exposed to a good deal of Bach and Handel. I may credit this experience with making it easy for me to appreciate classical vocal music... even opera.

My first real classical love, however, had to be Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. I ordered box sets of music by each from some publishers clearinghouse. I immediately fell for Bach's Brandenburgs and the Violin Concertos, Handel's Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music, and the Organ Concertos, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Mandolin Concertos.

From here I read up as much as I could about classical music and the composers, and I borrowed videos from the library. I especially remember Leonard Bernstein discussing Tchaikovsky and Beethoven's 9th.

I didn't get into opera until college. My first real experience of an opera (outside of Alfalfa singing Rossini's Barber of Seville on the Little Rascals) was Zeffirelli's gorgeous film version of La Traviata with Teresa Stratas and Placido Domingo. I first saw it on cable TV... and watched it repeatedly. I then took Wagner's Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde... both by Karajan... out of the local library and I played these through again and again. I was not wholly seduced, however, until I was given a free ticket to a live performance of Aida. I walked away from that performance a changed being.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

My first two classical records were the Tchaikovsky first planet concerto with Julius Katchen and Handles water music conducted by Boyd Neel. These set me off collecting classical records.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

"First Love"

This better be left unanswered.

Or else I may upset _somebody_ terribly... 

:tiphat:


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## TrevBus (Jun 6, 2013)

In my youth(we are talking below 10)all the music from 'Fantasia'. Late teens, Beethoven's 5th. Older to now-Sibelius's #2 to classical music of all kinds.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I can't remember mine. But I remember what pulled me back in.

After a 15-year stint where I listened to hardly any music at all, one night I was working late and had the radio on. As an encore piece, some pianist played Satie's_ Gnoissienne No. 5._ That got me curious about Satie. Somehow Satie got me curious about Beethoven. Beethoven got me curious about Obrecht (through one of the late string quartets). Then I ended up spiralling back in to classical music. My house has been noisy ever since.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I bought Karajan's recordings of the Rossini overtures,
Beethoven overtures and Beethoven symphonies.
That was the start.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

I first fell in love with classical music as a child through pieces like Mozart's K 136 and some of Haydn's Paris Symphonies. It was a pretty random place to start in classical music, but I just listened to whatever I bumped into and liked it. I think my actual "First Love"s were Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20. They completely blew me away and I became obsessed with them. Although my interest in classical music had begun a long time before, those two pieces triggered my passion.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

For Mozart, it was hearing his 27th piano concerto performed by a young Romanian pianist(who sadly passed away recently). Anyways, I felt haunted by the music and had trouble sleeping because the music wouldn't leave my head. Nobody else 'got it' which made it worse, they just say things like 'well, wasn't that lovely?'

For Beethoven, it must've been one of his sonatas. I remember hearing the Waldstein performed at my local library, along with the Kreutzer sonata, and for free. What an amazing experience. 

And Bach, it was the badinerie from his 2nd orchestal suite that inspired me to explore his other works.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Building upon my other thread: _Bearing Witness to Our Love_ I thought I would start a thread in which we might share the experience of our first classical music crush... the first piece or pieces of music that drew us down the path toward true love of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc...


Your key words there are "the first piece or pieces". I would have to say Beethoven piano sonatas followed by his symphonies.


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

From about 4 years, I remember listening with my Dad to Bach's Violin Concertos and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake on 78's but the piece of music that I remember loving passionately was this.....from 'Don Giovanni.....(about 3 mins 50 seconds into this video)


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## Guest (Aug 18, 2013)

K299 performed by Rampal, English Chamber Orchestra

K364 performed by Iona Brown, Academy of Saint Martin in the Field 

K361 performed by Charles Mackerras, Orchestra of Saint Lukes

It was around 1986


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Beethoven's Fur Elise... I was in Grade 2 and started piano lessons shortly after hearing it.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Chopin was my first <3. More specifically, his Waltz in A flat, which my piano teacher played for me one day.






She also played his "Butterfly" Etude (the op. number isn't coming to me...I think it's op.10/3?)

And I found a CD in my house that had someone playing his Etude Op.25 no. 12

And I watched The Pianist and fell in love with the first Ballade.

*Sigh* the memories we shared (lol)


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm not sure of the exact sequence, but these were my first favorites. I was college aged at the time (didn't like Classical before that).

-Brandenburg Concerto #2
-Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini 
-Rach 2 Piano Concerto
-Rhapsody in Blue


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## Guest (Aug 18, 2013)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> My first real [...] love, however, had to be Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi.


You played the field then...not all at once, I hope!


