How did you fall in love with Classical Music?

[jprice]

I am a true Classical Music "nut" - but it wasn't always so . . .

My parents always played classical music while I was growing up - and I did my absolute best to avoid having to listen to it. I was a "rock and roller" all the way through high school and most of college, avoiding anything remotely resembling the junk my parents played.

Until one day . . . for some inexplicable reason . . . I picked up a copy of Ray Conniff's "CONCERT IN RHYTHM" which contained a dozen classical "tunes" played and sung in "pop" fashion in the inimitable style of Mr. Conniff, his orchestra and chorus.

Amazingly, I, a classical music "hater" became hooked by a pop music version of great and beautiful classical music.

From that point on, I have loved classical music. I immediately bought copies of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (even now, some 50 years later, I still have those two LP's) and in the ensuing years, I've amassed a fairly large collection of LP's, CD's and SACD's of that genre, while almost completely forgetting the lure of "rock and roll". (I now have around 14,000 LP's and several thousand silver discs - mostly classical and jazz) And play classical music every day.

Anyway, this was the start for me, and I'm actually playing the Ray Conniff album while I write this post - and I still like it.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

My father was a "melomane" French for a person who loves music. Classical Music was played all the time and for a while as a kid, I thought there were only four kinds of Music: Haitian, French Singers, Latin-American Music sung in Spanish (Cuban and Mexican Artists) and Classical..
I liked Classical but didn't love it ...until I grew up to my mid-teens and started understanding and thoroughly feeling its beauty ... The first record I bought was Bach Mass in B Minor with Colin Davis conducting , can't find it in my dad's collection for some reason, which reminds me to get it on CD .. Still am discovering (Bruckner, Hindeminth, Ives, Buxtelhude recently) and have extended the search to non-Western Classical Music... I am slowly exploring Indian Classical Music and Arabic Classical Music .. Both enthralling, once you understand and feeltheir grammar and vocabulary if you allow me this expression.. The last two thanks to Spotify which is a musical trip of the highest order, an incredible FREE Ali-Baba cave of music treasures .. OT here : Please people do try it and prepare yourself for a feast .. yeah! it is compressed .. So what discover the music and then Purchase, search, fish, bid for, the LP CD or Edison Wax Cylnder .. It is that good ... End of OT

 

[Jazzbo]

Good evening all,

As an African American in my senior years there was no emphasis on classical music during my pre-teen and teen years. My family was considered poor. During my early years I had never heard classical music of any kind. My family's concentration was on eating regularly. However, I had a middle school music teacher who loved classical music. He introduced me to Bach as well as Hector Berlioz and Franz Schubert. What a blessing that was. I had to hide my love for this music from my peers lest I be ridiculed and made fun of back then. I hated hiding what I loved but that's the way it had to be then. As I progressed though life I grew more fond of this music. When I went to work in Germany I was able to begin collecting lots of German pressings of jazz and classical LP's. I now have an equal collection of classical and jazz music. I am very blessed and am thankful to have studied music under this teacher who did not mind spending time after school to share his love of music.

jazzbo

 

[MasterChief]

I was 15 and for some reason I bought Sheherazade composed by Rimsky-Korsakov and after that I was hooked. My parents never listened to music and at that time I preferred electronic music such as Kraftwerk. I still have the cd and love it! After Rimsky-Korsakov I bought Prokofiev, Shostakovich and pretty much everything from Russia. After some years I bought my first cd with Bach. It was the sonata and partita for solo violin. When I heard the chaconne from Partita No.2 I fell in love. Now, 25 years later, I still love that piece and I listen to it every week.

I have gone through every genre in the classical repertoire and for me, Mozart and Bach is everything I need.


My first classical album:


My favourite:

 

[NorthStar]

---Nice thread, and nice post Julian (21).

