What do you hear differently, now, to when you heard it ten years ago?

[Karl Henning]

There are many instances of music which, when I first heard it, made no impression at all upon me. Why did he (or she) even bother writing this? was pretty much what I thought.

Years pass, I listen to a lot of music else . . . I go back to these pieces of which I at first thought nothing, and lo! I find them to be beautiful music, wonderfully composed.

Two particularly dramatic cases for me . . . dramatic partly because I already liked (and very well) some music by both composers: Nielsen and Vaughan Williams.  When I first listened to their symphonies, I just did not take to them, at all.  Now, of course, I've no idea why!

Which composers or pieces have undergone sea-change in your ear?

[Mirror Image]

I have several examples but three of the greatest examples are Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Bartok. Now granted, I did enjoy a few of these composer's works, but nothing really clicked for me. There were three breakout works by each of these composers that really won me over:

Shostakovich: The Golden Age - This is a work I've only known for about a year or so, but it was my key into Shostakovich. I finally got a better idea of his humor and for his love of satire and parody. There was also some serious moments in this ballet that took me aback. From this work on, I tackled Shostakovich's symphonies and SQs with no problems, although I've got to say that Symphony No. 14 still gives me some problems, but I'm warming up to it. Now, Shostakovich is one of my favorite composers.

Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante - When I heard this work, I was already familiar with most of Prokofiev's output, but the problem was I just didn't get the music at all. I really just took a chance on this work and bought a recording (Wallfisch/Jarvi) and lo and behold I was hooked! This was around the time I started to get back into Shostakovich. The second movement of this work revealed something human about Prokofiev to me --- a deep, yearning melody that just cut right through me. That's where I made my connection to the music. From this point forward, I couldn't get enough.

Bartok: The Wooden Prince - The first work I heard by Bartok was Concerto for Orchestra. I didn't think much of it (still don't). I'm proud that I went on to explore more of his music. I bought the Boulez DG recording with Cantata Profana and The Wooden Prince and needless to say I loved every minute of it. The Wooden Prince impressed me with it's marriage of folk music and Modern classical music. Now, of course, Bartok is one of favorites and has been for many years.

[Karl Henning]

Very interesting, John; thanks for sharing.

[Leon]

A lot of this has to do with time & maturity in my experience .. I remember a time when I used to piss all over classical (& some jazz) music in general. I remember when first hearing a lot of it in my youthful days (when I was mainly consuming relatively narrow simplistic entertainment music) .. it seemed completely aimless & overwhelming. Nothing was remembered, it wasn't as easily understood. Much of it seemed, dry, lifeless, dull & boring too. Boy, have I grown A LOT since then .. not only as a listener, but also my attention span, sensitivity, perception & comprehension. Knowledge & understanding. Now it's reached a point where it seems like I've stretched my ears to the absolute limit and I've heard all that is possible with music. Rarely am I stumped by anything any more. This isn't a bad thing, it's actually kind-of comforting that I can hear & assess things very rapidly with all that experience behind my ears so to speak, and all those little barriers I've journeyed through.

My experience is pretty much the opposite from yours, i.e. I started out listening a lot to avant garde music, 20th century classical music from Stockhausen, Boulez, and the Italian dodecophonic and Darmstadt schools, as well as free jazz, e.g., late Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor and the like-minded.  It was later that I began to appreciate classical music from the 18th and 19th centuries, e.g. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms.  I can now say that my appetite for "new" music has waned and my favorite period is Classical era music.  But, I have never liked late Romantic music of the Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner type - and don't ever expect to.

Jazz, OTOH, is still something I love and listen to when I'm not listening to Haydn & friends.  In fact, I created a playlist of Miles and Mozart which is a great randomized listening experience for me.

[Mirror Image]

Very interesting, John; thanks for sharing.

My pleasure, Karl.

[Karl Henning]

My experience is pretty much the opposite from yours, i.e. I started out listening a lot to avant garde music, 20th century classical music from Stockhausen, Boulez, and the Italian dodecophonic and Darmstadt schools, as well as free jazz, e.g., late Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor and the like-minded.  It was later that I began to appreciate classical music from the 18th and 19th centuries, e.g. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms.  I can now say that my appetite for "new" music has waned and my favorite period is Classical era music.  But, I have never liked late Romantic music of the Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner type - and don't ever expect to.

Jazz, OTOH, is still something I love and listen to when I'm not listening to Haydn & friends.  In fact, I created a playlist of Miles and Mozart which is a great randomized listening experience for me.

I really enjoy it when the shuffle mixes the jazz and the classical, as well.

And you remind me that, in fact, I hear both jazz at large, and "Papa," very differently now than I did years ago.

[Philoctetes3]

For me the whole of the 21st century. About a decade ago, I would have considered many of the things that I enjoy today trash. Back then I would have questioned their aesthetics and their artistic integrity. A specific example would be Liza Lim, or extensions and extended music.

