Ten Works That Helped Cement Your Love For Classical Music

[Mirror Image]

The idea behind this thread is not to share your 'Top 10' favorite works, but to list works that helped in the development for your love of this music. These can be works that you may not even care for much these days. So let's see those lists!

[Jo498]

That's an interesting but difficult question. Es ist zu lange her! (Bilbao-Song), more than 30 years. I am skipping the odd piece I encountered as a child before I really got into classical at ca. 15 years old because I was rather indifferent to most music before that time, i.e. I never really cared for pop music or anything before classical (I came to appreciate a bit of nonclassical later after I had become addicted to classical). So chronologically, I start with

1. Tchaikovsky: Piano concerto in b flat minor
and
2. Dvorak: Symphony No. 9
lame, but these were among the first larger pieces that made me fall in love with classical (skipping again a few minor ones like Grieg's Peer Gynt or the 1812 and Capriccio italien because this was roughly all at the same time). A few years later, I could hardly stand the concerto anymore and I rarely listen to it nowadays but when I put it on, I love at least the beginning and the finale!

3. and 4. Beethoven Pastoral Symphony and 5th piano concerto. The first Beethoven symphonies I heard were 3, 6 and 9. I liked all of them but the latter was overwhelming and the 3rd had long stretches between the "great parts". The 6th was easier fare but the 5th piano concerto totally blew me away; this grabbed me from start to finish (a cheapo LP with the old Brendel/Mehta recording). Again being a little unfair to a bunch of Mozart and Haydn symphonies I also heard and liked around that time, probably also Schubert 5+8.

5. Beethoven's 5th symphony. I got this on pre-recorded cassette for my 16th birthday (I think, could have been one year earlier, but I am quite certain), Carlos Kleiber/VPO. I don't think I was ever before or after as obsessed with another piece of music. I must have listened to it almost every day at least once for a month or two. Hoffmann's description was apt: "Glowing rays of light shoot through the dark night of this realm, and we see gigantic shadows swaying back and forth, encircling us closer and closer, destroying us, but not the pain of infinite longing in which every delight, rising up in joyful voices, sinks and drowns, and only in this pain, consuming love, hope, joy, but not destroying it and aiming at bursting our chests with its unison of all passions, do we live on and are we rapturous seers of the realm of spirits!"

I make a break here because I have to think some more about later experiences that were also important.

[SymphonicAddict]

Specifically it has been mostly symphonies that have caught me into classical music, and likely forever. In addition, I couldn't list 10 specific works, but sets of them. Beethoven was the entry to me in this genre. His symphonies, piano sonatas and string quartets were the pieces that hooked me in this vast realm, hence I still consider him one of my favorites nowadays. Apart from these works, Tchaikovsky and Brahms were the next steps on my discovery of classical music. Once again their symphonies were so fascinating for me that I couldn't believe how engaging, imposing and elegant this music was and how different sounded to other genres, it was a benchmark that is indelible.

[j winter]

In roughly chronological order:


What's Opera, Doc? - Chuck Jones/Carl Stalling.  Bugs Bunny takes on Wagner

Fantasia.  I still love Stokowski.

Film soundtracks, specifically John Williams (Star Wars, ESB, Superman), and John Barry (The Black Hole, various Bond films, The Lion In Winter)

Wagner Overtures, George Szell

Amadeus film soundtrack, 2 cds, my intro to Mozart.  The Requiem blew my mind.

Beethoven symphony 5, Karajan 70s set

Holst The Planets.  Not sure of the recording, maybe Lenny

Beethoven Moonlight sonata, Emil Gilels

That gets me from early childhood to most of the way through high school 

[Florestan]

In chronological order

1. Grieg - Piano Concerto
2. Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto 1
3. Chopin - Polonaise op. 53
4. Mozart - Symphony 40
5. Bizet - Carmen (the Zefirelli movie)

These are the first five classical music works that I've ever heard. After 30+ years my love for them is still intact.

[Florestan]

I really got into classical at ca. 15 years old because I was rather indifferent to most music before that time, i.e. I never really cared for pop music or anything before classical (I came to appreciate a bit of nonclassical later after I had become addicted to classical).

My experience exactly.

[Maestro267]

Tchaikovsky
1. 1812 Overture - The first classical work I consciously listened to. Maybe some music was played when I was younger, but this got the ball rolling.

