# My Breakthrough into Classical Music Appreciation



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Which was the gateway piece that finally got you hooked on classical music?

For me, it was Stockhausen's _Opus 1970_, which I first heard in 1974.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

When I was 6, I borrowed my father's Columbia LP record of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto with Oscar Levant, pianist. That's what got me hooked.
Who knew that I would take my listening over the years way beyond my father's rather conservative taste in music.
When I was a teenager, strange sounds began coming out of my bedroom: Bartok, Prokofiev, Stravinsky etc;
The one thing I regret is my dad never asked me about any of it.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I think my breakthrough piece was Brandenburg #3. I was first introduced to it through the local string symphony I was a part of at the time but we were playing an abridged version. So I thought it was just ok until I heard the real version and I was really impressed (I liked the part where it got really dark in the middle).


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Mozart's late symphonies.


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## stevederekson (Jan 5, 2014)

Mahler's Second.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not sure I had a breakthrough piece, but perhaps the first piece I absolutely loved was Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. I heard relatively little classical music when I was young and didn't really care much about it. The first piece I remember my wife practicing regularly was the Tchaikovsky. I thought it was beautiful beyond words and have ever since.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

As a child in a non-musical house I devoured Hooked on Classics. I can still remember the big beat on the Rhapsody in Blue opening, Tchaik Piano Concerto 1 opening and the opening of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Not stuff I would listen to now

Then at about 11 or 12, after a little break, there came another classical compilation and I played Fanfare for the Common Man and Montagues and Capulets over and over (quite a good compilation ay!). The rest is history

Edit - I think some credit should also go to my older sibling's ELO albums which I was also quite partial to along with the Barry Gibb penned Frankie Valli theme song to Grease. Big symphonic sounds? Check!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Fantasia soundtrack on LPs. I overplayed that thing so much it would barely sell for a penny on eBay in its current state.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Chopin's "Heroic" Polonaise. It just blew me away! For 3 or 4 months afterwards, I listened to strictly Chopin because I was convinced he was the only one worth listening to. Eventually, I snapped to the universe of other great composers


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Schubert's unfinished.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hard to say. I used to only be able to take a nap if my parents played the classical music tapes. But when I first got a cheap yamaha keyboard around age six, I started getting more into music. Tchaikovsky ballet music really hooked me around age 8 or 9. Similar dance like romantic era music caught my attention, but also baroque music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I wonder if my experience is unique. I grew up listening mostly to my parents' very few classical music records. Later I drifted into 1960s and 70s pop rock (which I still enjoy) but gravitated back to classical music, where I remain 90% or more of the time. My father enjoyed the classical period, my mother the late Romantics and Debussy. I still tend toward the former...


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

My grandma took me at the Opera when I was a child (maybe I was 6 or 7). 
It was Aida. I remember I found it VERY boring except for the triumphal march. At home then I pestered my parents to have that music, and they bought me a 45 rpm record (I remember I had to turn it, one side was noy enough) I used to play all the time with my family stereo.

Oh yes, then the story was very similar to that of hpowders: "When I was a teenager, strange sounds began coming out of my bedroom..."


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

I grew up in a household where only classical music was played, my father's fairly conservative taste. My mum is not very musical, as she'll cheerfully admit, though she's partial to Nana Mouskouri and the like. Dad also had an interesting collection of trad and modern Jazz which he never played, Time Out excepted, apparently because he was ashamed of his ignorance of classical music when he first discovered it.

As a result I can't clearly remember what classical works first interested me (by contrast I can remember the first pop song I ever noticed, at the home of a friend - Mungo Jerry's 'In the Summertime'.

It might have been Beethoven's Eroica symphony as that often got played, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Mahler's 4th symphony, Dvorak or Elgar's Cello Concertos, or Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Anyway I got heavily into Beethoven at about the age of 7, especially Beethoven's piano sonatas (shades of Schroeder here!) by Brendel on Turnabout Vox. Then of course I was taken to see G&S at the theatre. I can still hum the highlights from 'The Pirates of Penzance'!

