Your First Favorite Composer?

[vandermolen]

The composer Arthur Butterworth (whose 4th Symphony in particular is terrific ) loved the music of Vaughan Williams. When he met Vaughan Williams VW told Butterworth that if, as he grew older his (VW'S) music didn't mean so much to him he must not think that he is being disloyal in any way.

Such an insightful and oddly moving comment from the older composer.

[Elgarian Redux]

My favorite post on this thread.

This became my favourite post on this thread when I first read it ten minutes ago, and it still is, even now!

[Crudblud]

Probably Ravel. Boléro is one of the first things I remember hearing as a child (though I am informed that the first piece of music I heard as a newborn was Dvořák's 9th on cassette), and when I returned to classical music via Frank Zappa to the early 20th century, it was stuff like La valse that welcomed me most readily. Ravel of course remains a very important composer for me, these days I prefer some of the chamber music to the splashier orchestral works, though La valse will never not be brilliant in my estimation.

[Karl Henning]

Probably Ravel. Boléro is one of the first things I remember hearing as a child (though I am informed that the first piece of music I heard as a newborn was Dvořák's 9th on cassette)

One of the first items from the classical lit which I played, was a band transcription of the last movement of the New World Symphony.  Great fun, then, and still a favorite today.

[Sergeant Rock]

One of the first items from the classical lit which I played, was a band transcription of the last movement of the New World Symphony.  Great fun, then, and still a favorite today.

I first heard it performed by a rival high school marching band on the grounds of Wooster College in 1965 (during some kind of gathering of Wayne County bands). My band subsequently played it too a few months later. Yes, great fun.

Sarge

[Rosalba]

De Falla.
The first classical music that made me sit up & pay attention (when I was four or five) was the Ritual Fire Dance, in our family record collection.

[mourningdoves]

My parents told me that I loved Beethoven when I was 4 years old, but I was very young when I was born and don't remember back that far. Answer: No, but still in my top 5.

The first composer I discovered on my own was Bach, so I guess he was my favorite for a while; I was also in love with a Nonesuch disc called "Music of the Mannheim School". Answer: No; I can't remember the last time I listened to anything pre-1800 except for a few Haydn piano sonatas.

This has been "tested" only with popular music (in a culture where music is really important for most teenagers) but supposedly the musical taste is fixed in ones early teenage years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/favorite-songs.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpPSF7-Ctlc

So it seems somewhat uncommon to revise ones teenage tastes considerably.

This probably works with a lot of popular music; the golden age of rock 'n roll is always 15. In my experience, many people older than me got stuck in the doo-wop years (and hated the Beach Boys) or the big bands (and hated Charlie Parker). I hardly listen to popular music any more; my major concession to my rowdy past is once a year or so get in the car, put the Clash in the CD tray, and turn it way up.

It might be interesting to know how many classical listeners have switched favorite-composer allegiances but have stayed in the same vaguely general style, like from Haydn to Mozart - and how many have jumped entire centuries, or have gone from sonatas to operas, or whatever.

[71 dB]

My parents told me that I loved Beethoven when I was 4 years old, but I was very young when I was born and don't remember back that far.

Reading about at what age people have started to like classical music makes me feel so "late".  It seems I was exposed to very limited amount of music as a child, merely jazz which my father loves (so I was liking some Clifford Brown, but knew nothing about James Brown). So I thought the pop/rock music I heard passively when not home was all the "comtemporary music" there was and the jazz I heard home was the "old music". At age 12 I heard the term "classical music" and I was confused about what it means. Is it the music I hear in movies like John Williams? It's just amazing how little classical music I heard in my childhood compared to people here who "loved Beethoven at age 4". What? I didn't know what music was at age 4! It didn't help that I suffered from insanely bad music education at school, I mean probably the worst music teachers in Finland. I think the worst teachers I have ever had where music teachers. I learned NOTHING about music in school. I think in high-school I knew "Ode to Joy" and that it's by Beethoven. That was my knowledge of classical music around the time! My attitude was "why would we bother with hundreds of years old music when there's NEW electronic music? We don't use horses anymore. We use cars. We don't use candles. We use electric lights. So why would we bother with classical music?" Much later I realized that new art doesn't make old art obsolete the way new technology makes old technology obsolete.

I have my best friend to thank for my interest in classical music. We met in university. He played violin in an amateur orchestra and told me how cool "Romeo and Juliet" by Prokofiev is. I got interested of classical music at 25 or so and after that I discovered the wonders of classical music fast within a few years in a strongly revelatory way (So that I was lecturing him about classical music!  ). I understood that over 99 % of all music in the world is "hidden" and you have to discover it yourself with hard work. The last 20 years or so have been about discovering this "hidden music" and boy is there a lot of it! Not only classical music, but so many other music styles and genres too! Nobody ever told me our culture hides things passively by under- and overexposing things. It's hard to know about King Crimson if Kiss is all you ever hear on radio...

[Karl Henning]

I have my best friend to thank for my interest in classical music. We met in university. He played violin in an amateur orchestra and told me how cool "Romeo and Juliet" by Prokofiev is.

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[Jo498]

Although I found the stuff I linked interesting, I am highly skeptical that it can be applied to classical music. Since the 50s (and maybe to some extent since the 1920s, although then it was probably more people in/around 20, not 15-17 year olds) popular music is intimately connected with "youth culture", i.e. a whole package of music, movies, fashion, even particular drinks or foods etc.
This is hardly true of a teenager listening to classical (or actually any kind of music not connected to a contemporary youth culture). There is no subcultural package, there will be very few peers interested in the music etc.

[Gurn Blanston]

If I said I can't exactly remember you would understand, because it was either Haydn or Mozart, since they were my father's favorites and I used to (carefully!) play his records very often. Oddly enough, nearly 60 years on, my two favorites are Haydn & Mozart; funny how that worked! 

[mr. mojo]

Beethoven has always been my favorite over all, but Mahler is my favorite if I counted only symphonies.

[Ras]

My first favorite composers were Mozart and Chopin.
Especially Mozart's piano concertos and Chopin's Nocturnes and Impromptus played by Claudio Arrau.
Another early passion for me was Shostakovich's string quartets played by the Borodins. (I was a sinister young man).
My first classical cd was Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" by B. Haitink on Philips.
All of these are still favorites.

[71 dB]

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Break the table? Is this a WWE TLC match?

[arpeggio]

Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade

[springrite]

My first favorite was probably Dvorak, mostly due to his 8th symphony, then the 7th and 9th to a lesser extent.

i soon graduated to other things but I still love Dvorak, even though he is no longer among the top favorites.

[Marc]

J.S. Bach.

First and Last and Always.

'Discovered' him during piano lessons ('Bourrée' from the E-minor suite BWV 996), and my love has never faded.