# What's the piece that introduced you into classical music?



## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

What is the piece that introduced you to classical music? For me it was Beethoven's 6th symphony. I used to watch it in fantasia all the time as a kid and that brought me to the classical world.
What's yours?


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Russian Easter Overture by RK was the composition to which I first paid attention. Soon afterwards it was Rite of Spring, Scheherazade, and Mendelssohn 4


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

BenG said:


> What is the piece that introduced you to classical music? For me it was Beethoven's 6th symphony. I used to watch it in fantasia all the time as a kid and that brought me to the classical world.
> What's yours?


Beethoven's 5th symphony. It made me cry.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Mussorgsky/Ravel/ELP - Pictures at an Exhibition.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Youthful school trip to the ballet to see The Nutcracker might have been the 'awakening' because I could see the orchestra. However I have no doubt I heard other pieces before this which softened me up. Like Britten's _Playful Pizzicato_ and _The Sorcerer's Apprentice._ 
I heard a lot of organ music as a young child, but never associated it with 'classical'.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Pachelbel's Canon in D. Mozart's Eine Kliene Nachtmusik


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)




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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

The Gateway for me was Beethoven Ninth, a pile of 78s by by Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony owned by a friend’s parents. That led to explore the three Classical Albums that my Parents had, budget Chopin, Beethoven’s Fifth, and Wagner. That sparked enough curiosity to start hanging out in record stores and browse lps, reading the liner notes.
I am not a fan of vinyl, but it’s good to see second hand shops thriving, and hopefully enticing young people in for a browse


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Verdi / Nabucco in one traditional music cassette owned by my grandfather. I listened this cassette maybe 1000 times, evening after evening, with him. It was our entertainment.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

wrong thread, sorry


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Tchaikovsy's Pathetique Symphony and Capriccio Italien.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

I was exposed to classical music when I was young (Bernstein's "Young People's Concerts), but at about the age of 14 these pieces started my journey:

Tchaikovsy: Symphony #6
Strauss: Don Juan
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring

I never strayed from full symphonies until about the age of 30. Had I only known!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor (BWV 903) played by Wanda Landowska. I was about 3 years of age or maybe younger and was always asking my mum to play "the ting tong record".


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

The Vaughan Williams 9th symphony, the Shostakovich 10th and a symphony by Diamond (can't remember which one) were my introductory works when I was in elementary school.


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## SomeAustrianBloke (Nov 1, 2018)




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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't remember what pieces first got me interested, but the first works I bought and really listened to were Franck's Symphony in D, Russian Easter Overture, Beethoven symphonies, and Pictures At An Exhibition.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

Glenn Gould's recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier, LPs borrowed from my public library and recorded to cassette tape.

In copyright infringement, I was a prodigy.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Family 78 RPM phonograph records of Borodin: _Polovtsian Dances_, Grieg: _Peer Gynt suite_, Rimsky-Korsakov: odds and ends from _Sadko_.....


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> Borodin: _Polovtsian Dances_,


I still love that one. I have the Tjeknavorian CD on RCA.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

My grandfather's collection of 78's going back to the 20's ... I don't remember any particular pieces, the only artists I remember were Caruso, Gigli & Moisewitsch


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I can't recall any specific piece of music from my early childhood. My mother played the piano, and we listened to the BBC. We had some LPs. We emigrated when I was nine, and all of the LPs were left behind. In my early teens here I got hooked on Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Age 2+: Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf, Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel, Tchaikovsky Nutcracker. Real beginning in serious starting age 7-8: Brahms & Beethoven Violin Concertos, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Rachmaninof Piano Concerto #2.


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

In middle school we had a once-a-week music lesson and I remember our class being taught how to sing Schubert's _Der Lindenbaum_, though not in German. Later in high school we also had a once-a-week music lesson (but only for the first year we were there unless you wished to study it at O-level) and the first work we explored in any kind of depth was Kodály's _Háry János_ suite. That said, I never got into classical until I was in my mid-thirties but it surprised me how well I'd remembered the Kodály work from over twenty years before.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Two 12-inch 78s we had hanging around the house when I was in early grammar school: Michael Haydn's "Toy" Symphony, and Danny Kaye doing Tubby the Tuba.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MarkW said:


> Two 12-inch 78s we had hanging around the house when I was in early grammar school: Michael Haydn's "Toy" Symphony, and Danny Kaye doing Tubby the Tuba.


Interesting! I have the old, old Danny Kaye Tubby the Tuba LP in box in the garage.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I guess the first classical I heard was Peter and the Wolf and a small child. In my teens I liked ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition, and so naturally when I got into classical, I picked up a copy of the Mussorgsky work. Other than that, my father told me to listen to Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, and 6th as well as some other classical.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. It wasn't the first classical work I heard, but it was the first one to really get me hooked and make me want to explore other music like it. I was 15 at the time.
Pretty soon after that I also got hooked on Dvorak's New World Symphony, which led to me exploring music from the late Romantic era, which quickly led me to Mahler. By then I was obsessed.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

I'm sure I'd been introduced to it heaps of times before this (via ads, for example), but my first real introduction was probably MacDowell's 1st Piano Concerto, which my mother's ex played/practised around me a lot when I was somewhere between 8 and 11. I also learnt piano pieces by Kuhlau and Mussorgsky at around this time (along with pedagogical works by Bartok, Czerny, etc).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lisztian said:


> I'm sure I'd been introduced to it heaps of times before this (via ads, for example), but my first real introduction was probably MacDowell's 1st Piano Concerto, which my mother's ex played/practised around me a lot when I was somewhere between 8 and 11. I also learnt piano pieces by Kuhlau and Mussorgsky at around this time (along with pedagogical works by Bartok, Czerny, etc).


This is definitely the first time I've heard of somebody introduced to classical music by MacDowell! Guess I've gotta drag out my concerto recording and give it a listen after many years.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Guess I've gotta drag out my concerto recording and give it a listen after many years.


Good idea! I might have to also...


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Arthur Bliss - A Color Symphony
and from there Bruckner, all 11 symphonies by Skrowaczewski


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2018)

Holst _The Planets Suite _LSO/Sargent on Decca.

View attachment 109950


It was my older brother's.


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## JayBee (Apr 14, 2018)

Smetana's Moldau. My high school music teacher played it for us in grade 9, and it stuck, even over the next 35 years or so of mostly rock, metal, and and progressive music. Now, for the past four years, I've gone through a renewed interest in classical music for pleasure. A lasting, treasured gift from my teacher, Mr. Perkins.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I was too young to remember my first introduction to classical music, but it didn't become something I was really passionate about until I was older and one day heard a piece by J.S. Bach performed on classical guitar. This had a big impact on me and made me want to delve into his music and that opened the door to me eventually appreciating a lot of other composers.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty selections. Wore that record out, but still have it 60 years later. Love that music.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Probably one of the many pieces used for adverts and tv shows when i was a kid (eg. Khachaturian's Spartacus adagio, the largo from Dvorak's 9th Symphony or Prokofiev's Troika from Lieutenant Kije, etc).


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

Not one particular piece for me either, but more of a composite of well known classical tunes and works that I became acquainted with through its use in popular culture while growing up that I was later able to identify after I began to take more of an active interest in classical music, such as Grieg's "Morning Mood", Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker", the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th, Rossini's "William Tell Overture", Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", the bridal chorus from Wagner's "Lohengrin", and so on.


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## BobBrines (Jun 14, 2018)

Tchaikovsky's 1812 -- in a high school history class! Now I am deeply into baroque. Go figure.


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