What Started You in Classical Music/What Piece Did you First Listen to?

[dave b]

For me it was about 1970 or so, somehow I got ahold of an LP--Mozart Horn Concertos, Alan Civil, horn; Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra. Angel records---I was hooked after that. To this day, those horn concertos remind me of my very first foray into the world of classical music.

[Opus106]

Stern and the NYPO playing Bach's A minor concerto for violin, with Bernstein waving the stick. On Yahoo Music, which could be accessed from their chat application, c. Feb 2006. And to this day, I harbour a somewhat nostalgic feeling for Bach on modern instruments.

Well, it's not the first piece, to be accurate. First piece with which I began the exploration of this vastly big genre of western classical music.

[mc ukrneal]

There are three pieces I remember as a kid, but I am not sure which was first. They were Dvorak Symphony 9, Beethoven Symphony 9 and the Nutcracker (usually around Christmas time). There was a lot of classical in the house when I was a kid. I also heard Aida fairly early on (Solt/Price).

[Brian]

When I was 2-3 years old, my parents got a Pavarotti CD and I used to ask, "Want fat man singing!" It's strange to think now I don't like opera nearly as much as when I was 2.

My parents were a very musical family who kept a pretty extensive collection around (like the '62 Karajan Beethoven cycle) so there's no one answer to this question. But the first cassette tapes I got were a Johann Strauss collection and a Beethoven collection, both with ensembles like the Ljubljana Radio Symphony. I think they might have been $1.50 each or something. The first four things on CD I asked for and got were:

- 1812 overture (Dutoit/OSM)
- Brahms' Hungarian Dances (Pilz hoax orchestra)
- Capriccio Espagnol (Batiz/Mexico SO)
- and hrm I forget the fourth one.

Much later I learned that my grandmother had gone through her deceased husband's CD collection and simply grabbed the music I said I liked, which explains why the young me didn't have to deal with shrink wrap. 

I also remember a Bugs Bunny Capriccio Espagnol tape of some kind.

~~

Well worth pointing out that ALL my real-life friends who are into classical music came to it by either the allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, or a symphony by Shostakovich.

[Geo Dude]

I came to classical through a metal forum when I found myself wanting to explore the 'final frontier' which means that I started with some late romantic or 20th century material.  I don't recall the first work I listened to for certain, but at a guess it was a recording of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, one thing that was often recommended for new listeners.  Mahler symphonies also came into play a lot there as well as Holst's Planet Suite (in particular Mars, naturally).

[CaughtintheGaze]

Mahler Symphony No. 1
Maazel with the VPO

[Beorn]

Probably Brahms' lullaby.

[Sergeant Rock]

I heard a lot of classical music growing up in the 50s, early 60s, when classical music was a staple of broadcast TV. In addition, my mother was an accomplished pianist so I heard Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Schumann nearly every day. But the one piece that really put me on the classical bandwagon was Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries which I heard on a car radio when I was 13. That changed my life.


Sarge

[some guy]

1961-ish. Rachmaninoff's Prelude in c#. On Sparky's Magic Piano.

For twentieth century and beyond: March, 1972. Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.

[North Star]

No specific pieces, my parents have the classical radio on always, and they also played their recordings, stuff like Mozart PC's, various recital discs (mezzos, sopranos, altos, and some male voices too) and dad - who has played the violin, and now builds them as a hobby - listened to a lot of violin music.

Listening to their eclectic CD collection bought mostly from bargain bins (few stinkers, though - plenty of DGG composer collections, for example), I heard plenty of Sibelius, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, Brahms, Chopin, Elgar, Schumann - and even some Stravinsky, Debussy, and Ravel. They even had Janacek's Violin Sonata! I didn't love all those 20th century composers straight away, though. Bach was by far my favourite at first, and then Beethoven.

First CDs I bought (2009?) were Gould's Goldbergs (twofer including both recordings), Stern's Bruch VC no. 1 & Lalo Symphonie Espagnole, Karajan's Mendelssohn 3, 4 & Hebrides Ovt., and Gould's Brahms disc. I also began to go to the local symphony orchestra's concerts some time before that.

[jochanaan]

As a baby, my mother used to put me (and my two older sisters) to sleep with Mozart's Violin Concerto #3 in G major, the classic Isaac Stern recording.  A little later there were "the usual suspects:" Carnival of the Animals, Peter and the Wolf, Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Mother Goose Suite.  But my self-directed exploration began at 12 or 13 with Walter/Wendy Carlos' album "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer," progressing naturally to the Bach Brandenburg Concertos--and I was off and listening!

[AdamFromWashington]

For me it was Chopin, and Rachmaninoff. The Nocturnes, and Preludes, respectively. That was when I was about eleven or twelve. When I was fifteen I heard the Rite of Spring, and started listening to 20th Century music, and that led to a love of most anything modern. If I was to go back really far, I guess it all started with that Disney cartoon of Peter and the Wolf. I loved it when I was five, but the wolf (and by association the music) terrified me.

