Ten Works That Helped Cement Your Love For Classical Music

[Marc]

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

Tell us more...

Topic duty (i.c. classical music ): as an early teen, the passions of Bach.
As an early twen, Mozart's Da Ponte opera's.

[ritter]

Let's gjve this a try:

1) Telemann: Selections from Der getreue  Musikmeister. A 45 rpm Archiv Produktion of excerpts from the Josef Ulsamer set was given to me by my babysitter (an aspiring flutist and mezzo) when I was around 5 and living in Vienna. Now I have this on CD, and still love it.

2) Mozart: Die Zauberflöte. The first opera I attended, aged 6 and still in Vienna. I fell asleep mid-performance, of course, but loved what I heard and got from my parents the excerpts LP of the Klemperer recording, and soon knew most of the sung text by heart. 

3) Gershwin: An American in Paris. A teacher at the American School in Vienna would play and "explain" this to us 1st or 2nd graders. Great fun at the time.

4) Wagner: Das Rheingold. As a teenager, I asked—on impulse—my dad to buy the Karajan recording, not knowing anything  about Wagner, but being intrigued by the title. I was bowled over, and a lifelong infatuation with the work of RW hasn't faded a bit since then. This is by far the most important work for me on this list. .

5) Falla: El amor brujo. This, the "flashiest" of Falla's works is no longer my favourite by  him, but when I first listened to it, I had the pleasant feeling of hearing something great and also from my own cultural background. Still have a penchant for much (but certainly, not all) Spanish music to this day.

6) Bellini: Norma. I grabbed a cheap copy of the second Callas recording (a lavish Angel 3LP set which probably had been dormant for years in a store in my then hometown Caracas) just to see what it was all about. Wow, was that beautiful, and Mme, Callas mesmerising. I then learned that my mother had seen Callas live in the role at the Met in 1956.


7) Stravinsky: Petrouchka. Boulez the conductor led me from Parsifal to Stravinsky and further to Debussy, Ravel and so on. It was Petrouchka, though, of all of IS's works that really got me hooked, and I found it simply miraculous.

8 ) Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin. Same process as above, and with this work I realised that in Ravel there was a composer whose music really meant something to me, beyond the ubiquitous Boléro. TBH, the process with Debussy was much slower and tortuous, but by now he's displaced Ravel (whom I still love, of course) and probably even Stravinsky in my own personal podium of top composers.

9) Boulez: Pli selon pli. I had been exposed to Boulez''s music (Le marteau sans maître) earlier, but it was this work that convinced me of the intense beauty and expressive power of the avantgarde. Still probably my favourite of all of PB's works. I was around 18 or 19 at the time.

10) still to come???  

[Jo498]

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!

I actually didn't need any gay experience to convince me I was straight.

[Cato]

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!

I knew I liked Classical Music rather than the late Big-Band, pre-Rock-'n'-Roll stuff my mother had on the radio,  i.e. I preferred a symphony orchestra like the one heard in Smetana's Moldau, although at the time I did not know who had composed that music and did not know its name.  And the cartoons with a symphony orchestra using classical snippets were always my favorites, even though I did not know the classical snippets were classical snippets: Tom and Jerry cartoons, for example, were just okay, because their soundtracks used more of a Big-Band sound.

My father was profoundly unmusical: the only song I know that he liked was Put Another Nickel In, In the Nickelodeon sung by Teresa Brewer.  And I think he liked her more than her song, but...

Digging deeper into the memory, I recall watching (and being thrilled and fascinated by) King Kong on our (16-inch?) television in the early 1950's and very much liking the soundtrack by Max Steiner.  Perhaps that should be added to my list!

Digging deeper

[Ken B]

Cato

My father was profoundly unmusical

So your liking for Ives was inherited then.

[Cato]

Cato:  So your liking for Ives was inherited then.

And some (like Mrs. Cato) would add quarter-tone music to that!   

[vers la flamme]

Well, I'm new to classical music so perhaps some of these choices may seem a little strange, but I'll try and participate with a list of my own.

- J.S. Bach: The Goldberg Variations. As played, obviously, by Glenn Gould. This is what started it all for me, right around this time last year.

- Frédéric Chopin: 24 Préludes op.28. As played by Martha Argerich. This was big for me.

- Maurice Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit. This was my introduction to the whole world of "modern" music, which is now my favorite.