Around the age of 10 I discovered pop music for myself (to my father's disappointment) and was shortly into prog rock, then punk, new wave, Kraut rock etc. I was, and many of my friends were, devotees of the seminal BBC 'John Peel show' throughout my teens.

I went back to classical music as a student around the time 'new wave' was becoming a spent force. I discovered chamber music through my local record library's well chosen collection (stand-out disc Hindemith SQ 4, Op. 22 / Honegger SQ 2) and then started to build my own (budget) LP collection from an inspiring Edinburgh bookshop: Beethoven at first, then Schubert, Haydn, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Poulenc, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Bartok, Britten... No-one I knew wanted to follow me there.

Then life, career, children have meant that there have been periods when I've had more and less time to listen. More recently my son has become very enthusiastic about contemporary and modern music of all sorts, which has been a challenge to my 'established' taste and a delight. My daughter and I share a love of rock music but I see that through her friends at art school in London she's going to some classical music concerts now.

Sorry, this turned into an essay and has gone off topic a bit too.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

There wasn't really one piece that did. Instead, I simply decided one day that I should give Classical Music a go, so I went through Spotify listening to the big hits, such as the famous bits from Beethoven's #5, Four Seasons, The Planets, Rhapsody in Blue and Peer Gynt, and I loved all of it! I remember the first classical CD I purchased was Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites, accompanied by his Piano Concerto. This was a real breakthrough moment. It was the Piano Concerto which inspired me to go beyond listening to just "the famous bits" and start listening to works in their entirety. 

I also remember the first Classical concert I went to. It was Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. I was so impressed that I came back the next day for another concert, which was Mozart's Requiem.

Ah yes... I do miss those days of discovering the great masterpieces for the first time.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I wonder if my experience is unique. I grew up listening mostly to my parents' very few classical music records. Later I drifted into 1960s and 70s pop rock (which I still enjoy) but gravitated back to classical music, where I remain 90% or more of the time. My father enjoyed the classical period, my mother the late Romantics and Debussy. I still tend toward the former...


Very similar here. Watching The Tree of Life actually rekindled my interest in Classical music. The following day I purchased all 4 of Brahms' symphonies and all 9 of Beethoven's. 150 gigabytes later, here I am.


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

Possibly Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite. It was featured more than any other work in the third year music lessons which were compulsory at my high school back in the mid-70s. Although classical music played no real part in my life for another 20-odd years when I made a conscious decision to start a collection I still recalled snippets of the Kodaly such as the Viennese Clocks and Hary Fights Napoleon with affection and so perhaps it was there that the long-dormant seeds were sown. The first classical albums I bought (admittedly mainly out of curiousity rather than genuine interest) were a couple of budget Wagner 'bleeding chunks' collection on CfP during the late 80s, so Ride of the Valkyries or the Flying Dutchman Overture can probably make just as substantial a claim, too.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Not really a piece of music per se, but rather "discovering" Swedish Radio Programme 2 in my early teens. Discovered lots of classical music during those years, the radio was on in my room all the time! 

/ptr


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## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

Stravinsky's _Rite of spring_ was my first love (and i still love it).


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## MrTortoise (Dec 25, 2008)

Mozart Piano Concerto 21 in C, K467. I heard this played over and over on a flight when I was younger. Maybe it was because I was so excited to fly on a plane for the first time, but it was like I was listening to music for the very first time.