[xochitl]

when i was 6 or 7 my parents got me this little casio keyboard that had 100 prerecorded tunes [pop songs, bits of chopin/bach/handel/beethoven etc] and i worked my way thru them just having fun, trying to figure out what made each song click, but eventually i encountered the 'ode to joy' and suddenly i felt something id never felt before.  that melody made my little heart ache like nothing else in the world and i became really obsessed with it for months until it ran its course and life/school took over my attention. 

for years afterwards i was really like any other kid musically, getting influences from everywhere and just trying to make sense of the new sounds.  i was heavily into celtic music and things like that until one day i bought a couple old cassetes from a thrift store: schubert's impromptus and beethoven's moonlight played by horowitz; and orchestral selections from the Ring with szell/cleveland.  they both changed my life.  coincidentally we moved to a town that has an amazing little public library and i'll forever be thankful to whoever stocked the classical cds section...it was the finest education a young man could get

[vandermolen]

My brother, who is seven years older than me, introduced me to Copland, Bruckner and Shostakovich when I was about 14/15. As soon as he stopped trying to convert me - I became interested - some kind of paradox I guess. Luckily I lived near the Albert Hall in London, so we were able to walk to many Prom concerts in those days. One of my earliest was Jascha Horenstein conducting Bruckner Symphony No 8 c 1970 (I think the performance is on BBC Legends).

Rimsky's Scheherazade was my first classical LP (Reiner) - I was about 14 I think.

[RJR]

My first exposure to anything remotely resembling classical music might well have come from this cartoon that I watched at age 5, Gerald McBoing Boing's Symphony (1953).
As well as Jazz in other cartoons. Many thanks to Dr. Seuss and all his collaborators.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLrkX6MwA3U

[dave b]

That was really good.......

[jut1972]

Still a beginner and only got into classical in a big way in the last couple of years, but I do remember these two vividly as a kid.  I can't hear Wagner without thinking kill da wabbit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI9Nbt7oJG0

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2162208/tom_jerry_hungarian_rhapsody_no_2_liszt/

[Sean]

Some interesting replies there with a common feature of life-changing experiences- always good to know you people exist.

I was same absolute shock and revelation with some of those early regions of aesthetic meaning and they still inform my outlook today. Indeed I quietly have to put people into categories depending on what experiences their minds enable them to have.

Very briefly those recordings included the Eroica under Kempe particularly the first movement, Bruckner Eight Karajan 1958, Vingt Regards with Beroff, Schumann Rhenish under Solti, Bartok 1 & 2 with Anda, J.Strauss under Karajan, Shostakovich Fourth under Ormandy, and Stravinsky's 1960 RoS on CBS.

Etc etc.

My first record was the Pastoral under Steinberg which is an extremely successful recording with perfect tempos; his quick tempos in the rest of his survey don't work so well- they're all on Youtube last time I checked. The recording is among the best from the 1960s, the bloom on the sound just amazing.

By the way for this topic the term ought to be art music not classical music...

A few other early recordings for me...

The Brandenburgs with Harty's scoring

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique under Davis

Liszt First Piano concerto with Dichter

A Mahler One with Blumine recorded from a Proms concert around 1986 by Abaddo, highly idiomatic with great mystery in that weird opening

Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

Bach's greatest hits with Stokowski and Moog synthesizer arrangements

Tye Euge Bone Mass by Cambridge Singers, coupled with the Byrd Mass for five voices

Scarlatti sonatas by Ralph Kirkpatrick

Schoenberg Five Pieces for orchestra under Dorati

Messiaen La Transfiguration under Dorati

Puccini Tosca under Karajan

Webern op.1-31, Boulez first recording on CBS

Gershwin Piano concerto & Rhapsody with Previn

Schubert String quartets 14-15

Berg Wozzeck under Dohananyi

[Sean]

Plenty more but must mention Bach Cello suites 2 & 5 in Rostropovich's 1959-60 RCA recording.

The impact of this on me is perhaps beyond anything else in music, if not in life.

[dave b]

Sean--

Yes, the thread title could have been (not "ought to be") Art Music, rather than classical music---"classical" not to be confused with the Baroque/Classical/Romantic periods of Art Music---but to me, very much a layman in this area, and to scores of other folks, it is colloquially known as "classical music", hence I use that common term. Otherwise, those not all that well-versed in Art Music (like me) might take it to mean that which Rembrandt listened to while he was painting.

Additionally--virtually all "Art Music" radio stations announce their station with the words "classical music, 24 hours a day" or some such reference. I have never heard any program host use the term "Art Music" with regard to his or her radio station.

Finally, the well-known Arkivmusic, right below it's name on it's website, refers to itself as "The Source For Classical Music".