- Johannes Brahms: 3 Intermezzi, op.117. Still a favorite. (Hmm, all piano music so far... let's change that up a bit...)

- Franz Schubert: "Unfinished" Symphony in B minor. I've actually loved this symphony for a long time, well before getting into classical music at large. I could have also placed the String Quintet in C here, but the symphony slightly wins out.

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No.23 in A major, K488. My list wouldn't have felt right without any Mozart, and this was one of the first concertante works that really blew me away (now I love the genre). The second movement is one of the greatest he ever wrote.

- Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. No introduction necessary.

- Robert Schumann: Dichterliebe, op.48. The start of my love for the music of Robert Schumann, who is now one of my very favorites. This is also the beginning of my growing love for Lieder.

- Anton Webern: 6 Pieces for Orchestra, op.6. Absolutely blew me away on first listen. This is one of the first pieces I heard that I felt really spoke to my life. Webern says he wrote this in response to his mother's death, and as someone who lost my mother at a young age I feel like the composer captures in music the experience of the death of a loved one with miraculous fidelity. It was the Karajan recording I heard first and I still love that recording. This was my gateway drug to Webern who is now one of my very favorite composers.

- Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.4 in G major. Another piece that blew me away on first listen. I wasn't very familiar with Mahler when I heard this for the first time, but I was under the impression that his music just wasn't for me. Too pompous, too overblown, his symphonies were way too long and meandering, etc. Hearing the fourth symphony blew that right out of my head, completely destroying whatever preconceived notions I had. This was the start of an ongoing obsession for me, I went and heard the first symphony, then the second, and by then I was hooked. Got the Bernstein/NYPO cycle and never looked back. Anyone who reads my posts in the composer specific forums knows of my obsession. Another composer whose music I feel speaks directly to me.

That's all for now, in roughly chronological order. Great thread!

It was an odd feeling not including some of my favorite composers: Beethoven, Scriabin, Debussy, etc... but I couldn't pick a single work from either that would stand up to those I've chosen in terms of their individual impact on my life.

[amw]

It's hard to pin down specific works in some cases, as a lot of the most "formative" classical music experiences I had were LP box sets, but I guess:

- Beethoven Appassionata, age 7ish. I spent a lot of my childhood listening to very little except the big Vox/Murray Hill box of the complete Beethoven solo piano works and concertos, but this was my favourite and the first sonata I actually tried to teach myself to play, while I was supposed to be learning Clementi sonatinas. It didn't go well.
- Schubert D960 (from the Artur Schnabel EMI References CD release), age 8-9ish. Someone actually gifted us a CD player, a fancy one (for 1999) with a five disc turntable etc, and that's roughly when I fell in love with Schubert.
- Bartók 3rd String Quartet, live in Rome, 2001 (age 10). After hearing this I requested and was gifted the miniature score for all six quartets, as well as the Takacs Quartet CD release. This was the start of another obsession (twentieth century music).
- Schumann Frauenliebe und leben, age... 13-ish? A music theory assignment which actually made me cry, which I'm now quite ashamed of given the text, but lol. I've never been without Schumann since.
- Bach Well-Tempered Clavier, age 17. Went to university, took a counterpoint class, & this was the primary text. I ended up analysing and playing thru most of the P&Fs that year.
- Berio Laborintus II, age...18? Composition teacher advised me to attend a concert ending with this piece. I left with an abrupt new appreciation of the midcentury avantgarde. (Appreciation of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern etc would come later, after I'd gotten fully into Stockhausen, Xenakis, etc)
- Feldman Neither, live in New York, age... 20? I hated it and couldn't get it out of my head. That's when I learned that could happen sometimes. (I like it more now.)
- Cage 103, live in New York, age... 21 or 22? With an audience only about the size of the orchestra itself. Transformative and almost spiritual.
- Mayumi Miyata playing gagaku (and Toshio Hosokawa) on a Wergo CD, age 21ish. I somewhat credit this for me developing an interest in non-western classical musics, and still have great fondness for the shō.
- Luc Ferrari Danses organiques, age 24. There was a fairly long period when I didn't want to listen to instrumental or pitched music at all, and Ferrari, Roland Kayn, Francisco Lopez and a few others opened wide a door into a different kind of music that I'd never thought I would appreciate.

I'm not sure if that's 10. I'm also pretty sure my love for classical music was cemented before any of these experiences happened, but oh well.