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

Best regards, Dr


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

I was exposed to Mozart symphonies and Verdi operas, etc. from the beginning but the first classical LP I ever purchased (at my mother's suggestion since it was her favorite) was Beethoven's 7th Symphony conducted by Karajan on DG and that had me swooning for many weeks. I think that is what really got me started at about age 11.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2014)

K364

After seeing the movie "Amadeus" I purchased one of those hodgepodge "best of" CDs designed for people who don't know crap about classical music:

View attachment 32925


It contained the first movement of the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola. I had to have the whole thing. So I purchased the recording by Iona Brown. After that it was Mozart Mozart Mozart. I was 20 and it was 1987. The CD player was an amazing invention. Everything sounded so clear! No skips, pops, scratches or hiss. I don't get why these young people would want to go back to vinyl, but that's another thread...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Again, no clear starter piece. Anyone who like me grew up in 1950s BBC-land couldn't help but be regaled daily with classical music excerpts of the lighter kind. And my parents had a few 78s too. This experience was added to when I learned the violin.

But a piece that kindled my imagination from the age of four or five was Manuel de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance -






and this version ^^ still does...


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Vivaldi's Four Season got me into it. My guitar teacher wanted me to get into other genres of music. He gave me a list of cd's to buy. Mostly Jazz and Classical. And the Vivaldi one was instantly accessible for me.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

There have been other threads like this, but the responses are interesting in this one. It's nice to share experiences.



brotagonist said:


> Which was the gateway piece that finally got you hooked on classical music?


"Finally" may not apply to me. I started out firmly in the classical camp. As young children we soak up everything, but my musical journey began in earnest with *Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra* and *Ligeti's Requiem*. I needn't explain why those two works in particular sparked my imagination or where I was exposed to them. A very short time afterward Wendy Carlos got me into baroque in a big way, so at the age of 12 I was already at home with music spanning two centuries.



KenOC said:


> I wonder if my experience is unique. I grew up listening mostly to my parents' very few classical music records. Later I drifted into 1960s and 70s pop rock (which I still enjoy) but gravitated back to classical music, where I remain 90% or more of the time. My father enjoyed the classical period, my mother the late Romantics and Debussy. I still tend toward the former...


Not entirely unique. I loathed pop/rock for most of my teenaged years -- and was a bit of an outcast because of it. I was probably a royal snob about it too, which didn't help matters. Then one magical day I was introduced to a couple of the giants of progressive rock during a friendly chess game. A whole new world opened for me. Now I love both the so called classical and non-classical realms (as long as it's not too trite or fabricated / shallow), and I make little distinction between the two other than one is a lot louder.



MrTortoise said:


> Mozart Piano Concerto 21 in C, K467. I heard this played over and over on a flight when I was younger. Maybe it was because I was so excited to fly on a plane for the first time, but it was like I was listening to music for the very first time.


Welcome back, MrTortoise. It is good to see your avatar again.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Fantasia soundtrack on LPs. I overplayed that thing so much it would barely sell for a penny on eBay in its current state.


Whew! I was about to offer you a nickel for it. Glad I held back!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

My start was when I was 10 years old - the symphonies of Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

There were a few pieces which I've always liked - Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Mozart's late symphonies and overtures - but, strangely, what really got me into classical was downloading a few random pieces by Haydn, Symphony No. 8 'Le Soir', the Menuet and the 1st movement of the Fifths Quartet, which instantly interested me because of its blend of baroque and classical sounds. I then heard a 'Best Of' Haydn CD, with String Quartet Op. 76 No. 3, 'Emperor', the trumpet concerto and the 'Surprise' symphony. I liked the Surprise Symphony a lot and then I found out there were 11 other London symphonies, I listened through them and loved them as well. I then started branching out more, listened to all of Beethoven's symphonies, thought they were great as well and it went from there.


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## MrTortoise (Dec 25, 2008)

Weston said:


> Welcome back, MrTortoise. It is good to see your avatar again.


Hi Weston, great to be back and so nice to see you as well! Hopefully my schedule has freed up a bit so I can hang out here more often.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> ...what really got me into classical was *downloading* a few random pieces by Haydn


That's going to date you (as in 'Grandad, what was "*downloading?"*')!


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

TurnaboutVox said:


> That's going to date you (as in 'Grandad, what was "*downloading?"*')!