 

[Raffles]

I think that 'classical' is too broad a term. I love the late 19th and 20th century composers (not including the real avant garde stuff) and maybe a bit of Bach and Gabrieli and a few other bits and pieces, but much of everything else leaves me pretty much cold. It feels to me that the music of Mozart, say, was once thrilling because it bent the then musical rules, but those rules are long gone; I just can't hear what everyone gets so excited about.

But why do I love the 20th century composers like Holst, Britten, Tippett, Vaughan Williams? Maybe it's as simple as association with childhood (like that was the sort of music that featured in the old B&W films of the 40s and 50s which were on TV during the day in the UK in the 1970s), but I also think it's to do with its sparseness and elegance. I like some of John Adams (e.g. Short Ride in a Fast Machine), Philip Glass, Debussy, Ravel, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Mahler, Grieg, Malcolm Arnold, Maxwell Davies and many others - nothing 'flabby' or too Germanic or 'prissy'. If I had to convert someone to classical music with a single piece, I'd point them to the Fugue at the end of Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

 

[caesar]

Great stuff!

I wonder who is more fortunate, those who discovered classical music when younger and have lived with it their whole lives, or those adults who have discovered this cornucopia or treasures.


Please keep the personal stories coming!

 

[NorthStar]

Great stuff!

I wonder who is more fortunate, those who discovered classical music when younger and have lived with it their whole lives, or those adults who have discovered this cornucopia or treasures.

Please keep the personal stories coming!

-----It's all very relative I think; anytime is a good time. :b

* By the way; true, Classical Music encompasses many variations.
And even Rock&Roll has strong Classical influences; so is some Heavy Metal music too.
...Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Yes, and Genesis, and Jethro Tull, and King Crimson, and Pink Floyd, and Gentle Giant for example, and many many more ...

 

[AMP]

My parents always had classical music playing at home or in the car so my exposure goes back as far as I can remember and it actually changed the way in which my own musical tastes developed. I missed most of the late '80s and early '90s popular music scene as I was busy discovering jazz. That made me a bit "strange" in my teenage years, but in looking at a lot of the dreck that came out of that time I don't think I missed out on much.

My siblings and I were all encouraged (and often forced) to take up a musical instrument in our pre-teens. In my case I lacked the aptitude to play proficiently, but reveled in musical theory and appreciation.

 

[Ron Resnick]

A friend played for me Mozart Jupiter Symphony No. 41. And around the fourth of fifth time hearing it I began to like it.

 

[RogerD]

In grade school one of my teachers played viola for the San Francisco Symphony. She taught us about Bach, Beethoven,Brahms,ect. My Favorites are Ravel,Delius,Copland,Stravinsky,Russian composers,Puccini,and many more.

 

[dcc]

I grew up in a family where TV was banned (we did not have one at home) but we were highly encouraged to read and listen to music. My parents were quite generous and funded a lot of my purchases of books and records.

My parents were both classical music lovers. I received my first classical music records when I was eight year old (Decca SXL - Haydn - Opus 33 by the Weller Quartet) and I still have them in perfect shape 46 years after. As a young kid, I learned playing violin but I was everything but gifted and I gave up.

As teenagers, my father allowed my brother and me using his system where the center piece was a Thorens TD 124/II. That’s how my brother and I became audiophiles.

To this day, the backbone of my classical music LP collection is coming from my father as a well as several dozens of books on classical music.

 

[bonzo75]

I think for me to explain this I have to briefly suggest how my musical taste progressed. There is a pattern which led me to classical. When I was 10, in Mumbai I started growing up on Wham's Make kit Big, Thriller, Madonna's first album, etc. In around three years, I heard my first guitar - where the streets have no name in U2's grammy winning album. That taught me I was getting tired of pop beats, and moving away from them to guitar and other music that varied more.

Soon after, in 1992, MTV started in India. Initially we thought it was cool to listen to any of the top 20. These then started featuring GnR's Use your illuson, Metallica's Black album, Def Leppard's Let's Get Rocked. Def Leppard was the easiest to like during the transition from pop to rock as it was just hard pop. While other rock groups were trying to be Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard was being Duran Duran, and easier to appreciate. But all this time, I was realizing that soon after I got used to the rythm of a song or its tempo, I would know how the song would play out immediately after it started, and forward the track (on a cassette) to the next one.

