Do you come from a Classical Music Family?

[Rosalba]

Just interested. Have you 'inherited' a tradition of listening to classical music? Are your favourites and interests much the same as your parents'?

Or did you come to it yourself, perhaps after a listening experience or the influence of friends?

How important do you think it is, to specialise in listening to or playing classical music, to come from a classical music background?

It's all opinion and detailed anecdotes are welcome.

[Rosalba]

I don't really come from a classical music family, though my mother's 78s included some opera hits and pops such as Bolero and the Ritual Fire Dance.

For most of my life, I wasn't interested in classical music, but you couldn't grow up in 1960s Britain without coming across classical music on radio and TV, and some of that has stuck. As a child, I also watched a lot of ballet music on TV and indeed, many of my favourite pieces of music are linked with dances in some way - gavottes and minuets by Baroque composers, for example.

I think it's rare for anyone really gifted at classical music to come to it by themselves - environment must be crucial and some listening and playing skills must be inculcated young and if you miss the bus, that's it.

I missed the bus. But I caught one going the same way later on.

[vandermolen]

My older brother (by 7 years) is a great lover of classical music - his attempts to convert me when I was a boy came to nothing but in my late teens I became interested by myself. However, he obviously had a great influence on me.

[Jo498]

My father was moderately interested in light and popular classical music, i.e. operetta, famous opera (excerpts), ouvertures, potboilers like Bolero (I also remember this from Torville/Dean at the 1984 winter olympics, the 2nd big international sports event I really followed on TV as a kid (the first had been the '82 WC in Spain), Vienna NYD concert etc. and my mother had sung in a church choir as a girl but neither had had a musical education or serious interest in classical. My father then had to teach music (appreciation) in middle school for a few years and got a few more classical LPs than we had had before. At about the same time (ca. 1986 when I was 14) my best friend who had moved away, so we saw each other only every few months became interested in classical, partly/mainly via a series of "magazine+LP or cassette tape". His influence and some of the listening and reading material my father had bought, together with a bunch of LPs that had been in the family for years, brought me into classical music. I started mostly with short popular pieces by Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, then some symphonies by Mozart and Haydn etc. As soon as I encountered Beethoven's music he became my favorite composer.

I had not really been interested in any music as younger child; I occasionally liked a popular piece of popular music but I had little access and no interest. The main music I remember liking briefly before I got into classical was by the German songwriter Reinhard Mey whom my parents liked a lot.

And I never really got into any other music later on either. I have a few dozen CDs of Jazz, popular, ethnic/world music I like but none came close to becoming as important for me as classical music.

While I only have anecdotal evidence, I think that one reason for classical music becoming ever more a niche preference is that it faded from public culture since the 1970s. When there were at most 3 TV channels and also often "mixed" radio channels playing very different content, there was quite a bit of (popular) classical music on general TV that could get people interested. In the 1980s one could encounter Hermann Prey or Carreras in a German TV Saturday Night Game/Quiz show. On Sunday mornings or afternoons (or late at weekday nights) they would have filmed concerts with Bernstein conducting Beethoven or Mahler in Vienna on TV.

[LKB]

Most assuredly, and we're all nuts. 

[foxandpeng]

My background had no classical music. The prevailing view was that such music belonged to the pretentious or the upper classes. My mother listened to Elvis, Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline and Bing Crosby, while my father only ever listened to shortwave radio (which was really odd in itself, coming from a junior office clerk background). I think the only music he ever heard was the occasional Soviet era accompaniment to Radio Moscow.

As a young man, I was surrounded by the heavy metal and rock that comprised the rebellious 80s response to mainstream pop. It wasn't until I was older and exposed to different influences, that I discovered classical music for myself. My interest was seen as 'forgetting my roots', 'having ideas above my station', and 'being a bit gay'.

FWIW, I think the UK class system greatly reinforces what most people listen to. I don't think many Easter BH weekend BBQs across Britain's council estates will be blasting Beethoven or Elgar, to accompany their social gatherings. It isn't my observation, historically. At the same time, there is an elitism in many which ring fences art music as the preserve of the educated, affluent, and washed.

I think that these contribute to why classical music inhabits some circles more than others. Like playing polo.

[71 dB]

I didn't have classical background. My dad listened to jazz and my mother listened to "nothing". I found classical music by myself at age 25-26 encouraged by my best friend who played violin and talked about how cool classical music can be.

[DavidW]

My Father occasionally did but not something he shared with me.  So not really.  My Mother actually hates classical music because she was forced to take lessons on the piano from an early age.

