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.
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. ;D
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.
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).
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. ;D
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.
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).
Mahler Symphony No. 1
Maazel with the VPO
Probably Brahms' lullaby.
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
1961-ish. Rachmaninoff's Prelude in c#. On Sparky's Magic Piano.
For twentieth century and beyond: March, 1972. Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.
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.
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! :)
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.
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
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.
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
That was really good.......
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/
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
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.
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".
Quote from: Sean on June 01, 2013, 11:40:05 AM
By the way for this topic the term ought to be art music not classical music...
I don't agree.
Quote from: Dave B on June 01, 2013, 12:06:28 PM
I have never heard any program host use the term "Art Music" with regard to his or her radio station.
True. And good luck finding any Bach in the Art Music section of your local used CD store.
My family is not extremely fond of classical music, but has always watched the Neujahrskonzert of the Wiener Philharmoniker. Two pieces, in particular, deeply impressed me the first time I listened to them and so introduced me to classical music, An der schönen blauen Donau and the Radetzky-Marsch.
On second thoughts, the piece I first listened to should be Stravinsky's The Rite of Springs when I was 7 years old; it was the version conducted by Stokowski in Fantasia, but at that time I didn't know it was classical music, I thought it was only a soundtrack for a cartoon.
Lisztianwagner--a few people have cited that Stravinsky work so far---interesting...
I remember Shostakovich's VC #1 being one of my first peices I started with (it was on my first disc), but Beethoven was the first composer I got into. I remember getting
THIS:
(http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Oct03/Beethoven_symphonies_Menuhin_2564604572.gif)
And enjoying it. I got the Rattle cycle and remembering not liking it as much. I also remember getting a few boxes of sonatas based on Todd's reviews. Is he still here? I still remember your reviews!
Dave B
QuoteArt Music (like me) might take it to mean that which Rembrandt listened to while he was painting. :)
Never thought of that.
QuoteAdditionally--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.
Commercial radio? Sounds ghastly.
If commercial radio is in fact ghastly, I'm missing out on that aspect of it, because what I'm hearing on the station I listen to (WFCC, Cape Cod, 107.5 FM) are works by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Handel, Haydn, and all the other grand masters.
Sure thing. What you have beats anything in Britain anyway- there are two stations playing art music yet neither have any remote connection with art music and instead totally misrepresent it for commercial reasons.
I didn't know there were stations like that...the ones here are legit. The other one I listen to is a PBS station, 99.5 FM Boston. Same thing, good classical (Art :) ) music....Naturally, there are commercial interruptions, but very very few. I thought all classical stations were like that---high quality---but apparently not.
Very interesting--as I've mentioned before, although I've been listening since 1970, I am far from being well versed in classical music..and your post just now reminded me that I need to "break away" from listening ONLY to very well known composers. I've never heard of those composers you just mentioned, and it's time I explored their music as well as that of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, et al.
Thanks for that post.
Hi Dave B, for several decades BBC Radio 3 was the outstanding counterbalance to everything else on television and radio and provided the spearhead of high culture in Britain.
However the corruption set in soon after a commercial station playing mutilated bits of art music developed about twenty years ago- instead of ignoring it the economic drivers seemed to rise to the surface and within a few years the remarkable unflinching thing that Radio 3 had been disappeared into just one more station pumping utterly mindless filth for idiots. If that sounds an excessive comment I can only assure you it isn't.
Britain has always had trouble with the arts on a cultural level- it's empirical and very down to earth and aesthetics and metaphysics have little purchase- the horde couldn't give a banana about great British artists who've tried to put forward their culture in artistic terms. Best, Sean
Did not know that, Sean, thanks---and you STILL cannot get away from the use of "Art music". I thought for sure you would at least say "Art/Classical" as a nod to the common usage of the term "classical music"---but that could be (and might turn out to be) a whole other thread. :)
I would appreciate it if the veterans could take a look at a thread I just started in the Beginners section---it is just too basic to ask anywhere else, and I hesitated to even post it, so utterly basic is it. But I'd like to delve into it a bit if you folks get the chance. It's entitled Tchaikovsky. One of those questions that's been in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks now.
(it was moved to Composer section at my request)
I started buying music I heard in movies sometime in the 1970s: the Brandenburgs by Collegium Aureum; Handel's Sarabande and Schubert's Piano Trio op. 100 from Barry Lyndon; Vivaldi in Woody Allen movies and, especially, Kramer vs. Kramer. But these weren't enough to seduce me away from my main musical interest, the pop and rock I'd been buying since 1963.
