Your Formative Musical Environment

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Since we had a "Music from your formative years" thread, I think it would be interesting to learn about how, when, where, and why you got to know music in the first place.

For me - I took instrument lessons, but they didn't really impart to me the joy of music-making. Music came across to me as a chore rather than something enjoyable. It was soon clear I had no talent. I concluded it was something best left to professionals, and abandoned instrument learning after a few years. (Ironically, I took up the piano a couple of years ago, and have been enjoying it greatly. I wish I'd had the same attitude when I was a kid.)

For hearing classical music, 2 environments were important: home and school. At home, my parents had a basic but high-quality record collection, including standards like the Beethoven symphonies (I remember the 5th and 7th under Steinberg, the 6th under Klemperer, the 9th under Munch), Tchaikovsky ballets, the Bach Brandenburgs (Casals recording), some Schubert, Grieg, Wagner, some of those "[composer]'s greatest hits" compilations, and bits of light music. In other words, standard stuff in solid performances - looking back, I'm glad I had access to it.

My high school featured a standard "clapping for credit" (music appreciation) course which everyone had to go through. It is easy to disparage such courses, since they basically involve sitting around and listening to recordings while the teacher has a smoke and a coffee in the next room. But I have to admit that course gave me a lot. I learned all the basic forms (symphony, concerto, etc.) and got a decent historical overview of Western music. Not bad at all.

Another very important factor was classical radio. As a teenager in the Chicago area in the 1980s, I had access to 2 all-classical stations, WFMT and WNIB. The first was (maybe still is) one of the best classical stations in the country, maybe the world. They played everything: not just the standards, but chronologically everything, from Machaut to Xenakis. Thanks to WFMT, I first heard the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies complete, and these have been at the center of my musical consciousness ever since. And every Sunday, they broadcast the Chicago Symphony's concert of that week. What a thrill it was to twiddle the dial at 1 PM every Sunday and hear the words: "The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is on the air!" The other station, WNIB, was not quite as outstanding as WFMT, but still played plenty of good stuff, without dumbing down. If WNIB as it existed at that time were my only local classical station, I wouldn't complain. Years ago however, they switched over to a pop format.

I suppose I could list live concerts, but they were an infrequent activity for me at the time. Partly because of money and other commitments. I did manage to attend the Ravinia Festival more than a few times, though, and heard some concerts that are still sharp in my memory (this was during the Levine years).

Thinking back on this, it strikes me that I was extraordinarily lucky to have all these avenues for discovering good music.

What was it like for you?

[Dundonnell]

I know that I have posted most of this before but...in response to the question-

I grew up in a family environment in which music was ever present. My grandfather had been a church organist in Scotland going back to the time of the First World War and both my father and my elder brother sang in the church choir. My father was also the timpanist of an amateur orchestra formed during the Second World War to raise money for the war effort. He had been taught to play the timpani by the timpanist of the Reid Orchestra in Edinburgh which was and still is the orchestra of the University of Edinburgh and was conducted pre-war by Sir Donald Tovey, the Professor of Music, who was a friend of my great-uncle.

As a young child I was surrounded by my father's 78s: Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner I remember in particular, but also lots of Gilbert and Sullivan(I loved 'The Mikado'). We did not have a TV whilst I was growing up-so listening to music on the radio was regular entertainment. My father took me to my first orchestral concert in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh when I was about 9 or 10 years old to hear the visiting BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent. They played Holst's Planets Suite(with the young Colin Davis conducting the offstage chorus in 'Neptune'). We sat in the organ stalls facing the conductor and I was completely blown away by the whole experience. The incredibly elegant Sargent(with his flower buttonhole) conjuring such incredibly exciting sounds out of a huge orchestra!

When I moved onto to secondary school I became close friends with Malcolm MacDonald(the future Havergal Brian expert) and we talked music incessantly: the Sibelius v Nielsen or the Walton v Britten wars or the emerging Havergal Brian saga. My father bought me my first LPs-Holst Planets(naturally!), Mahler's 1st Symphony (Kletzki), Beethoven's 5th(Erich Kleiber), Sibelius 5th(Gibson). Whilst most of my contemporaries were listening to The Beatles we were setting up a school Music Society to foster an interest in classical music-or, in reality, just to give us another excuse to play our favourite music to each other.

My own regret is that I never learned to play a musical instrument myself.

[Cato]

Looney Tunes cartoons with music by Carl Stalling (and pop and classical composers mined by Stalling) and hearing a snippet of Smetana's Moldau in a short film showing the birth of a river, starting with raindrops falling on leaves: those piqued my interest and for a while were the main "formative environment" for me!

[ChamberNut]

My own regret is that I never learned to play a musical instrument myself.

It's never too late! 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

It's never too late! 

As I can testify, having had my first piano lesson 2 years ago at the age of 42.

[jochanaan]

I believe I've told most of the story elsewhere.  Very briefly, I was surrounded by music literally before birth.  My father, who died when I was very young, was a fine amateur violinist who played in quartets and college and community orchestras; my mother played piano and sang with a lovely contralto voice, and both my older sisters sang and played instruments.  Mother put us all to bed to the sounds of Mozart.  After my mother remarried and moved us to rural Nebraska, there was no classical radio, and public television hadn't come along yet, but we still had the large family record collection.  (I've got the majority of it now.)  I had piano lessons through my late grade school years, but it wasn't until I began to play other instruments in high school that I began to discover my real gifts and love for music.

[jwinter]

Looney Tunes cartoons with music by Carl Stalling (and pop and classical composers mined by Stalling) ....

Love Carl Stalling!  I have many early musical memories of his cartoons as well.  The first non-pop music I recall sitting down and listening to were movie soundtracks, mostly John Williams and John Barry.  They, among other things, led me to my local department store, which had oodles of old CBS classical cassettes for $3.99 -- lots of Ormandy, Bernstein, Walter, & Szell.  I figured out early on that my parents were much more likely to spring for Beethoven than for a Spiderman action figure, so my little musical horizons grew apace. 

Nobody in my family growing up listened to classical music (at least not that I'm aware).  My wife will often put up with baroque or Mozart on a Sunday, but it's never her choice.   My kids, on the other hand, like it quite a bit, due to daddy's influence and the widespread use of it in children's TV (both new stuff like Little Einsteins and the classic Looney Tunes).  And so it goes...

[DavidRoss]

Take a steady diet of Charles Wesley hymns, add some Bing and Dinah and Frank and Rosemary, throw in a big dollop of Bob Wills, some handfuls of Nat King Cole and the Duke, a sprinkle of Allen Sherman, a pinch each of Beethoven and Brahms, and serve with a savory sauce of Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Elvis, The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.