Name the seminal piece that got you interested in classical music

[Rhymenoceros]

Hello, I've only just recently started listening to classical music within the last year or so, but I just can't get enough now.  I'm so glad I found this great forum.  I thought it would be fun to list the seminal piece that got each of us interested in classical music.  For me, it was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 performed by Ashkenazy and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Previn.

[knight66]

Holst The Planets was my first LP, a gift from an aunt. I must have had some interest in music prior to that otherwise she would not have bought it for me. It is a piece I have in the main neglected in adult life, but quite recently I went back to it having read an extended discussion on the site. The name of the conductor on that LP is lost in the mists of time.

Mike

[The new erato]

Mussorgskys Pictures, courtesy Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It prompted me to go to a Bruckner 4 by my hometown symhony (in Trondheim, Norway, probably in late 72 or early 73); an older friend with a massive collection turned me on to early music and chamber music and generally let me explore the byways; after that there was no turning back....

At the time I had been heavily into pop and rock since Beatles had their breakthrough, and groups like ELP, Yes, Zappa and so on had prepared me for classical music.

[david johnson]

Russian Easter Overture recording from the Reader's Digest LP set.  It was conducted by Leibowitz.

[Elgarian]

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. I've told this story elsewhere, I know, but if a thing's worth saying once, maybe it's worth saying twice. Mid-1960s: my English teacher came into the room with a portable gramophone and a record, and announced that we were going to listen to this instead of talking about literature. He told us about Berlioz and his idée fixe, and the idea behind each movement. I inwardly groaned, for I was full of Beatles and expected to be bored stiff.

Amazingly I wasn't. Before I knew it, I was in there with Hector, haunted by his obsessive longing for the Beloved, and the next day, after school, went to the record shop and bought the cheapest version I could find: Carlo Zecchi and the CPO on Supraphon. Even that cheap version cost a lot, and I felt wildly rash at the time and even a bit scared, but I never looked back after that.

[Florestan]

In my case there were 4:

Grieg - Piano Concerto in A minor op. 16 (somehow similar to Elgarian's experience, only in my case it was the music teacher in my 7th grade)

Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor op. 23 (heard in the house of a friend of my father)

Chopin - Polonaise in B-flat major op. 53 (ditto, not the same friend)

Bizet - Carmen (the Zefirelli movie with Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes-Johnson)

The interesting fact is that all that happened within less than a month...

[madaboutmahler]

Mine was Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance no.1... I heard it in a school assembly, attempted to write the name of it down on my pencil case (with little success, I was around 7 so wrote something as different from the actual name as possible) and went home to my dad, who was already a passionate classical-listener to ask if I could hear some more orchestral music. At that time, I thought symphonies and concertos were different types of cds... not peices... 

But my first proper introduction to classical music was in that same week, my dad played me a few of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, from a Naxos cd. (which has since been lost) I might try and get that cd, just to keep as a special keepsake! I loved them!

From there, it was another few years before I became passionate about classical music and happily let it dominate my life. But I did have a few early favourites which included Elgar's Enigma Variations, Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody, Shostakovich's 2nd piano concerto and also his 'Assault on Gorky' (I think it's called that) and Beethoven and Schubert's 9th.

Obviously, now everything is very different, but the Slavonic Dances still remain two of the most special opuses to me, and the other pieces I listed I still love very very much.

[Leon]

Le sacre du printemps

[Karl Henning]

Might just have been Peter and the Wolf. Or possibly the Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet Fantasy-Overture.  Certainly these were both pieces I listened to repeatedly at a young age.

[Brian]

Russian Easter Overture recording from the Reader's Digest LP set.  It was conducted by Leibowitz.

Russian Easter Overture for me, too, along with Brahms' Hungarian Dances and '1812'.

[Sergeant Rock]

Although I grew up hearing classical music (my mother, my grandfather, both were excellent pianists) it was hearing a bleeding chunk of Wagner on a car radio at age 13 that turned me into a fanatic: Ride of the Valkyries.


Sarge

[Lisztianwagner]

Nice thread. I was introducted to classical music by the Neujahrskonzert 1998 (Nur Fort!-Polka, An der schönen blauen Donau and the Radetzky-Marsch), which impressed me very much; but I really became passionate about it just some years later, when I listened to Mozart's ouverture of Le Nozze di Figaro and his symphony No.40.

[Leo K.]

In 1986, Amadeus, the film, was the defining work that got me into Mozart, a fanatical obsession I never experienced before. I began exploring Mozart and everything else followed.

[bhodges]

Welcome, Rhymenoceros (and feel free to post something about yourself in the "Introductions" section of the board).

For me, Sir Malcolm Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra in Respighi's The Fountains of Rome and The Pines of Rome. My violin teacher gave me a copy after I had heard it played by Donald Johanos and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

--Bruce

[snyprrr]

I knew I'd be looking for something 'minor key'. I'm a musician, so I knew that much, that perhaps I'd be getting the kind of melodies I was used to. So, at the library, I picked up Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (e minor) and, surprise!, Shosty's No.8 (c minor?). Well, OBVIOUSLY, the beginning of Shosty's 8th shocked me, "So this is where metal came from?" The hunt was on!

Had I heard Finzi first, things could have gone,... I don't know! Or Satie,...


I do remember HATING Carter and Xenakis and all that stuff in the beginning. Where the crossroads were, I don't remember, but, I do remember the 'Turangalila Symphony' being the first modern-ish work that I responded to. Perhaps, having stumbled upon The Penguin Guide, I suppose you can guess the rest of the trajectory. I got a LOT of stuff based on that book,... er,... bible (haha).

[Sammy]

The 9th Symphony of Vaughan Williams.

[Todd]

It was a combination of works, all heard within a few days of each other.  I bought a half dozen or so CDs to see if classical was my thing.  Turned out it was.

Bartok - Rhapsodies for Violin & Orchestra
Haydn - String Quartet 74/3
Haydn - Symphony 82
Mozart - Symphony 41
Dvorak - Symphony 9

[71 dB]

My best friend who I met in 1990 when I started my studies in university plays (actually used to play) violin. He played in a student orchestra and told me how cool melodies and harmonies classical music can contain. Once they performed Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto and I went to that performance.

Around 1995/6 I started to listen to a classical music radio station while studying for exams. I noticed that it helped me. At the same time my ears got more used to acoustical/classical music (I had listened to almost only electric music: acid house / rave / breakbeat / house / idm /etc...)
I liked Mussorsgky's "A Night on the Bare Mountain" played on radio and bought a cheap CD of it and "Pictures on An Exhibition".

Other early favorites were:

Grieg: Piano Concertos
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto 2
Sibelius: Symphony 7
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op. 48

These kind of works lured me into the world of classical music. At this point I didn't have a clue what I was in for! 

December 1996. Elgar's Enigma Variations is playing on radio. Suddenly all the fine music listed above became almost obsolete in comparison! I understood there is classical music out there that is perfect for me. I just need to find it. During the year 1997 I explored classical music like crazy. My knowledge about composers and their works surpassed that of my best friend who listens to music quite passively compared to me. I became the one lecturing him about the greatness of Buxtehude and Bruhns. 

Nowadays I don't care much about Grieg, Sibelius, Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky but those were "easy/nice enough composers" to lure me into classical music, to find my real favorites.

[71 dB]

I bought a half dozen or so CDs to see if classical was my thing.  Turned out it was.

What a surprise.  Classical music is everyone's thing. Most people just don't believe it.

[Todd]

Classical music is everyone's thing.

Not really.