[asin]B0009W4M5S[/asin]
[asin]B000006SR1[/asin]
[asin]B000EBD84U[/asin]
[asin]B000002ZI4[/asin]
After, when I got my first CD player (December, 1986), I was in Olsson's in Georgetown and I heard the most wonderful music I'd ever heard in my life. It was someone playing piano. I had to have this for the rest of my life. It turned out to be Alfred Brendel's Sonata D960 of Schubert's. The label sale that day was "3 for $25" for midprice Polygram. I picked up HvK's Beethoven 9 and Mozart's 23rd and 27th PCs, also by Brendel. And I've been a classical compulsive ever since.
[asin]B00000E3KE[/asin]
Jay F
Can you remind me what Handel's Sarabande is?
Quote from: Sean on June 07, 2013, 08:12:18 PM
Jay F
Can you remind me what Handel's Sarabande is?
Here you go, Sean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erKsIJyfB_Q
Quote from: Sean on June 07, 2013, 08:12:18 PM
Jay F
Can you remind me what Handel's Sarabande is?
The original piece (that was orchestrated for the Barry Lyndon soundtrack) is the Sarabande from the Keyboard (Harpsichord) Suite in D minor HWV 437.
Sarge
Quote from: Sean on June 03, 2013, 09:41:52 AM
Hi Dave B, for several decades BBC Radio 3 was the outstanding counterbalance to everything else on television and radio and provided the spearhead of high culture in Britain.
However the corruption set in soon after a commercial station playing mutilated bits of art music developed about twenty years ago- instead of ignoring it the economic drivers seemed to rise to the surface and within a few years the remarkable unflinching thing that Radio 3 had been disappeared into just one more station pumping utterly mindless filth for idiots. If that sounds an excessive comment I can only assure you it isn't.
Britain has always had trouble with the arts on a cultural level- it's empirical and very down to earth and aesthetics and metaphysics have little purchase- the horde couldn't give a banana about great British artists who've tried to put forward their culture in artistic terms. Best, Sean
Classic fm (I assume that is what you are referring to) has probably done more to bring classical into the mainstream than any other UK station, certainly radio 3 which is still elitist compared to the rest of the BBCs output.
Not sure Britain is any worse than other nations in promoting the arts, we are certainly more inclusive of other cultural influences than some others...
Back on topic.. watched the bugs bunny / wagner episode again the other day.. sheer genius!
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on June 08, 2013, 09:28:50 AM
The original piece (that was orchestrated for the Barry Lyndon soundtrack) is the Sarabande from the Keyboard (Harpsichord) Suite in D minor HWV 437.
Sarge
But isn't that an arrangement of an earlier piece? I think several Baroque composers including Corelli have done variations on that theme.
I'm familiar with suites 5-7 and another in G minor, but I can't bring the Sarabande nor the Harmonious blacksmith to mind...
Quote from: Sean on June 08, 2013, 08:42:11 PM
I'm familiar with suites 5-7 and another in G minor, but I can't bring the Sarabande nor the Harmonious blacksmith to mind...
Here's the D minor Suite (minus the Prelude). The Sarabande starts at 4:25
http://www.youtube.com/v/NdYW0oenhzg
Sarge
Quote from: jochanaan on June 08, 2013, 08:03:44 PM
I think several Baroque composers including Corelli have done variations on that theme.
Yeah, Corelli's "La Follia"
Sarge
My thanks Sarge; don't know if that was a Youtube link but I can't access it out here- I can access Naxos though and I'll try there, thanks.
Found it here...
(http://cdn.naxos.com/SharedFiles/images/cds/others/8.550416.gif)
The sarabande is in the Fifth suite, the Harmonious Blacksmith movement in the Fourth-
(http://cdn.naxos.com/SharedFiles/images/cds/others/DE3394.gif)
Quote from: Sean on June 09, 2013, 04:30:39 PM
The sarabande is in the Fifth suite, the Harmonious Blacksmith movement in the Fourth-
(http://cdn.naxos.com/SharedFiles/images/cds/others/DE3394.gif)
There
is a sarabande in the E minor Suite #5 HWV 438 but that is not the sarabande Jay F was talking about. You need to find the D minor Suite
HWV 437 (sometimes called Suite #4...but it gets confusing because there is another Suite #4 from an earlier set of eight Suites). The HWV number is key: find
437 and you'll finally hear the sarabande we're referring to. Can you access Amazon clips from China? If so, listen to clip number 13 on this page: http://www.amazon.de/Harpsichord-Works-Vol-Sophie-Yates/dp/B00001T6KZ/ref=sr_1_sc_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1370867581&sr=1-7-spell&keywords=handel+harpsichord+suite
Sarge
Profuse apologies, I got those the wrong way round- the famous Sarabande which indeed I've no problem identifying is in the Fourth suite as numbered by Naxos anyway, in D minor HWV437; the somewhat less memorable Blacksmith's in the Fifth.
