How I found classical music

[classicalfan]

I have been visting this forum for a long time at least a year or so and I just want to thank everybody here for posting so much VALUABLE information. I fell in love with classical music about 2 years ago, my father was a fan but I didn't know untill I looked through his Cd collection (he had been deceased   about a month by this time) and discovered something that would change my life. It was a cd entitled "classical masters". I was smoking a substance one night and said what the hell and popped in the cd. Words cannot describe how the first track moved me (Moonlight Sonata mvmnt1). Right away i knew this was my music, the music inside my wonder about life. It took me on an emotional journey through my whole life(bittersweet happiness overshadowed by intense longing). I heard the absolute beauty of chopin for the first time in his raindrop prelude which was the second track, this literrally brought me to tears, the most profound thing I had ever heard in my life is how I would describe it, I was in the depths of my sorrow and yet it was so beautiful, each chord was tearing my soul apart piece by piece, and then the ending was something just indescribable but seemed to say to me everything would be ok. In tears after the prelude, a piece by mozart came, that music had a quality that I had never heard before , it forced  me to feel so happy.

anyway.. thats how I started playing and listening to classical music, I just felt like sharing that with you guys.

[persona]

I discovered classical music by watching Georges Pludermacher play the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas on TV. They moved me in a way I can't fully describe. Now they hardly ever broadcast this again, and it's a shame because his are the versions I like the most. I've listened to a few others, some of them very expressive (like Claudio Arrau) but still not the same. Does anyone know if Georges Pludermacher's recordings are availabe on CD?

[rafant]

I was smoking a substance one night and said what the hell and popped in the cd.

Je, je, that's way of falling in love with classical music make me laugh. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone as the best general approach, though, je je.

My own way was long time ago, at early school, after I heard a classmate saying: "When I don't have sleepiness, I tune the National radio station in (transmitting only classical music), and fall asleep in minutes". I did the same one night, but I liked what I heard so much, and since then there is no other music worth to hear.

[mattm]

Nice thread!  I used to always listen to classical on the radio when I was younger.  It was always just kinda background music to me, I never really listened, but I did enjoy it.  I would never had fathomed trying to get a piano or keyboard and start learning how to play.

Fast forward a few years, and I get involved with some electronic music and try and write some electronic tracks with synths and what not.  I then realized that learning to play the piano would be beneficial for me, and then it's just been engulfing me since and I don't see any escape.   

[rc]

I played guitar for years, started some bands, had a lot of fun but was very frustrated with having to rely on flaky musicians to have a complete sound... So I got into classical guitar, loved the challenge and gradually came to like the music for itself. Did that for a good long while.

One day on a curiousity whim, picked up a CD of Beethoven Sonatas by Brendel. Listened to it everyday on my walk to school, picked up more CD's and grew to love the stuff.

Picked up a piano and here I am, while my guitars grow dusty. No regrets.

[gilad]

i got very into jazz as a teen,  because my grandad was a good jazz pianist and i wanted to connect with him after he died(if you know what i mean, nothing freaky:) anyway i started lessons to learn piano a year ago, i wanted to learn to play jazz, all the standards etc.
at the same time i had a friend who i used to go to the mall with to check out jazz cds. one day for some reason i picked up 2 debussy discs, really nice stuff, one for four hands i think and the other little known works of debussy.
an obsession was born. i love the range of emotins and feelings to found in classical music, it hits my spot.

[m1469]

I really didn't know much about Classical music... for quite a while actually.  I learned a little bit about it when I was 12-14, but I never really got any true insights into it at that time.  I didn't actually start to really know about it, become familiar with it, and then love it until I reached University.  Some of it I just naturally felt connected with... I "got" the depth of it.

But, when I met my main University teacher and started lessons with him, that is when I really started to live my life at a whole different level... as a result of studying Classical music with him (and with my other teachers there at University, but my piano teacher seemed to be the catalyst).  That's when I got truly hooked and have never shaken free.

Thanks wonderful teacher(s) !!

m1469

[emmdoubleew]

Yeah classicalfan, my epxperience was similar, except it was with the Mozart Requiem in D minor and I was just going through personal problems. This was two years ago. Almost cried my eyes out.

[stevie]

thats a moving story, classicalfan.

i just listened to rock music for a while, and gravitated towards more complex and progressive stuff, so then i thoght weh shouldnt i try the real deal...

first piece that got me into piano was the 3rd mvt of the moonlight, and the first pieces that made me appreciate pianistic virtuosity were chopin's revolutionary etude and liszt's la campanella.

this was all around late 2000/early 2001.

[jas]

I took up the piano and lo, there was Chopin! It was love at first hear. That's about it. And my love of classical music has been expanding ever since. Sorry guys. No emotional crises, no substances of dubious legality. Just my piano (and a rather pushy teacher).

[barnowl]

In my earliest days on this earth, we lived in an apartment building. At the time in question, I must have been about 4 or 5. It was a beautiful summer day, I was in shorts and a polo shirt. Walking along on the sidewalk just  outside our apartment, I suddenly heard for the very first time the most glorious sounds ever: a marching band.