2. Capriccio Italien - Probably the second, as it was on the other side of the same record.

3. Symphony No. 5 - The first full-length, multi-movement work I heard. It was on a CD which also contained a recording of Capriccio Italien. We only had the disc at the time, with no case. All the disc said on it was "Tchaikovsky". Once I learned that tracks 2-5 were one large piece of music, the floodgates were truly opened. Not only that, but the fact the symphony has a theme that returns in all four movements, was mindblowing at the time.

4. Manfred - I realised after a while that a lot of my favourite bits of music were in the key of B minor, so this, a nearly-hour-long symphony in that key, proved quite the experience. I remember hearing it, and hearing instruments I hadn't heard in the other Tchaikovsky symphonies. The bells in the slow movement, the harps, and the final coup-de-théatre of the organ's appearance in the finale.

Beethoven
5. Symphony No. 5 - The first major classical purchase I made was a Beethoven Complete Symphonies box. I'd obviously heard the first movement with it's famous four-note opening before, but to hear the entire 32-minute work, how it transitions straight from scherzo to finale, and the joy and triumph of said finale, again was incredible.

6. Symphony No. 7 - The 2nd movement in particular stood out here.

Holst
7. The Planets - I bought this on holiday in Torquay, Devon. It introduced me to the large modern symphony orchestra, with all sorts of unusual instruments, particularly the celesta. A passage I always remember standing out was during Neptune, where the organ pedal holds a note and the celesta plays four rising patterns.

Mahler
8. Symphony No. 2 - Wow! This remains my favourite symphony of all time.

Stravinsky
9. The Rite of Spring - This genuinely scared me on first hearing, and it was only the first 10 minutes or so.

Dvorak
10. Symphony No. 9 - Another motto-symphony, of which I heard the finale first.

[Christo]

Again, this is about a personal, accidental history, the music that happened to make an early impression. In my case, at the age of 13, 14; in roughly chronological order :

Beethoven, 'Pastoral'
Schubert, Symphony No. 3
Grieg, Norwegian Dances Op. 35 (heard one of them by the Oslo Phil under Petrenko in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, last week, and one by Leif Ove Andsnes, both as an encore)
Dvořák, Polednice (The Noon Witch)
Bizet, L'Arlésienne Suites
Tchaikovksy, Romeo and Juliette
Wolf-Ferrari, Suite from Il gioielli della Madonna
Saint-Saëns, Danse macabre
Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
Falla, El sombrero de tres picos

All still favourites, except that I lost interest in Schubert (& almost all 'German' Romantic-era composers). 

(And to finish this off: at the age of 15, I was a huge admirer of Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, my two staunch favourites for a year or two. At the age of 16 I was finally allowed to hire LPs in the public library, so I hired one with the Tallis Fantasia. The rest is history.  )

[André]

Same here, I was 13 I think.

The work that more than any other made me an addict to classical music was Chopin's E minor concerto (Rubinstein).

Then there were Franck's symphony (Monteux), Tchaikovsky's Pathétique (Munch) and a bunch of shorter works from a double LP album under Toscanini: L'apprenti sorcier, The Blue Danube waltz, William Tell overture, Carmen suite, The Stars and Stripes Forever, The Moldau, Dance macabre, Dance of the Hours etc.

Also Les Préludes (Liszt), Beethoven sonatas 8, 14, 26 (Rubinstein), etc.

I still love all these works and the interpretations I heard them in are engraved in my memory.

[vandermolen]

Interesting thread!

OK, here goes:

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade  - my mother played this a lot in my youth. I remember humming it to myself one day at school (aged about 14) and one of my classmates said that he recognised what it was - funny how I remember this. RK was my first favourite composer and I still enjoy his music.

Bruckner: Symphony 8. My older brother was a big influence on my musical tastes in my youth and he loved and still loves the music of Bruckner. He had the Jochum DGG boxed set on LP and bought me the marvellous Horenstein Vox/Turnabout recording (on two LPs) one Christmas. I actually saw Horenstein conduct the work when I was about 15 or 16.

Copland: Symphony 3 (Everest recording on LP). Again, my brother had this LP and I would often play it when visiting.

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.6 LPO, Boult. I noticed this in the record department of WH Smith on my way back from school one day. I asked my brother about VW and he said that he was a bit like an 'English Copland'. I bought the LP and never looked back. Probably had more influence on me than any other work.

Other influential recordings at an early stage.