(http://cdn.naxos.com/SharedFiles/images/cds/others/8.550416.gif)
Quote from: Sean on June 10, 2013, 11:26:30 AM
Profuse apologies, I got those the wrong way round- the famous Sarabande which indeed I've no problem identifying is in the Fourth suite as numbered by Naxos anyway, in D minor HWV437; the somewhat less memorable Blacksmith's in the Fifth.
(http://cdn.naxos.com/SharedFiles/images/cds/others/8.550416.gif)
Finally, we're on the same sheet of music (pun intended ;) )
Sarge
The first Classical I ever heard, when I was pre-9, was an LP of Dvorak's 9th. The Big Melody probably lurks in everything I do?
This would take me back to my early childhood as most of the music we heard was classical. Some things I remember from then are:
My mother played a lot of things on the piano.
Saturday Afternoon at the Opera
Ravel's Bolero--it must have been shortened to fit on a single side of a 12 inch 78 record. Halvorsen's March of the Boyars was on the other side, but we didn't play it much. My brother and I surely wore this one out. In retrospect, it must have driven our mother crazy.
Victor Borge
Von Suppe's Poet and Peasant Overture
Deems Taylor's Through the Looking Glass
Franck's Symphony in d was one of my mother's favorites.
Brahms Symphonies 1 & 3 were also among her favorites.
Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony
Some Caruso, Gigli and Pinza recordings. I liked the singers, and eventually learned to sing pretty well.
As I got older, I heard other things, but still, when I grew up, the varieties I knew were fairly narrow. I didn't know most of the major symphonies, concertos, chamber works, and piano sonatas. The first time I heard Messiah was when we performed it at the university.
I started thinking about how weird my patterns in music are. You'd think that most people would start with "normal" stuff like Mozart, Bach, etc. and (for instance) work their way up to Schumann, then Brahms, then Wagner, then Mahler, then maybe Schoenberg/Bartok/Stravinsky/Shostakovich, then maybe Ligeti and beyond. I seem to be working backwards. In high school I was first attracted by the savageness of Stravinsky's Rite, the bleakness of Shostakovich's 8th SQ, the "cheerful aggressiveness" of much of Bartok, and the "fun" of Gershwin. Oddly, I also loved Mendelssohn (I was downright obsessed with the octet ;D ) and I could never reconcile this with the rest of my musical interests.
Then, two years ago, I discovered Ligeti through "Clocks and Clouds". It was one of the most profound things I have ever heard in my life. I had heard of him before and I had heard "Lontano" on YouTube (because it was in "The Shining"), but I guess it didn't stick .Each work of his took genuine effort on the part of the listener (as Jeffery Smith put it in the listening thread -- the "what exactly is he doing here?" thing), but there was so much top-notch music to revel in once that was settled. It was like musical surrealism -- but I discovered that "it isn't as weird as it sounds", if that makes sense. That is, it becomes more evident upon several listenings that his music is based on tradition.
Schoenberg caught my attention with "Verklarte Nacht" (recommended to me by a math professor of mine) and then I discovered his "Chamber Symphony No. 1". A good friend of mine recommended Messiaen two years ago. It took me a while, but he's a favorite now. When I joined GMG it was hard not to fall under the infectious enthusiasm of Gurn and the gang at the Haus. Thus, Haydn became a favorite, too. His music is sincerely cheerful; it sounds like Haydn was a genuinely happy person. Most historical accounts seem to concur.
I need to give Mozart another shot at some point. Sometimes I wonder if I like the idea of disliking a "great" more than I actually dislike his music. I mean, it's my loss. Similar to what Simon Rattle said about Tchaikovski, Mozart seems to be doing fine without me.
Now, I have been appreciating Mahler a lot this past week. Instead of approaching his music from the perspective of Brahms and Wagner, I've been using the "secret entrance": Schoenberg (namely, the first chamber symphony and VN).
Rodzinski`s LP of Brahms First Symphony.
JS
Quote from: EigenUser on June 22, 2014, 03:39:27 AM
I started thinking about how weird my patterns in music are. You'd think that most people would start with "normal" stuff like Mozart, Bach, etc. and (for instance) work their way up to Schumann, then Brahms, then Wagner, then Mahler, then maybe Schoenberg/Bartok/Stravinsky/Shostakovich, then maybe Ligeti and beyond.
I doubt most people actually follow that plan. It's too easy to be exposed to things in a different order!
Quote from: Pat B on June 22, 2014, 02:02:09 PM
I doubt most people actually follow that plan. It's too easy to be exposed to things in a different order!
Yeah. For me it was Tchaikovsky, but within months I was listening to Gregorian Chant, Mahler, Mozart, Stravinsky. Driven largely by what was in the cut out shelf at the local record store, and on Vox or Seraphim.
I started with The Great Masters (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and so on), but what's different about my "pattern" is that I didn't stay in the past. In fact, when going to live concerts, I'm much more likely to select something I've never heard before...