Wagner. I <3 Wagner.

Mahler. "Titan" Symphony No 1. Love, love it.

I'm also fond of Tchaikovsky. I've always enjoyed "The Nutcracker" because of the ballet. So honestly, Tchaikovsky is the way I've made a very tenuous step into the genre. It can be quite intimidating when discussing with someone who really knows their stuff.

I prefer the 1812 Overture over The Nutcracker myself. It could be that I had to listen to it over and over again for a class a few years ago, so I got sick of it.

I just listened to the Finale. I remember it from my music app class from way back. Good stuff. Now, if only I could remember all the useful information I gained(but have now lost) from that class.

I've never been to the Nut Cracker performance, have you? It seems ridiculous that I haven't yet.

Surprisingly I have never seen the Nutcracker performed either. The only Christmas performance I've ever gone to is Handel's Messiah.

Yes! I love it live and I watch it every year on television when the Christmas holiday rolls around.

My daughter was also in a local production of the ballet. She was a mouse; it was adorable:)

nimrod & Satie
 

Elgars Nimrod played a big part in getting me into Classical. But more recently Ive been checking out Erik Saties piano solo work. good stuff

MTT/SFS: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (I) - YouTube


MTT/SFS: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (II) - YouTube


MTT/SFS: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (III) - YouTube


MTT/SFS: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (IV) - YouTube

I'd say The Enigma Variations was the first classical piece that I actually enjoyed all the way through, and kickstarted my interest in the genre.
Satie is great as well! Outside of the 3 gymnopedies and 6 gnossienes, I'd recommend La Belle Excentrique, Sonatine Bureaucratique, and Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire.
His philosophy on his own compositions is pretty funny as well. He's said that he wanted his music to be played in the background, and not listened to. He's also referred to his pieces as "furniture music." Whether he was serious in all of this, I don't know. Man was muy bizarro.

High School Really
 

I had been playing music in school ensembles for a while but when I got to high school I joined a talented youth symphony and the moment I heard the symphony blast first note to the Phantom of the Opera theme I just melted at how great classical music could be, especially when we played March to the Scaffold which was definitely my favorite of the performance.

classical has never really got a hold on me, i have tried though,allbeit, through the classical albums of one of my favourite artists in Paul McCartney...but i still dont 'get it' at all...
maybe one day the penny will drop and i'll love classical music

One piece that truly made an impact on me was Bach's Matthew's Passion. I would post a link, but I can't yet.

I think it's fair to say this piece changed my life.

Wow.. This is an amazing creation in classical music. I love listening to this kind of music. Thanks for providing this stuff..

I was more-or-less raised around classical music, and started swimming with the stream only faster (as Quentin Crisp would put it). Dad was definitely not a musician (although his brother was). However, for a non-musician, his appreciation of classical music was above-average. The light classics, anyway. As a former G.I., he always had a vague aversion to German music after Beethoven. To listen to Wagner would be especially unpatriotic. Mom played the piano somewhat, like every self-respecting young lady in her time (especially an upper-mid-westerner of German background) and kept at it just for pleasure. I must have been about 14 before I was confident that I could play better than she did. Naturally, a good middle-class home would also have a piano, in her view, and all the children would take piano lessons for a couple years at least. As I recall, all of my grade-school teachers could play the piano, too; it was almost taken for granted. How the times have changed.

One piece playing on the phonograph often when I was a little kid was Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 by Enesco. It's very bright and cheerful and easy to listen to. That wouldn't be a bad start. At age 10, by then fascinated by the organ, I discovered Dad's old "78" of the Piece Heroique by Franck and nearly wore it out. It was the first piece of organ sheet music I ever bought, and I tried to learn it (quite a hopeless task at that stage). It so happened that he had heard the college organist play it when he was in college, asked him what it was, and bought a recording when he could. Some thirty years later, I would became an eager student of that same college organist: nice circle of good karma.

Beethoven's Fur Elise got me into classical stuff.

My parents were both classical fans and had (have) a very extensive collection. But I think what really did it for me was my first formal piano teacher (after my mom) was a big Chopin fan, so I started learning the easier pieces at a fairly early age. I still have a special love for them, especially the Nocturns.