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## Schumann (Aug 12, 2013)

The first ever love for a classical piece was the Orchestral Suite #3 In D, BWV 1068 - 2. Air, "On The G String" by Johann Sebastian Bach!


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> You played the field then...not all at once, I hope!


who knew Wigs were so kinky!


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I walked away from that performance a changed being.


what did you change into?


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## LindnerianSea (Jun 5, 2013)

Although a great admirer of any work by the composer, it was Mahler's 2nd 'Resurrection' that made me go absolutely bonkers. It had everything in it (wait, what was it that Mahler said about his symphonies ?).


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

When I was a child, we had a 78 of Heifitz (I think) playing Dvorak's Humoresque. It was my first "like", not my first "love". The oddest thing is that, just like the smell of a certain kind of paint takes my mind back to my third grade school's corridors, this piece of music takes me back to a room. But, it's a room I do not recognize. It was in the house where I grew up, but it seems to be a room that, at the time, was a garage. And, I know that's not possible.

A local AM radio station played classical music at times, and to advertise the classical programs, they would air commercials during the day. The two pieces they would play were 1) the main theme from the opening movement of Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony and 2) the finale theme from Brahms's First Symphony. (I did not know what they were at time time - I only recognized them much later in retrospect.) These were also "likes" for me. They both take me back to a particular road on which my family often traveled in those days - a road where I always seemed to hear those commercials on the car radio.

I got interested in the French Horn in high school and bought my first classical LP - Mozart's Horn Concertos - Jones/Ormandy. It was a "like", not a love.

That leaves pride of place to the next LP I bought about three years later - Rossini Overtures - Giulini. The "William Tell" I knew, of course, from growing up with "The Lone Ranger", but it was exciting to hear it in all its orchestral color. But, it was "La Gazza Ladra" that really turned me on. What a fun piece that was to imagine conducting! So simple seeming, now, of course, with the predictable accelerandos and crescendos. But, I loved it and reveled in that budget-priced record for a long time. I miss the days when I had just a few records and played each one so many times that I got to know it well. 

So, much as I'd like to say it was one of my next few loves - like Brahms' Second & Fourth, or Schumann's Manfred Overture - I have to be honest - it was old Gioachino.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I am still deep in my first crush, so pardon me if I sometimes get too passionate in my defence of a certain 200 years old Saxon gentleman who seems to draw a lot of attacks (and therefore could be in need of a loyal shieldmaiden).

And before that was Handel with his Messiah and Music for the Royal Fireworks. But that, as the previous poster put it, was a "like", not a "love".


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

The question was regarding what FIRST drew you to classical music,not at five,ten,fifteen etc.
I jotted down a few notes and noticed that my list was longer than most,but suddenly realised that most people were talking about LPs while I started on 78s.I can remember most of them very well and think that shellac was perfect,one piece of music on each side great as samplers.
By the way we have done this before.
Song of the Toreador "Carmen" and Even Bravest Heart, Valentine's Aria. "Faust" Redvers Llewellyn,Bari. (in English).
Chopin. Polonaise in A Major. 
Polichinelle. Rachmaninoff. Leff Pouishnoff- piano.
Finlandia. Sibelius.
Waltz Of the Flowers. "Casse Noisette" The Eight Piano Symphony.
"Les Sylphides " Cpte. cond. Dr. Malcolm Sargent.
"The Blue Danube"" waltz.
I was about six years old at the time.


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## Borodin (Apr 8, 2013)

Nothing really drew me into classical music. I just started listening to it out of the blue.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

My first love?

OK. But after a first love I can tell about a true love; the everlasting one.

The first love was Beethoven:

In my teens it was all about Beethoven surrounded by all that thing about the 'hero artist' and all the emotional drive that comes with his music and the 'legends' around him. The piece that hooked me was the Emperor. Teen phase ended with Beethoven included as many first loves tend to end in that phase of life.

Then in my youth years I had a long Bach phase that started with the Brandenburg Concerts, specially the fifth and sixth. During all this time I was not aware about Mozart. Also I saw Milos Forman's Amadeus and, strangely, it did not caught my attention. I found it really silly. Maybe the side effects of the Bach phase. 

So, not being aware of Mozart's greatness, one day, in the middle of that intense Bach phase I bought a box set about Mozart's 'String and Wind Divertimentos' because I found curious the front cover. It was from the first 'Phillips Mozart Complete Edition'. 

Bach phase came to its total end that very night when I played the first piece of that box set, disc one, track one: Allegro from the Divertimento in E flat, KV 113. 

I got enraptured by that piece. I just could not believe that that kind of music could really exist. Since then Mozart become my true love and I started to dedicate most of my time to his oeuvre planning to have all of it.