[vandermolen]

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.

I agree with you John about the VW 'Five Variants on Dives and Lazurus' - a comparatively early VW discovery for me. I took a marvellous LP out of my local music library when I lived at home in London. It featured the Five Variants plus the Oboe Concerto and Rubbra's 5th Symphony (my first encounter with his music). Sir John Barbirolli was the conductor and those performances remain unrivalled IMO. I asked my parents to get the VW work for me for Christmas. They bought me another excellent LP featuring the Five Variants plus 'An Oxford Elegy' and 'Flos Campi':

[Mirror Image]

I agree with you John about the VW 'Five Variants on Dives and Lazurus' - a comparatively early VW discovery for me. I took a marvellous LP out of my local music library when I lived at home in London. It featured the Five Variants plus the Oboe Concerto and Rubbra's 5th Symphony (my first encounter with his music). Sir John Barbirolli was the conductor and those performances remain unrivalled IMO. I asked my parents to get the VW work for me for Christmas. They bought me another excellent LP featuring the Five Variants plus 'An Oxford Elegy' and 'Flos Campi':

Very nice, Jeffrey. Flos campi is another favorite of mine from RVW. That Willcocks recording is sublime.

[Iota]

My parents never listened to music, but when I was about seven or eight my older brother started listening to Tristan almost every night while doing his homework, as I was falling asleep upstairs. It imprinted deeply on me and remained a kind of bedrock. Later on I heard a sister's friend playing the last movement of the Pathetique Sonata and was truly enchanted. I then acquired an old LP of Eileen Joyce and the Royal Danish Orchestra playing the Grieg Concerto which I pretty much played into the ground. 
(Most of my early listening was Rock though .. when I was about 10/11 hearing In the Court of the Crimson King blew my mind e.g - and in a funny/sad kind of way signalled the end of my childhood I think -  then Bowie who became a lifelong addiction, and many others. )

Then one day my mother plonked a copy of Ashkenazy's Chopin Etudes in front of me (bought in Boots the chemist!) saying 'I thought you might like this' - odd because she'd never done anything like that before and never did again  - and it really changed my life! I was already playing the piano a bit, but the etudes and Vlad's playing were a revelation, and kicked my figurative arse into a much higher gear.

The following then arrived, all with great  impact, all of which I listened to obsessively, and nearly all of which I've hardly listened to again since my teens/early twenties as they became too engraved in my memory.

Rachmaninov PC 2 (Ashkenazy/Previn)

Prokofiev Piano Sonata 7 (Horowitz)

Rite of Spring (Markevitch)

Beethoven PC 4 (Gulda/Horst Stein)

Brahms 1 (Walter)

Mozart PC 20 (Brendel/Marriner)

Beethoven 7 (Karajan)

I should also perhaps mention Kontakte by Stockhausen heard in London at a live concert, I kept thinking this is *so* different and *so* new, and it probably helped lay the foundations for much of my interest in the wide-ranging expressive possibilities of contemporary music.

That's about ten I think, but of course it's not really the end of the list.

[Florestan]

the Pathetique Sonata

It's the first Beethoven piano sonata I've ever heard and still my favorite of them all. Strong, indelible extramusical associations with my first --- and last --- unrequited love.

[vandermolen]

My parents never listened to music, but when I was about seven or eight my older brother started listening to Tristan almost every night while doing his homework, as I was falling asleep upstairs. It imprinted deeply on me and remained a kind of bedrock. Later on I heard a sister's friend playing the last movement of the Pathetique Sonata and was truly enchanted. I then acquired an old LP of Eileen Joyce and the Royal Danish Orchestra playing the Grieg Concerto which I pretty much played into the ground. 
(Most of my early listening was Rock though .. when I was about 10/11 hearing In the Court of the Crimson King blew my mind e.g - and in a funny/sad kind of way signalled the end of my childhood I think -  then Bowie who became a lifelong addiction, and many others. )

Then one day my mother plonked a copy of Ashkenazy's Chopin Etudes in front of me (bought in Boots the chemist!) saying 'I thought you might like this' - odd because she'd never done anything like that before and never did again  - and it really changed my life! I was already playing the piano a bit, but the etudes and Vlad's playing were a revelation, and kicked my figurative arse into a much higher gear.

The following then arrived, all with great  impact, all of which I listened to obsessively, and nearly all of which I've hardly listened to again since my teens/early twenties as they became too engraved in my memory.