The piece that made me want to delve into classical more was Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the Winter movement to be specific. That part is sick as f*ck. I also liked a lot of Chopin pieces that I was hearing.

( https://www.musicbanter.com/games-li...litz-game.html )

I've given classical music a chance once or twice in the past, but nothing has ever really stuck, so I'm bumping this without much to comment.

Having said that, I've just noticed two posts on this page:-

^ Anyone who refs Quentin Crisp gets a thumbs up from me because I am right now rereading QC's autobiog, The Naked Civil Servant.

^ I had no idea that McCartney had written any classical music. TBH, instead of getting me into the genre, this clip made me hit the pause button after 57 seconds. Is that long enough for me to claim that I've given it a try?

Well what classical works have you tried and what do you remember about them? Also, what kinds of music are you generally a fan of?

McCartney's forays into classical are best ignored.

1812 Overture and Beethoven's 5th. Hearing both of these as a young kid blew me away. It helped that my dad had a really killer stereo and he loved playing classical really loud.

I listened to all of my dad's CDs by the time I was 7 or 8 and he had a few classical comps. I listened to the Chopin and Mozart ones the most, Turkish March shreds. I also got pretty into exploring the classics from 10-12 when I was getting into composition where I got deep into Vivaldi and Bach. Even had a symphony play my homage to the Four Seasons. Frank Zappa got me into the more modern stuff with Varese name drops and The Perfect Stranger.

^ Thanks for your interest, josht. That's very kind, but I'm not particularly looking to get into classical music right now. I usually like music that is sombre and "thin", if you know what I mean - not too many instruments at any one time, and not that lush orchestral wash which really puts me off classical music. So I've kind of enjoyed Rachmaninov, The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, and a couple of violin concertos.
Prob the very first pieces that tempted me to examine classical music were Ravel's Bolero and the bits of Beethoven's Ninth in A Clockwork Orange.

^ HaHa! I kind of guessed his efforts wouldn't be highly regarded.

And how about you, josht ? You haven't answered the question for yourself, or mentioned any particular favourites.

Have you heard Bach's Art of Fugue, Lisnaholic? Some of my favourite music of all time. Bach was the jazziest mofo in the world during his time.

^ Thank you very much Frownland: that is exactly the kind of classical music I can enjoy. I love the pace, the tone and the way it refrains from lurching up and down from one crescendo to the next. Obv, I haven't played it all yet, but for the first time in about forty years I'm listening to some classical music with genuine pleasure!

^ This sounds very impressive! Did you get some serious musical training then?

Have to say I like the turn of phrase that some reviewers are using:
Frown on Bach: "the jazziest mofo in the world"
Mondo on Vivaldi: "sick as f*ck"
:laughing:

I didn't really do more than dabble in classical for years. Then I got "Peleas Und Melisande" by Schöenberg on CD and finally started feeling more actively interested. Now I've got a fair amount of good stuff. Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and a bunch of things I can't remember the names of. What I've learned so far is that I tend to enjoy quartets more than full orchestra pieces and I definitely lean towards composers from between 1800 and present. I guess I really like late romantic era stuff.

Fair enough :)

I started playing the piano as a 7 yr old, but I didn't really start becoming a music fan until I was 13 or so. I tried figuring out what all the fuss was about by listening to a lot of pop/rap, and while I liked some of it this was also about the time I started learning to play some great classical pieces. I started to play/love Chopin, Rachmaninoff, then Beethoven, then I discovered Liszt and he was my favourite for awhile. I soon quit the piano for various reasons, but my love for the genre was well in place and I found it much more interesting than anything I'd heard from other genres (again, mainly pop and 'entry level' rap). The next 7 years or so, from 15-21, it was pretty much all I listened to, although I didn't start branching out too much from the Romantic era (especially piano music) until I was 19 or so. Then at 22 I started realising that there was lots of other great music in other genres if one looked for it, so now at 24 I've started exploring other genres too -mainly Jazz- but I still have a long way to go and Classical is my go-to (although really I've only scratched the surface with this huge genre). Favourites so far include:

Stravinsky: Orpheus, Apollo, early ballets (Firdbird/Petrushka/Rite of Spring), Symphony of Psalms, Scenes de Ballet, Pulcinella.

Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder, Eine Alpensinfonie, Metamorphosen, Tod und Verklärung, Morgen.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Romeo et Juliette, La Damnation de Faust, Les Troyens, Requiem.

Liszt: Piano Sonata, Annees de Pelerinage, Variations on Weinen Klagen Sorgen Zagen, various small works.

Chopin: Ballades 2 and 4, Preludes, Polonaise-Fantasy, scattered works from various collections.

Beethoven: Late Piano Sonatas, some earlier ones.

Brahms: A German Requiem, Piano Concerto #2, various late solo piano works, some other choral works.

Sibelius: Symphony No. 7, Tapiola.

Schumann: Fantasy Op. 17, Kreisleriana.

Debussy: Images (piano), Estampes, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.

Prokofiev: Piano Sonata #8, Piano Concerti 2 and 3.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6.

Rachmaninoff: Isle of the Dead, Piano Concerti 2-3, Etudes Tableaux (especially Op. 39).

Thanks for your detailed answer josht! That's a lot of years and a lot of listening that you've put in, but as you honestly say, still only scratching the surface of this almost limitless genre.

I've heard about 3 of the pieces you mention, but to all intents and purposes, I'm like a guy in the audience of a cartoon I once saw: A drawing of a concert hall, with the conductor on his plinth, busy with his baton, looks over his shoulder to tell the audience "... and now comes the bit you've heard on tv..."

In that spirit, here's the award-winning advert that gave a new lease of life to Dvorak's the New World Symphony:-



"Last stop on round would be old Ma Peggity's place...."

Awesome! Glad you dug it.

In addition to the traditional sense of rich harmonic and melodic beauty, classical music also has a lot of really dramatic and intensely heavy music. Varese and Bartok has some incredible explosive pieces that can be a game changer for some.





My parents are musicians and I was always surrounded by music. My mom gave me some rudimentary piano lessons and my dad gave me some guitar basics, but from about 10 or 11 onward I was self-taught.

You might be able to say that it speaks to the timelessness of the music.

The one I got last also counts, since I really like it and I'm effectively still in the process of getting into classical.

Malipiero. Didn't know about this composer. Just traded for it on a whim. It was cheap, it was string quartets and I've heard several good things from the "Brilliant Classics" label. Turns out it's really damn good. I've still only heard disc 1 though.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....OL._SX355_.jpg

^ That's a wonderful album cover, MicShazam, and a composer I've never heard of. As they are string quartets that you describe as "really damn good," I might give them a listen after I've checked out Frownland's latest recs.

TBH, I only came here to bump the thread and now...

https://memegenerator.net/img/images...icksanding.jpg

Of course, I'm not the most knowledgeable person on the subject, but it sounds good to me. I really like the melodic style and flavor of this album.

I routinely worry about all of the things I've said I will check out but have yet to give an opinion on. I don't know what my "success rate" is, but it's not 100% for sure!

Brings to mind this scene:



:p:

^ :rofl: I love Marge's last line!

... and yes, me too MicShazam: I don't check out everything I say I will. But you did listen to 801 Live, right?!

I'm not sure, actually :laughing:

Remind me again what it is and I promise I will listen to it.

At least I did my homework and have now listened to Viva! many times. :D

I started classical not too long ago and I first listened to Mahler's first symphony. It was very well done and different from other pieces I heard.

When I was a teenager I got into Ravel, Debussy and, in general, some of the "French Impressionists," but in a sort-of casual way. Didn't pay attention to anything else. It wasn't until I got into Mozart's Requiem when I was about 30 that I *really* got into classical music.

The Chopin pieces I played in piano lessons when I was a kid.

I'd listened to the symphony as a kid, off and on, but what really caught my attention and ignited my desire to learn classical piano was Steve Sharples' "Bolero" end credits piece for Moulin Rouge!. From there I found Ravel's "Boléro" in a Google search, and was pretty much hooked on what is broadly termed "classical" music.