I've actually always been in to the intensity and raw emotion of orchestrated movie and video game scores so it wasn't a huge deal to jump into Classical. It helps that I had taken music all through high school and gained an appreciation for the traditional instruments (and played about 20 different arrangements of Canon).
The final push came from a course on Music History I took in university (Classical period to Modern day). We had to memorize about 30 pieces of music and then had listening tests. Getting to know the music so well that you can pick out the piece and movement at any point in the music will really do a number on anyone, provided they stick with it.
But in all honesty, and as cliche as it may be, Beethoven's Fifth. Mahler has some great numbers, Mozart and Papa Haydn as well. Holst, Wagner, Puccini, Liszt and many others.
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