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.

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