I still don't get Mozart's symphonies, but I do return to them.

[some guy]

Practically everything.

The most startling was probably M. Behrens' Final Ballet. I'm very cautious about which CDs I recycle, as my later impressions have too often turned out differently from my first ones. And Final Ballet is one I almost didn't hold on to.

Instead, I gave it a listen every couple of years or so. Meh, meh, meh. Then I started enjoying some of the most stark (non-repetitious) minimalism going. Tom Johnson. Sachiko M.

And then I gave Final Ballet another of its periodic spins.

Magic.

It always seems like where you are now is where you'll always be, even when surveying the changes you've made in the past. But I don't doubt that ten years from now, I'll hear everything differently from how I hear it now. It's happened too many times before. (Monteverdi was someone I admired ten years ago, admired without liking. Now I'm always ready for hours of Monteverdi. Splendid stuff. Scelsi was someone I deprecated twenty years ago, strongly. Ten years ago? Nothing but admiration.)

[Brian]

There was a time, a few years ago, when I hated Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. Imagine!

Exposure to more and more harmonically and technically complex music has reduced my "learning curve" significantly; but then, I'm 22 and my ears are still developing rapidly. Stravinsky, who was in my 'doghouse' until a year ago as all nervous rhythm and no substance, is poised for a big, big outbreak as I start relishing more of his output.

[Elgarian]

I now see - looking back over a span of decades - that there's a continuous process going on. When I was a teenager it was Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, plus a few oddments like Scheherazade and The Planets. And really that was it. Pretty much everything else seemed tame. There was a big leap forward into Wagner in my twenties; Puccini a little later. And since then there's been a steady accumulation of love for composers that had previously turned me off.

The last ten years have been particularly fruitful. Mozart was transformed from being a pleasant purveyor of background music into a creature close to godhood. Handel and a lot of French baroque leapt from nowhere into the top ten. Swing Jazz was transformed from 'what?' to 'WOW!' The most recent huge breakthrough was Haydn (waving at Gurn, here). I can see that all these discoveries may seem chronologically restricted and almost reactionary. But when you're someone like me who has simply disregarded them as 'not for me' for most of his life, it's all been (and still is) a great adventure, in truth. So I can't imagine, now, how I once managed without Lully, Rameau, and Charpentier; Handel's Italian cantatas (oh what a miserable creature I must have been); Mozart's piano concertos - and Cosi, and Don Giovanni; etc. etc. I don't see an end to this, except that there's so much unexplored territory remaining and I don't have enough time.

[71 dB]

I didn't care that much about solo instrumental music (organ, harpsichord, even piano) when I started listening to classical music. I thought it is much lesser than orchestral or chamber music because there is only ONE instrument. Solo piano music was something I listened to but I almost avoided solo organ and harpsichord music.

Slowly I have learned to appreciate solo instrumental music too. J.S.Bach showed me how great organ music can be. About 5 years ago I suddenly understood that solo instrumental music has one huge asset: Since there is only one player, everything happens in great coherency. There is no problems of players not playing well together.

[Todd]

I can't say there are specific works or even composers I view differently now than ten years ago.  Rather, there are entire genres I look at differently.  Organ music and a cappella liturgical works use to hold no interest for me, whereas now I enjoy them quite a bit. 

[Sammy]

Slowly I have learned to appreciate solo instrumental music too. J.S.Bach showed me how great organ music can be. About 5 years ago I suddenly understood that solo instrumental music has one huge asset: Since there is only one player, everything happens in great coherency. There is no problems of players not playing well together.

But there remains the potential problem of hands not playing well together.

[Karl Henning]

What do you hear differently, now, to when you heard it ten years ago?  Also, quite possibly, the recordings of Erich Leinsdorf with the BSO.

Here is a page with an exit interview with the conductor, just before his last concert with the BSO at Tanglewood.

[techniquest]

Three works which I knew - in a sense - but dismissed years ago, but which now I admire and enjoy hugely are: Beethoven 6th Symphony; Nielsen 6th Symphony and Vaughan Williams 2nd symphony.
On the other hand, works that I used to listen to all the time but which now rarely - if ever - get put on the CD player include Mahler 6th, Arnold 5th and Shostakovich 7th. Isn't life strange?

[Karl Henning]

Well . . . I may rarely play the Leningrad, but I love it every time I listen to it : )

[Ataraxia]

To answer the OP, not much.

[jwinter]

By scrounging around in the old forum, I find that I signed up here in February, 2005.  So, 10 years ago would put me about 3 years before joining.  What do I hear differently now vs then?  Goodness, where to begin...