Ravel: Bolero (I still like it)

Holst: The Planets

Mussorgsky (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov) 'Pictures at an Exhibition'

Martinu: Symphony No.4 (Turnovsky) - heard on the radio one day

Miaskovsky: Cello Concerto - Sargent/Rostropovich - also heard on the radio one day.

Finzi: Dies Natalis (Wilfred Brown version) heard on the radio early one morning whilst on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales - one of those experiences where music and landscape tended to merge into one if that doesn't sound too pretentious.

[Sergeant Rock]

First and foremost: Wagner The Ride of the Valkyries (heard at age 13 on the radio)
Rachmaninoff Prelude in C sharp minor op.3 no.2 (played by my mother in our home)
Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture (Ormandy, I think, a record bought from a Quaker Oats box offer--Quaker Oats, shot from guns  )
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 2, Richter
Vaughan Williams Symphony 4, Bernstein, heard on a Televised Young People's Concert
Elgar Enigma Variations, Barbirolli
Schubert Symphony 5 (the Andante con moto played in a band arrangement in high school)
Dvorak Symphony 9 (again, played in high school band, subsequently heard Szell conducting the Cleveland, an LP my girlfriend had)
Berg 3 Pieces op.6, Schoenberg 5 Pieces op.16, Webern 5 Pieces op.10 Dorati conducting the LSO (a friend had the LP)

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

Mahler
8. Symphony No. 2 - Wow! This remains my favourite symphony of all time.

That almost made my cut but I heard it a little later than the others I listed...but hearing it definitely cemented my interest in, and love of, Mahler (heard Klemp's version).

Sarge

[Ken B]

Just one. Tchaikovsky, the opening of Swan Lake. Like an epiphany, a religious conversion.
This question to me is a bit like asking for the first 10 experiences that convinced me I was straight. It only took one!

[j winter]

Just one. Tchaikovsky, the opening of Swan Lake. Like an epiphany, a religious conversion....

And this made me smile, as I have altogether more Satanic associations with it.  I am a Philistine, I know, but I can't hear Sawn Lake (especially with Halloween coming up) without conjuring up when I first heard it, used very effectively as the background music for this...

[SymphonicAddict]

Interesting thread!

OK, here goes:

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade  - my mother played this a lot in my youth. I remember humming it to myself one day at school (aged about 14) and one of my classmates said that he recognised what it was - funny how I remember this. RK was my first favourite composer and I still enjoy his music.

Bruckner: Symphony 8. My older brother was a big influence on my musical tastes in my youth and he loved and still loves the music of Bruckner. He had the Jochum DGG boxed set on LP and bought me the marvellous Horenstein Vox/Turnabout recording (on two LPs) one Christmas. I actually saw Horenstein conduct the work when I was about 15 or 16.

Copland: Symphony 3 (Everest recording on LP). Again, my brother had this LP and I would often play it when visiting.

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.6 LPO, Boult. I noticed this in the record department of WH Smith on my way back from school one day. I asked my brother about VW and he said that he was a bit like an 'English Copland'. I bought the LP and never looked back. Probably had more influence on me than any other work.

Other influential recordings at an early stage.

Ravel: Bolero (I still like it)

Holst: The Planets

Mussorgsky (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov) 'Pictures at an Exhibition'

Martinu: Symphony No.4 (Turnovsky) - heard on the radio one day

Miaskovsky: Cello Concerto - Sargent/Rostropovich - also heard on the radio one day.

Finzi: Dies Natalis (Wilfred Brown version) heard on the radio early one morning whilst on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales - one of those experiences where music and landscape tended to merge into one if that doesn't sound too pretentious.

Nice anecdotes, Jeffrey. Martinu and Myaskovsky came much later on my own experience, though.

[Cato]

Smetana: Die Moldau The opening minutes were used on a children's show to accompany a series of filmed images starting with gathering clouds and single drops of rain on a leaf, and ending with a broad river entering the sea.  It would be shown several times a year, and I learned to look forward to it.  One day the host mentioned the title, and I rushed to the public library, found it, along with a host of other intriguing records.

Wagner: Bugs Bunny cartoons used all kinds of Wagner snippets: Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Ride of the Valkyries etc. ( already mentioned by Sarge)

Mendelssohn: Fingal's Cave was used by Carl Stalling in Warner Brothers' Cartoons.  This was heard in "Inky" cartoons, an Aboriginal/African native who was flummoxed by a mysterious black bird, whose appearance was always accompanied by the Fingal's Cave main theme.