Being touch so deeply and definitely for the very first time by music -Mozart's music- I started to hate that movie, thinking that Mozart couldn't be like that. But after many, many years of a continuous listening of his big and small oeuvres I think that Forman's Mozart could have been for real and I love the idea. I can't imagine him being serious and dramatic about things trying to be 'the hero'.

That box set, with which I discovered what I consider perfection in music, is my favourite one because it was the place where I met Mozart and also because its the place where one can understand Mozart's musical language and its evolution. From there is where I could really understood Mozart's musical 'ethos' at full.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

Beethoven's piano sonata no. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 27 #2. I remember quite vividly the first time I heard the third movement. Wilhelm Kempff playing. It was _unbelievable._


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## belladiva (Aug 18, 2013)

at age 4 I heard prokoviev`s love of 3 oranges, then a year later rise stevens as carmen. studied voice for years because my mother exposed me to this wonderful world of classical music!!


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

First Phase:
*Bach*'s harpsichord works,
*J.Strauss* Fledermaus overture
*Mozart*'s Violin Concertos No.1-3
----
Second Phase:
*Vivaldi* and *Handel*'s wind concertos
*Dvorak*'s Symphony No.7
*Korsakov*'s Naxos best of CD


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

First childhood crush - Mozart's 25th symphony, first movement
First teenage love - Beethoven's 5th PC, adagio

I've moved on and have had many other great love affairs, since. But, I always look back on these two with deep fondness.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Pieces

First Crush - Mozart Piano sonata No. 16
Now - Schumann Piano concerto

Composers

First Crush - Chopin
Now - Schumann


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

The first piece that I can say that I truly fell in love with was, Chopin Berceuse Op. 57 in D flat Major. I still feel the same way about it. :}


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Sibelius-Karelia Suite, my father had it on 78's when I was very little and he remains my favourite composer to this day.


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Believe it, but there was a time that I considered Beethoven's 7th symphony as the greatest music mankind have ever produced and the Moonlight Sonata as the greatest piece of music of all time! I remember I was glued at my phone, endlessly repeating the music without headphones. My enthusiasm with LVB eventually waned but they were good memories nonetheless!


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## Guest (Aug 20, 2013)

I wasn't remotely interested in classical music until I took a music appreciation class at the age of 19. Now, I didn't really explore stuff until I was 21, but my first loves were probably Beethoven 5, Chopin Nocturne No. 1, and Smetana's Vltava.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Early school years these pieces stand out:
Vivaldi The Four Seasons
Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Beethoven Symphony #6 'Pastoral'
Liszt Les Preludes
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1
Stravinsky Rite of Spring
Bruckner Symphony #6
Mahler Symphony #1

In my teens, these stand out as big gateway works:
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
Shostakovich Symphony #10
R. Strauss Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings
Britten Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Holst The Planets

Early into adulthood, these got me going in direction of Modern music more:
Berg Wozzeck
Vaughan Williams Symphony #8
Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time
Janacek String Quartets 1 & 2
Walton Henry V

After an almost 10 year break from classical, once I got onto this forum in 2009, there's many "first loves" in terms of pieces opening up more new experiences (and revisits of things not heard in recent/living memory). This process is still continuing today. I find I am increasingly going back to the types of things I started with, and approaching them with the benefit of experience and hindsight - but also filling many essential gaps! Some like this have been Bruckner, Mahler, Haydn, Holst, Mozart, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, etc.

I'm sure I've left out a lot but its as good thumbnail sketch as any of my classical music journey to date...


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

one additional point that I personally would like to add-my liking for classical music, particularly Sibelius was perhaps instigated by hearing Karelia Suite and other 'shorter' pieces as a child and this was the essence of my original post but even though I may spend a lot of time listening to 'classical music' my enthusiasm is and always has been with 'music' in the broadest sense;-I have very little time for those who seem to claim that one form of music may be of greater value than another-there is actually one thread at the moment that I had a look at last night regarding what is and is not 'music' and I did not know whether to laugh or cry.So Sibelius goes beside the following as the origin and further development of my 'love' of music;-

Rod Stewart-Never a Dull Moment-the first vinyl album I bought and still really worth listening to.
The Clash-anything!-still remind me of that youthful and naive belief that music might just change the world
Van Morrison-Its too late to stop now- the live album from the period when the man was undeniably great-I still regularly listen to it.
Ry Cooder-Newcastle City Hall 1979-encore of Sam Cooke's Chain Gang-proof that music can make you cry.
Yes/King Crimson/PFM-indiscretions of a 14 year old! 
Bobo Stenson/Marcin Wasilewski/Tomasz Stanko-last 10 years and music still to be discovered.