[Szykneij]

The only person in my family with an interest in classical music was an aunt who was into opera. I had uncles who enjoyed playing and singing popular Italian songs. My father often listened to Polish polka music and my mother faithfully watched the Liberace and Arthur Godfrey television shows (I wish I still had my Arthur Godfrey ukulele). I started playing violin as a child during Beatlemania and the British rock invasion, and those music lessons led to my introduction to and interest in classical music. This background probably accounts at least partly for my appreciation and enjoyment of all types of music.

[relm1]

I did not come from a musical family.  I did have two older brothers who were very eclectic and, in their playlists, would include classical music along with rock.   What I inherited from them was to not quickly judge something but being open to it and having an appreciation for it even if at first I didn't like it.  This made me return to Mahler 2 (NYC/Bruno Walter) which I hated because it was so harsh and noisy but after listening repeatedly, it grabbed me hard and was the first professional concert work I ever attended when I was 16.  I started composing right after that.  So the connection was indirect but significant.

[Mirror Image]

I know that classical music goes as far back as my great grandfather on my dad's side, but who knows, it may go even further back. I come from a musical family that was interested in classical and jazz mainly, but also rock music. I come from a long line of trumpeters --- great grandfather, grandfather and my dad, but I broke this tradition by playing percussion in the school band, but also playing guitar in my free time. Anyway, my interest in classical music didn't happen until 2008 or so. This is when I became serious about it, but I had heard it on/off up until this point. It was my grandfather who encouraged me to listen to it, but I wasn't going to listen to his suggestions, but find my own way into this vast musical world and I've been exploring ever since.

[Florestan]

Not quite. Although both my parents loved music in general and classical in particular (though they wery far from being afficionados) we had no turntable or cassette player in our home. I discovered classical music all by my own by listening to radio and watching the Vienna New Year Concert. At about 14yo (I guess) I urged my parents to buy me a turntable --- and ever since classical music has been my daily companion (I will turn 50 coming December).

Although I can tolerate pretty much any kind of music, I have never really been into anything else than classical music, save during my college years when I also became a heavy metal fan (go figure!) but it was just a temporary thing. Ninety-nine per cent of my voluntary listening is classical.

[Papy Oli]

No musical family background at all.

My parents listened mostly to French radio (RTL, Europe 1, some Variétés) and only ever had a handful of LP's or tapes but some were very decent ones (George Brassens, Charles Aznavour, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival... some French accordéon too, Adriano Celentano). 

I picked up from there since 1986 or so by gathering a handful of LP's/45rpm, then more tapes, then even more CD's. 

The only two classical LP's that were played every now and then in our home were some non-descript Bolero and Four Seasons. I bought cheap CD's with the same works (and one with some Beethoven sonatas) in a French supermarket in the late 80's and that was my classical lot until 2005/2006. I randomly bought Hogwood's Four Seasons at that time to go and test some decent headphones in a Hi-Fi shop and that started my interest in to classical music in earnest.

I discovered GMG soon after. You lot made things even better...

[71 dB]

My older brother (by 7 years) is a great lover of classical music - his attempts to convert me when I was a boy came to nothing but in my late teens I became interested by myself. However, he obviously had a great influence on me.

Often converting other people into something (or reconverting people out of crazy ideologies) doesn't happen fast. Often it is about planting a "seed" into the mind of other people and much later that seed might grow into something as it did in your case.  0:)

[vers la flamme]

Nope. Both parents loved music but neither was into classical. Got into it on my own. I did however get into tons of other great music from my parents.

[classicalgeek]

Neither of my parents were into classical music at all. To the extent they listened to music (which wasn't often), it was mainstream stuff for people of their age in the 1980s (Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, Julio Iglesias, Barbra Streisand.) My exposure to classical music came when I took piano lessons starting at age 9 - I was drawn to the classical tunes I played in simplified arrangements, and I explored it all on my own. It helped that I was an only child without many friends so I wasn't subject to much peer pressure! So while most kids my age were listening to Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince, I had Schubert, Beethoven, and Chopin.

I do have a cousin who studied voice at New England Conservatory (but after she graduated, she gave up singing and pursued a career in law), and an aunt (her mother) who sang in the St. Louis Symphony Chorus (her 15th birthday gift to me was the fabulous Slatkin/St. Louis Mahler 2 on Telarc, which she of course sang in... but I stupidly sold it off with the rest of my CD collection when I thought that going completely digital was a wise move. ) But otherwise no one in my family was musically inclined in the least.

[vandermolen]

Often converting other people into something (or reconverting people out of crazy ideologies) doesn't happen fast. Often it is about planting a "seed" into the mind of other people and much later that seed might grow into something as it did in your case.  0:)

I think that's very true in my case.