Franz Von Suppe': Poet and the Peasant and Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna Overtures: Cartoons again!  Walter Lantz of Universal Studios produced two cartoons with the same plot: an unusual orchestra of animals plays both works.  Mayhem and mirth ensue!  They were also used in Warner Brothers' cartoons.

Franz Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody #2  CARTOONS AGAIN!  Bugs Bunny in Rhapsody Rabbit tries to play the work, and Rhapsody in Rivets, a wild cartoon showing a skyscraper being built to the music.

Franz Schubert: Symphony #8  The opening was used in several of Universal's early horror movies.

Bruckner:  Symphony #7  I saw the score at the library and read through it and was hooked!

Theodore Dubois: The Seven Last Words of Christ This was played throughout my grade school years during Lent.  It remains a favorite.

Alexandre Guilmant and Pietro Yon: Organ works and Masses Again their works I heard at my parish church while growing up.  Marvelous melodies and harmonies.

[Mirror Image]

I suppose I'll contribute...

I'm not sure if I can think of ten examples, but here are thoughts on some works that inspired me early on (in no particular order):

Bartók: The Wooden Prince - This work wasn't the first I heard from Bartók (that would be Concerto for Orchestra), but this is the first work I heard where I finally got my teeth into the music. The version that I heard first was Boulez's on Deutsche Grammophon (coupled with the equally wonderful Cantata Profana).

Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps - This was probably the first piece of 20th Century music I heard and this was probably around the mid-90s or so. I remember my dad had a recording of it (or perhaps I"m mistaken and it was my grandfather who had the copy). Anyway, this ballet had me on the edge of my seat.

Ives: Central Park in the Dark - Bernstein was my gateway into Ives. I heard his recording of Symphony No. 2 (w/ other orchestral works) on Deutsche Grammophon and was hooked.

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé - The first recording I heard of this ballet was from Dutoit conducting the Montreal SO on Decca. My mind was blown! I never looked back. Nowadays, I seldom listen to any of Ravel's orchestral music aside from the piano concerti. Strange how we mature as listeners.

Vaughan Williams: Five Variants On 'Dives and Lazarus' - This was quite possibly the first RVW work I heard (the Marriner recording on Argo/Decca). I still actually adore this work. Such sublime string writing.

Debussy: Sonata for Flute, Viola & Harp - I had heard all of Debussy's orchestral music before I heard this chamber piece. This work actually opened up more doors for me in Debussy than anything he had written for orchestra. Debussy is my favorite composer and I've really come to love all genres he's composed for.

Janáček: Sinfonietta - This was another work I heard very early on (I might have been around 10 or something). My dad played this for me one day after I got home from school and I couldn't believe that opening fanfare with all of those trumpets and I still get this particular movement stuck in my head from time to time.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 - The first work I heard from Shostakovich and still a symphony that never ceases to impress me even if I prefer others he's written to this one.

Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 - I recall hearing this over my grandfather's house and not really 'getting it' at that time. But that absolutely gorgeous Adagio really made a huge impression.

Sibelius: Pohjola's Daughter - One of those 'a ha!' moments came from this tone poem from Sibelius. It really was my gateway into this composer's sound-world and the first work I heard of his music that resonated deeply with me.

[vandermolen]

Nice anecdotes, Jeffrey. Martinu and Myaskovsky came much later on my own experience, though.

Thanks Cesar. I must have come across Martinu and Miaskovsky in my late teens or early twenties. Another earlier influence I should have mentioned was Tchaikovsky's 'Pathetique' Symphony. My brother had a fine DGG Heliodor LP conducted by Ferenc Fricsay. It's a terrific performance.

[Florestan]

This question to me is a bit like asking for the first 10 experiences that convinced me I was straight. It only took one!

[The new erato]

Here goes, perhaps the most influential LPs I bought in the 70ies:

Jochums Bruckner 4
The Busch Quartets Beethoven Recordings
Munrows Se la Face ay Pale (Dufay)
Ansermets Debussy Pelleas et Melisande
The Bartok Quartets by the Hungarian Quartet
Bach's cantata 21 by Leonhardt
Bernsteins Nielsen no 3
Various Early Music stuff on EMIs Reflexe series
Oistrakh's Shostakovich Violin Concerto no 1