Hehe, what do you mean - my age?


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

when I first heard this


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique

I had been introduced to it by my music teacher at school who had told us the story of the composition and I had been mildly interested in the music but we had no classical music at home (and the radio seemed stuck on BBC Family Forces Favourites - those of a certain age from the UK will not need this explaining, the rest of you don't need to know - its not that important). Then, about ten years later, I saw a copy of an LP (not an album, an LP ) at a flea market and bought it ... and that started me on a journey that soon after led to Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (courtesy of a TV advert) and a conversation with a pair of brothers in Blackpool who played me dozens of pieces of music that had been used in adverts from their very extensive collection of LPs ..... and that was that!

Thanks to Mr Crosssey


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

The Jupiter Symphony, Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music, and Appalachian Spring.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Appalachian Spring is a terrific piece to introduce someone to classical music. They don't respond to it, they are hopeless!


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## stevederekson (Jan 5, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Appalachian Spring is a terrific piece to introduce someone to classical music. They don't respond to it, they are hopeless!


Imagine hearing Jupiter's second movement for the first time. How could one not become a life-long fan?


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

Mozart's 23rd Piano Concerto was one of the first pieces I really loved.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The 23rd is my favorite Mozart piano concerto. I first heard it in a Rubinstein performance, still one of the best performances!


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

hpowders said:


> The 23rd is my favorite Mozart piano concerto. I first heard it in a Rubinstein performance, still one of the best performances!


Yes, after having heard it so many times, it is still incredible. The first recording I heard was Uchida, wich is one of my favourite interpretations.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I sold my collection of pop music records at about the age of 15. I decided to invest in classical which I had heard very little. One thing I had heard and which an old guy had played to be once was Handel's water music. So I bought an ace of clubs LP conducted by Boyd Neil. I also bought Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto played by Julius Katchen. This also had on it Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia, something which I have loved since. A little later I bought a 10 shilling record of Beethoven's Pastoral symphony.
That started me on a lifetime of loving classical music and of collecting recordings.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I sold my collection of pop music records at about the age of 15. I decided to invest in classical which I had heard very little. One thing I had heard and which an old guy had played to be once was Handel's water music. So I bought an ace of clubs LP conducted by Boyd Neil. I also bought Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto played by Julius Katchen. This also had on it Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia, something which I have loved since. A little later I bought a 10 shilling record of Beethoven's Pastoral symphony.
> That started me on a lifetime of loving classical music and of collecting recordings.


You picked good choices.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

The first piece I was attracted to was *Debussy's* _Reverie_, piano. For the next year after hearing it, however, I never fully delved into classical music -- i.e. other composers, eras, theory, etc. Instead, I focused on getting random classical albums through the years -- mainly *Debussy* and other Romantic piano collections -- though never got truly obsessed, or _hooked_, if you will. I wanted to enjoy the form, since I was always had a predilection for instrumental music, but never found _It_, that _personal_ connection.

Then, by chance, and I can't even remember where or why I bought it exactly, I got *Brahms* symphony box set. I do remember listening through, not particularly interested or mesmerized until...

Disc 3, or something, with the _Third Symphony_ played. The sounds, power, passion immediately enveloped and dominated my conscious for the next month. In fact, it still does, only in a different capacity.


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## revdrdave (Jan 8, 2014)

Brahms' First Symphony. The first time I heard the cellos sing the big tune in the last movement, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard...and I was hooked.


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## stevederekson (Jan 5, 2014)

revdrdave said:


> Brahms' First Symphony. The first time I heard the cellos sing the big tune in the last movement, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard...and I was hooked.


I second Brahms 1. Favourite Brahms work overall.


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## Donata (Dec 28, 2013)

Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky when I was six, after seeing the 1985 theatrical run of _Fantasia_, it was my favorite scene from the movie, has been ever since. Then Chopin's Nocturne in E flat major when I was sixteen.


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