In 2002:

•   While I had 1000s of CDs of rock, blues, etc., I had perhaps 200 classical CDs total, all by the usual suspects (Beethoven, Mozart et al).  Almost all orchestral music, mainly symphonies.  Probably the most "out-there" thing I had was a copy of Alexander Nevsky.
•   I had never even heard of Bruckner (much less heard anything by him), now one of my favorite composers
•   I had heard of Mahler, was intrigued, but hadn't really heard much, other than the 1st symphony and the Adagietto to the 5th.
•   I had a mild dislike for and no interest in JS Bach, primarily due to a severe negative reaction to the first recording of the Brandenburgs I ever owned (Kapp, which I still don't particularly like, but it was more the case of the listener not being prepared for the music. 
•   I thought Chopin was mushy over-romanticized drivel, even though I hadn't heard very much of it.  And I had a sneaking suspicion that the same was largely true of Brahms, Dvorak, and (especially) Tchaikovsky.
•   I wasn't completely happy with an orchestral CD unless it was conducted by Szell, Walter, or Karajan.  I'm still largely on the Szell & Walter bandwagons – there's very little that either have done that I don't like.  Karajan-ism has largely worn off.
•   What piano recordings I had were with either Emil Gilels (picked at random because he shares my late grandfather's first name – a bit of dumb luck there) or Rudolf Serkin.  Not a bad start.
•   My shelves had no Bach (other than those disliked Brandenburgs), Bartok, Berlioz (other than a lone, unloved Symphonie Fantastique), Bruckner, Copland, Debussy, Handel (other than the Watermusik), Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov (other than the 2nd Piano Concerto), Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Strauss, Stravinsky, or Vivaldi (other than the 4 Seasons), just to limit it to the obvious composers of whom I now have oodles, and would consider another person to be distinctly uncivilized if they lacked 

The primary difference between then and now, in a nutshell, is GMG.  The forum sparked and fed what has turned into a life-changing interest in classical music, and prompted me to explore all sorts of things I wouldn't have otherwise.  Since then I've made some friends, read some books, checked out some lectures from the Teaching Company, and otherwise tried to get some knowledge on the subject, and pass the contagion on to my kids, but GMG was the start, for which I'm eternally grateful.

[springrite]

Winterreise. Ten years ago, I hear all the anguish and agony. Now I do not. It is because I have changed. Now I feel peaceful when listening to it. It is like reviewing my past disasters. No flashbacks. Just a sequence of event that I am at peace with.

[Karl Henning]

By scrounging around in the old forum, I find that I signed up here in February, 2005.  So, 10 years ago would put me about 3 years before joining.  What do I hear differently now vs then?  Goodness, where to begin...

In 2002:

•   While I had 1000s of CDs of rock, blues, etc., I had perhaps 200 classical CDs total, all by the usual suspects (Beethoven, Mozart et al).  Almost all orchestral music, mainly symphonies.  Probably the most “out-there” thing I had was a copy of Alexander Nevsky.
•   I had never even heard of Bruckner (much less heard anything by him), now one of my favorite composers
•   I had heard of Mahler, was intrigued, but hadn’t really heard much, other than the 1st symphony and the Adagietto to the 5th.
•   I had a mild dislike for and no interest in JS Bach, primarily due to a severe negative reaction to the first recording of the Brandenburgs I ever owned (Kapp, which I still don’t particularly like, but it was more the case of the listener not being prepared for the music. 
•   I thought Chopin was mushy over-romanticized drivel, even though I hadn’t heard very much of it.  And I had a sneaking suspicion that the same was largely true of Brahms, Dvorak, and (especially) Tchaikovsky.
•   I wasn’t completely happy with an orchestral CD unless it was conducted by Szell, Walter, or Karajan.  I’m still largely on the Szell & Walter bandwagons – there’s very little that either have done that I don’t like.  Karajan-ism has largely worn off.
•   What piano recordings I had were with either Emil Gilels (picked at random because he shares my late grandfather’s first name – a bit of dumb luck there) or Rudolf Serkin.  Not a bad start.
•   My shelves had no Bach (other than those disliked Brandenburgs), Bartok, Berlioz (other than a lone, unloved Symphonie Fantastique), Bruckner, Copland, Debussy, Handel (other than the Watermusik), Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov (other than the 2nd Piano Concerto), Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Strauss, Stravinsky, or Vivaldi (other than the 4 Seasons), just to limit it to the obvious composers of whom I now have oodles, and would consider another person to be distinctly uncivilized if they lacked 

The primary difference between then and now, in a nutshell, is GMG.  The forum sparked and fed what has turned into a life-changing interest in classical music, and prompted me to explore all sorts of things I wouldn’t have otherwise.  Since then I’ve made some friends, read some books, checked out some lectures from the Teaching Company, and otherwise tried to get some knowledge on the subject, and pass the contagion on to my kids, but GMG was the start, for which I’m eternally grateful.

"A testimonial, Dear Friends!"

Wonderful, Bill.