Rachmaninov PC 2 (Ashkenazy/Previn)

Prokofiev Piano Sonata 7 (Horowitz)

Rite of Spring (Markevitch)

Beethoven PC 4 (Gulda/Horst Stein)

Brahms 1 (Walter)

Mozart PC 20 (Brendel/Marriner)

Beethoven 7 (Karajan)

I should also perhaps mention Kontakte by Stockhausen heard in London at a live concert, I kept thinking this is *so* different and *so* new, and it probably helped lay the foundations for much of my interest in the wide-ranging expressive possibilities of contemporary music.

That's about ten I think, but of course it's not really the end of the list.

Very astute of your mother. Markevitch's 'Rite of Spring' on Classics for Pleasure was an early influence on me too.

[Iota]

It's the first Beethoven piano sonata I've ever heard and still my favorite of them all. Strong, indelible extramusical associations with my first --- and last --- unrequited love.

Oh yes indeed, the power of music to get tangled up in our emotional lives and memories! Like a carbon atom bonding with anything and everything that takes its fancy! I ask you!

Very astute of your mother.

She had her moments. 

Markevitch's 'Rite of Spring' on Classics for Pleasure was an early influence on me too.

I was enthralled by it! But haven't heard it for over forty years, and am slightly wary of doing so now for fear of being disappointed. Perhaps wiser to hang onto my memories of it ..

[Mirror Image]

Thanks to all for your contributions. Your lists have been most illuminating.

[vandermolen]

Oh yes indeed, the power of music to get tangled up in our emotional lives and memories! Like a carbon atom bonding with anything and everything that takes its fancy! I ask you!


She had her moments. 

I was enthralled by it! But haven't heard it for over forty years, and am slightly wary of doing so now for fear of being disappointed. Perhaps wiser to hang onto my memories of it ..

Well, I purchased this and was not disappointed:

[Iota]

Well, I purchased this and was not disappointed:

Thanks, that's reassuring to hear.

To be honest I barely ever listen to RoS, I just listened to it too much early on and it never quite recovered. The problem of course lies a 100% with me, the score's an extraordinary one. Once every few years or so I try again, so with above post in mind, I'll know where to head when I next dip in. 

[Holden]

Before learning the piano

Dvorak "Songs My Mother Taught Me" sung around the household on frequent occasions by my mother.

Rach Op3 No 2 - inspired me at the age of 6 to learn the piano

While learning the piano

LvB Moonlight decided to learn this by myself against express wishes of my piano teacher. When I eventually played it back to her after six months of work she was shocked but helped me iron out some messy passage work in the presto agitato. I played it at the end of year concert.

Chopin Op28/15 - taught to me by my piano teacher. I still love playing this beautiful and expressive Prelude. It also helped me develop my deep love of everything Chopin

Schubert Impromptus D899 I loved playing these very dramatic works.

Listening experiences

LvB 9 Cluytens BPO - opened up my ears to possibility of choral music

Verdi Requiem followed on automatically from the above

Bach WTC Richter RCA. A sanity saver as I discovered this recording while suffering from clinical depression. It, and a lot of other Bach works helped me get through it both by playing and listening.

Mahler 4 Klemperer - welcome to the 20th century 1901 to be precise but the likes of Shosty and others soon followed.

[Iota]

Bach WTC Richter RCA. A sanity saver as I discovered this recording while suffering from clinical depression. It, and a lot of other Bach works helped me get through it both by playing and listening.

Terrific to hear. I was talking this week with a lady in her eighties, who is having issues with her memory, but finds playing the piano makes a marked difference in her ability to recall words/events, particularly Bach, which she plays a lot (and very well!)

[Xenophanes]

Most of these I would hear when I was quite young.

My mother liked:

Franck Symphony in d
Brahms Symphony no. 3

We had recordings of:

Rachmaninoff Symphony no. 2
Tchaikowsky Theme and Variations
Suppe, Poet and Peasant Overture

Gigli singing arias from Traviata with Caniglia
Caruso singing Pagliacci and others

Ravel's Bolero, shortened to fit on a 78. My brother and I wore this one out as preschoolers

Deems Taylor's Through the Looking Glass

Firestone Hour with Richard Crooks and others

The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts on Saturday afternoon with Milton Cross

My mother also practiced her piano scales most days and she was a good accompanist