I know someone will be reading this and thinking 'what the hells he going on about?-but then again all I am trying to say I suppose is that music can form an integral and significant part of an individuals biography-it is only recently that I have discovered Martinu for example-and this is also a response to the almost dehumanising debate I encountered on one of the other threads-why can't we just enjoy our enthusiasms and by all means discuss them but..........


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

jim prideaux said:


> all I am trying to say I suppose is that music can form an integral and significant part of an individuals biography-it is only recently that I have discovered Martinu for example-and this is also a response to the almost dehumanising debate I encountered on one of the other threads-why can't we just enjoy our enthusiasms and by all means discuss them but..........


Hear, hear!


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

Just out of curiousity - nobody mentioned Disney's Fantasia? It's a great start for appreciation in childhood. My own kids love Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto because of this (second DVD release).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

IBMchicago said:


> Just out of curiousity - nobody mentioned Disney's Fantasia? It's a great start for appreciation in childhood. My own kids love Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto because of this (second DVD release).


I did. The LP set was a good part of my musical childhood.


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## HeartofGold (Aug 23, 2013)

One of the first pieces I really loved, especially to play, would have to be Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings/String Orchestra.
I also love Vivaldi's Four Seasons (Winter being my favourite out of them) and Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Romance.
At the start of this year I learnt Bach's Cello suite no.1 in G major, It's my favourite solo piece.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

First crush: hmmm...

Beethoven Violin Concerto on a DG vinyl record with Christian Ferras I believe was the first piece that I got bowled over with.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

One of the pieces that started my love of classical music is the one I chose for my username, Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

MoonlightSonata said:


> One of the pieces that started my love of classical music is the one I chose for my username, Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata.


Indeed that's awesome... any particular performance of it?


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

albertfallickwang said:


> Indeed that's awesome... any particular performance of it?


The first performance of it that I heard was my own.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Horn Concertos.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

It's funny the strong impression of the first piece you love as a kid and how it affects your life. I love Beethoven a lot ever since that record and it has moved me in ways that I did not anticipate.


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## Dave Whitmore (Oct 3, 2014)

The first piece of classical music I really liked was the 2nd movement of Dvorak's 9th Symphony. But I didn't know what it was at the time. It was used for a bread commercial in England through the 80's. I had no idea it was classical. I thought it was one of the most beautiful pieces of music I'd ever heard. It was only when I got into classical at the beginning of 2014 and spent a night exploring Dvorak's music that I finally found out where that music came from. I nearly jumped out of my chair when that 2nd movement began!


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)




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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

As a child: Peter and the wolf
As a teenager: Debussy's L'isle joyeuse, Bach's Double Violin Concerto (mostly for the faster outer movements. Wasn't much into slow music back then)


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Oscar Levant, piano on LP.

Lalo Symphonie Espagnole Jascha Heifetz violin on LP.

Franck Symphony in D minor, San Francisco Symphony, Pierre Monteux on LP.

These were all my father's LPs. I must have been 5 or 6 years young. I saw them and was naturally curious, so I played them and never turned back.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

Puppy Love: (those pieces that are heard and enjoyed before puberty) - Schubert Unfinished - Beethoven 8+9 - Dvorak New World Symphony

Teenage Love: (That all consuming infatuation when you can't live without a piece of music and want all your friends to know how good it is too) -- Rachmaninov Piano Concerto's 2+3, Holst - The Planets

Adult Love: (That moment when you're all grown up but still discovering things and settling down with for life partners.) Mahler 2, RVW - the Sea Symphony - Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Copland: Appalachian Spring (Suite)/Billy the Kid (Suite)/Rodeo (Suite)

Ravel: Bolero/La Valse/Ma Mere l'Oye


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

Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite - at the age of 13 it was the first classical work that was discussed in any kind of depth during our one music lesson a week at High School. It took me a long time to get into classical - it was only after a 20+ year rite of passage with rock music that I began to dig in - but I never really forgot Hary Janos even though it remained encased within a subconscious permafrost for so long.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Ligeti Lux Æterna
Kagel Ludwig van
Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire
Xenakis Orient Occident
Stockhausen Kreuzspiel
Varèse Amériques
Webern Symphonie

I could list dozens of others. This was the start and it all happened at once... a musical BIG BANG


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Another first love were the complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas played by Brendel... Voxbox version since they were book club cassettes.


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## Revel (Feb 25, 2015)

I attempted a thread similar to this several days ago, and it promptly sunk to the bottom. Many songs here I haven't heard. Giving these a listen should keep me busy. Thanks to everyone for being so eager to share. :tiphat:


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