I then thought the heavier the band, the cooler I am. So Metallica became my favorite.

At this time, a cousin thirteen years my elder, gave me Deep Purple's best of and Led Zep IV. I was amazed at the differnet instruments rapidly played by Deep P - rapid keyboards, rapid lead guitar, rapid drums, all played in coordination. As I was going off beats, this was my first exposure to rapid instrument transitions, handovers between group members. Where the streets have no name had also been guitar, less beats, but Deep P was doing that in a more complex manner Child in Time, Burn, etc. GnR was doing compositions in November Rain and Estranged. This was all new to me and I was loving it

However, I forwarded Stairway to Heaven the first 4 times I heard it. It had no drums. I did not get to the part where Bonham and the guitar comes in. It bored the hell out of me. As much as I did not want a pop beat, I had never heard a song without beats or drums. And I did not want to like Jimmy Page, because then as a teen I was emotionally defending my favorites, Slash and Blackmore.

I then took it to a friend to tell him what a hyped up group this is. As we played the song, we were chatting with each other, and the song played through the drums and the guitar. We loved it, but even after that, it took me a while to appreciate Zep. To appreciate Zep, one had to follow instruments note to note, and appreciate group synergy and rawness. Also, the song composition was more complex, and you had to listen to the entire song to make sense, not just to the first few beats (with certain exceptions). I also began to appreciate how a group would change its play from studio to a live concert, and still synergise, possibly more. All of a sudden, most of the music that I was listening to, I ceased to like. Dylan and the live versions of Clapton survived alongside Zep.

Why am I writing this before I get to the classical part? The lack of constant beats is important. I was always reacting positively to following the rapid change of instruments and to time intervals leading me to prefer Led Zep and classical, over constant tempos.

This scene from Sidney Lumet's Running On Empty is one of my favorites, where he says You cannot dance to Beethoven - at least, not the way you dance to pop. I dance to the 9th all the time

Anyway, carrying on, I had to find new music. I couldn't just live with three artists. So I bought some Times/Classic FM CDs, all classical. I also moved to London in the year 2000. With three of my friends, went to Royal Ballet's Swan Lake to say we have been there, done that. All 4 of us at the Royal Opera House were amazed. We had seen nothing like this. This was by far the best experience I had since moving, better than seeing all these new European cities.

We then slowly started going to concerts since then. Didn't understand much which to go to except by composers and famous pieces. Also, the cost of a concert had always been viewed as very expensive compared to say cost of movies. But as hifi expenses went up, cost of concerts became relatively cheaper. The mindset of checking out different concert halls, comparing sounds at different positions, made me go to more. The more I went to, the more I learned. It became a positive loop. I was meeting concert regulars, learning from them, they would recommend upcoming events, discuss performers. Then I sold my system. When I had the Martin Logans, I would invariably go more to St Martin's in the field. Why? Chamber music in a church sounded the most like stats on valves. So I went out to listen to my system because that was the sound template in my mind. But after selling up, it took me roughly 6 months to reset my template - and I began to get really addicted. After all this was my main musical diet. No of concerts jumped to approx. 50 a year. The only other music I now listen to is when I go to a non-classical concerts is by one of the Zep cover bands.

So, that's how - a theme that started with a simple guitar leading me away from pop beats, to more complex rock guitaring, continues with the guitar being replaced by Chaconne.

 

[Manesp]

Hearing piano music by Mozart.

 

[Simon Moon]

I think for me to explain this I have to briefly suggest how my musical taste progressed

I will also explain my musical progression, which has a couple of similarities, and differences to Bonzo75.

I quickly grew tired of pop music when I was pretty young, and soon discovered Deep Purple, Zep, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Ten Years After, and other 'heavy' rock bands of the 70's. As with Bonzo75, I also appreciated their higher level of musicianship over pop bands.