My father listened mainly to Frank Sinatra (who, I was delighted to discover recently, was a fan of the music of Vaughan Williams - I wish that my father was still alive so that I could tell him). My mother liked some classical music and I recall, as a boy, that she had LPs of Rimsky Korsakov's 'Scheherazade' and Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto (Decca/Ashkenazy/Fistoulari).

[steve ridgway]

My family appreciated the classical canon but I found the various genres of 1970s rock music more exciting and new. Not realising that classical music of the 20th century was equally as exciting and new because I was never exposed to those composers.

[ritter]

In my case, there was some classical music background for sure.

My father was a great fan of Mahler and Mozart, and there was a sizeable LP collection in our house. When we lived in Vienna (me being a young child), my parents would often go to concerts (e.g. Bernstein conducting Mahler with the Vienna Philharmonic) or the opera (they took me along to The Magic Flute at the Staatsoper when I was six or seven —I loved it, but also fell fast asleep during the second half—, and also to Swan Lake danced by Nureyev —I have little recollection of that soirée, TBH—). The Magic Flute outing was organised at my behest, as my babysitter at the time was a budding flautist and mezzo soprano, and she'd endlessly talk about music (and practice the flute at our home). A record of excerpts of the Klemperer recording of the Mozart opera was given to me as a present after the performance by my parents.

My maternal grandmother (who was widowed very young) had some classical records in her house (I remember seeing in her library the complete Massenet Manon with Fanny Heldy under Büsser on what seemed a thousand 78s, as well as an LP Bruno Walter conducting orchestral excerpts from Wagner operas). As a teenager, my mother went on long trips abroad with my grandmother (they lived in Caracas), and classical music was always on the menu. They had the chance to see Maria Callas in Norma at the Met in 1956, and my mother mentioned a performance of Die Meistersinger in Vienna a couple of years later.

In 1979, my mother took me to Bayreuth to see the whole programme that was being offered that year (including the Boulez-Chéreau centennial Ring).

My elder sister went the pop/rock way (but with a tangential interest in classical), while I went squarely classical (with very little interest in other genres).

[71 dB]

How important do you think it is, to specialise in listening to or playing classical music, to come from a classical music background?

I didn't address this in my first post, because I have limited time to write it.

Life is chaotic and unexpected things happens. Classical music background is probably beneficial in getting into it, but it is complicated. I didn't get into pretty much any music until high-school and I totally "skipped" the phase of getting into music in the childhood, because I was almost an adult when I got interested of music. So I never got into metal/rock typical to teenagers for example. When I got into music, it was electronic dance music of the late 80's which I found extremely interesting and cool (still do). It felt so fresh, forward-thinking and exciting compared to most music I heard passively in my life and assumed to be a good representation of all music in the World.

So I got into electronic dance music, but I noticed most people do not care about. Maybe in London or similar places they did, but Finland is a "metal" country so most people thought electronic dance music is garbage. That's when I realised that the music we hear in everyday life passively is just a skewed surface and far from a full representation of all music out there.

The "heyday" of electronic dance music was from about 1988 to about 1994-5. So, by 1996 things were not as exiting as they had been previously. My best friend had been talking about how good parts of Romeo & Juliet by Prokofiev are and I decided to give classical music a change, after all John Williams' film music sounds awesome to me and is similar to classical music. My biggest obstacle was my stupid believe, that classical music is "too old" for modern ears. Somehow it didn't occure to me that old paintings don't seem to be too old for modern eyes... ...anyway I started listening to a  classical radio station in 1996 and found out classical music is interesting. I never assumed to like the "biggest" names. I wanted to discover my own favorites. In the beginning I liked composers such as Sibelius, Rachmaninov, Chopin and Mussorgsky, but I had heard so little. In the beginning it was about learning about the different periods and learning the "map" of classical music.

December 1996 I heard Enigma Variations on radio and I was totally blown away realising there are composers and works that can blow me away! About half a year later I discovered the other one of my two most favorite composers. Not that I didn't know about J. S. Bach, of course I did, but in summer 1997 I realised how awesome Bach is. In general 1997 was THE year of discovering classical music for me, because discovering Elgar in December 1996 made me obsessed to explore classical music for other mindblowing composers and works.

What if I hadn't started listening to classical music on radio in 1996? What if I hadn't heard Enigma Variations? There is so much randomness involved. My life could so easily be one without classical music (what a horrible thought  ). I don't have kids, but if I had, I would teach them to explore music with open mind beyond the surface and discover their own favorites, whatever they are.

Background doesn't guarantee anything. I didn't become a jazz nut because of my dad. I like some jazz, but a lot of it is just uninteresting to me. Had my family background been a classical music one, it could have been the same... ...depending on which composers I was exposed to...