I literally froze with one foot in front of the other, thrilled to the core with that music. It was just too good for human ears. Well I recovered sufficiently to hop the fence behind the house, and race to the Emily Bill Playground where the band was practising.

I was transfixed. There was nothing going on in the whole world except that glorious music, coming from those great big guys (high schoolers?) who marched up and down the playground in perfect formation. It was the happiest, most wonderful thing I'd ever experienced. I can still remember the melody.

Not too long after that I had sticks and a little snare drum that tied to my belt.  When I'd hear them strike up, I'd grab my stuff, zip over there and try to march with them.  I'd wait until they'd stopped, then I would line up with front rank, drumsticks ready.

The drum major would blow the whistle, make a magic move with his baton, and we'd all start marching and playing. But no matter how fast I moved my little legs, the band marched way, way ahead of me.

It wasn't totally discouraging though. At least I could hear the music., and they'd soon be coming back towards me.

Then, Fantasia came out, and that set off another series of musical thrills compliments of Walt Disney.

My love affair with music was off and running.

[princess_moose]

I found classical music when I started doing AS levels here in the UK, I had to study some and realised what I'd missed. I've not looked back since .

[joeplaysthepiano]

I too only fell in love with classical music recently.  I was watching the movie "The Pianist" on dvd and when Adrien Brody plays the 1st ballade for the Nazi soldier towards the end, I froze and said "Oh my God, that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard."  Little did I know that half of the piece wasn't missing in the movie.

I didn't know that such brilliant music existed.  I had played a little piano as a young kid.  The hardest piece I played was a movement from a Kuhlau sonatina.  I thought classical music was very boring at the time, so I quit playing piano for 8 years.  Then, at age 19 I discovered the music of Chopin, and it's been a love affair ever since.  I immediately starting playing as much Chopin as possible, starting with the op.10, no.3 etude.  This is all despite that all these Chopin pieces were/still are way over my head.  Now I listen to nothing else but amazing classical music.  So long rap music.

[pianarchist]

I started to play the piano because I was into jazz and blues. I was happy to learn classical music to begin with because I wanted to develop a good technique but I definitely didn't expect classical music to obsess me as much as it does.  I don't necessarily love all of the classical music that I hear but I always do find it extremely interesting and mentally stimulating. I still love all kinds of other music. My iPod woud have one of the most eclectic playlists in the world.

[alejo_90]

Mmmm, nice thread, it brings back good memories.

I began to study the piano when I was 4, both my mother and my godmother were accomplished pianists, and they wanted me to learn it. My mother was and is a classical freak (I was born with Bach's 6th Brandenburg conerto:)).

I've always liked classical music, but I listened more to rock, rap, hip-hop etc. Then one day, I listened to Bach's Toccata & Fuge in D minor, and I went mad, it made me feel emotions that no other kind of music will never make me feel, and I started looking around for more interpretations of that piece until I got like 28. After that I officially entered my baroque period, I listened to almost all of the works by Bach, Vivaldi & Händel.

When I wanted to explore other classical genres, I discovered many great composers such as Chopin, Rachmaninoff & Beethoven, my eternal favourite. Since then I always listen to classical music all day long. My mother thinks I am pretty obsessive, and a friends of her says that I've listened more works in one year than he has listened in ten years.

Cheers
Alex

[emmdoubleew]

Then one day, I listened to Bach's Toccata & Fuge in D minor, and I went mad, it made me feel emotions that no other kind of music will never make me feel

Hahah, back in the days when I was experiencing a lot of emotional issues a frickin midi version of the fugue made me almost tear up.

[ryan2189]

I started to love classical not when I began piano, but almost a year later. I started lessons for the sake of learning how to play some classy jazz tunes and maybe some contemporary pieces. I went to my friend's sixteenth birthday party at the end of that summer and one of his friends knew how to play piano (and for quite a long time I must add) He sat down at the baby grand in the foyer and played the Chopin Nocturne in C minor. The beauty and virtuosity of the piece really opened my eyes to something I really didn't think could be possible (in terms of technical difficulty) A weel later I bought a CD of Chopin nocturnes and the rest just falls into place.

[steveie986]

I was about 11. One day I was bored of watching footy and popped in an LP disc of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto no. 1. It made me feel funny, like the first time I stumbled on a copy of Playboy magazine. The rest was history.

Of course, now I find the Tchaikovsky 1 unlistenable, but I'll never forget that music.

I also watched the BBC documentary series on the great composers (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, among others).

[classicalfan]

Couperin, the mysterious barricade, great piece of music.

[d.shosty]

I posted my long story on this forum last week, but I neglected to mention the first piece which touched me profoundly:

The Goldberg Variations (as recoreded by gould).

I heard it for the first time in 11th grade.  I can't explain how incredible I felt - like this music was written for me.  I understood every note.