As part of my 70's exploration, I also discovered the prog bands of that time: YES, King Crimson, ELP, Gentle Giant, Camel, and very soon after, prog bands of Italy: PFM, Banco, Le Orme, Il Balletto di Bronzo and many others. The level of musicianship of these bands was dramatically higher than the bands listed in the previous paragraph. As soon as I discovered prog, I quickly did not care about the bands above.

All these bands, and the endless number of other prog bands from all over the world, were heavily influenced by classical music of the Romantic and Classical periods. But for some reason, I still did not make the jump into classical. I tried, but classical still did not resonate with me.

A bit later, I began to explore the avant-garde side of prog rock. Bands like: Henry Cow, Thinking Plague, Aranis, Magma, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, etc. These bands were also heavily influenced by classical, but unlike the other prog bands listed above, these bands weren't influenced by the Romantic and Classical periods, but classical from the late 20th century and contemporary periods.

As soon as I delved into these periods, I was hooked. Composers like Ligeti, Penderecki, Elliott Carter, Jennifer Higdon, Joseph Schwantner, Berio, Joan Tower, and many others contemporary composers are what float my boat. Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, Bach, Brahms, et al, do nothing for me.

 

[DexterMiller]

When (as a 5 year-old) I'd seen a syndicated repeat of an old Get Smart episode, which had to do with: Max getting taken hostage by a rogue spy masquerading as an orchestral conductor...whom, tries to kill him (and guest star Don Rickles' character) by rigging up a GIANT CANNON to go off when a record of the 1812 Overture stops playing(!).

They had it playing on a cheap Garrard changer as Don Adams and Rickles were trying to figure out an escape plan. You could see, quite clearly, that it was a grey label Columbia Masterworks recording and the one by Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra from 1962(!). Anyway, I knew my father had had a copy of the same recording and I'd ask him to play it frequently.

After that, I moved on to discover Bernstein and then the European conductors/orchestras.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . .

The lack of constant beats is important. I was always reacting positively to following the rapid change of instruments and to time intervals leading me to prefer Led Zep and classical, over constant tempos.

. . .

I found this very interesting because I recognized in this section the exact opposite of what leads me to be attracted to certain pop/rock songs and classical pieces: I tend to like consistent and obvious beats and tempos and repetitions.

 

[astrotoy]

As a kid, classical music, playing records on our mono hifi system (Heathkits that my dad built) was part of the family ritual- Sunday morning it was opera instead of church. My mom played the piano, all classical music and we started music lessons on the piano that carried through our lives. We went to concerts, driving up to Chicago to hear the Chicago Symphony (Reiner was the conductor - though my memories are vague about what we heard) and the Lyric Opera.

Bernstein was on TV with his great children's concerts, and we always tuned into the "Voice of Firestone" featuring the top opera singers in the world on a weekly TV show (imagine that!) sponsored by a tire company. There was also Texaco who sponsored the weekly broadcasts of the Saturday afternoon matinee performances of the Metropolitan Opera (the complete opera!) on the radio. Milton Cross was the announcer and there would be features like the Opera Quiz at intermission.

Larry

 

[Tango]

When Bonzo visited me last year and at the same time the first box of vinyls from the General arrived. (Thank you for introducing me to a vast new world of good music and also more way to spend money. ) Quite a few of them drew me in without I knowing the music. And they offered different pictures or presentations of different musical performances interestingly. Some did not sound "attractive" or "fashioned" to the ears at first but they appeared to represent the way they were recorded back in the 50's. Now I enjoy searching for the piece that I like from different composers, conductors and musicians. It is quite surprising to me that the same musical piece from a composer can sound so different in the extent of yawning to get up and dance (yes to a classical music.) listening to one conductor and musician to another. Last night I played Kogan/Vandernoot Tchaikovsky from youtube while showering. I was dancing in joy. Luckily didn't slip and fall. That would be a freakin stupid scene.

Kind regards,
Tang

 

[NorthStar]