In the beginning

I grew up in a home where there was plenty of musical snobbery – yet the only classical recordings available were Reader's Digest compilations which hardly ever saw the turntable. The only positive family input was being taken to see D'Oyly Carte do Gilbert & Sullivan a number of times in my teens. But otherwise, the experience that really grabbed my attention was listening to Prokoviev's Lieutenant Kijé in school. That led to 'O' level and 'A' level studies and being hooked.

So how did you get interested in classical music?

I was always interested in classical music but in a very limited way i always listened to the melodies i like i.e. für elise of beethoven or waltz of flowers by tchaikovsky and i was not interested in interpreters and trying other works at all.Then at 31st of December 2005 i watched New Year Concert of Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Simon Rattle i loved and enjoyed the music they make very much but the conductor seemed acting to me he was exaggerating his moves,a day later this time it was Wiener Philharmoniker's turn to make a pass at my musical interests.Mariss Jansons was conducting whom i was familiar with from the Berliner Philharmoniker's European concert 2001 in Istanbul(i was watching that concert live and he was conducting).The music,the sound was joyous i liked the concert more than i liked Berlin concert and Jansons was just interested in giving is instructions.The crowd,me watching it on TV,orchestra and conductor himself,everybody everybody was in a great joy and then i said "Finally,that was what i have been looking for in music."

My parents were both orchestral musicians, and played the Double B Flat concert tuba and the violin - I will let you decide who played what ! They played for years in the Scandinavian Symphony in Detroit, then after we moved to Southern California, they played in the Long Beach Phil. for another 12 years or so. I remember going with them to rehearsals helping dad carry the bell case for his tuba.

Each morning we would wake up to the smell of coffee, pancakes or eggs, and listening to the daily radio broadcast of "Coffee Cup Concert". We also got exposed to Montovani's 101 Strings and the like. For the most part, it was mostly a classical music household. My dad and I went to numerous organ concerts ... some of which included Virgil Fox in performance.

My sister acquired an interest in the viola, and I had started piano lessons at age 6. Towards age 8, when I was well beyond Fur Elise :crazy: we would, as a family, play music together most evenings at home. At age 12, I began organ studies and started playing in church. After my sister got married, which was the very first wedding I ever played as an organist, dad and I would romp through lots of tuba and piano stuff. Dad had to give up the tuba when his false teeth tried to fly out blowing into the tuba !! KLINK!!

My sister still has mom's violin, and after having it fully restored, now plays as well as her viola regularly in her church. I kept persuing the organ, and have been a church organist going on 47 years. I've "patterned" my playing technique upon Fox, Biggs and my organ teacher, Charles Shaffer ... a delightful mix. My son, almost 20, plays the clarinet, alto sax, trombone, bassoon, and tuba. My girlfriend plays the radio :smirk: !

Wow Krummhorn,your girlfriend sounds like an excellent musician,a musician of my calibre but our enstruments are different i play CDs.

In 6th grade we visited the Colorado Springs Public Library. They had an old LP of Bruno Walter conducting Beethoven's 9th. It was the first time I had heard an orchestra and I was spell bound.

I fell in love with the side 1 and just knew nothing could compare to this. In fact, I never did listen to side 2 for fear it would let me down!!

Mmmm, Sybarite, this is an excellent topic! Thanks!

Well, my story is very simple. My grandfather played the piano, the guitar and the blockflöte, but my parents don't play any instrument (uhm, ok, they play the LPs and CDs . oh, yes, and the radio, of course). At least they got really good LPs, mostly authentic folkmusic, and some classical LPs as well. I had got to like classical music, especially the early music, so I started to play the guitar, but I kept playing lute music, so I had to buy a lute. That's all.

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We always had lots of music in the house, although not that much classical. My parents both played piano, especially my Dad (jazz). I started learning piano (classical) at age 7, been playing pretty much since. Now I`m the piano teacher. :grin:

Studying music at college, I developed a love of all classical music, not just the piano repertoire. I further delved into classical music, especially orchestral music, after college. That`s when I was able to 'zero in' to find my faves. I like many styles of music, but my favourite music is all classical.

Fun posts here; thanks for the question, Sybarite!

I was first introduced to classical music by my sister who used to play the piano at school and later on a friend introduced me to different composers and styles, this was when I was 8 or 9. I introduced myself to organ music when I was 14 or 15. I'm hooked on organ music and the Baroque style ever since...

Well, I have decided not to disclose how far back my lp collection takes me! The impressionists got me hooked first. Mussorgsky then took me by the hand far east of France. Then I heard the fifth Bachianas Brasilieras with Vittoria de los Angeles as the vocalist and she turned my attention away to South America. And so on!

Some fascinating responses here. A pleasure reading them.

This is an excellent thread!

For me it was as a young child hearing R. Strauss from "2001", and then when I was around 12 years old, I would passionately record film music from Francis Ford Kopalla 'Dracula' and Scorsese remake of 'Cape Fear', little did I know at the time it was composed by Bernard Herrman. It didn't dawn on me until I heard 'In the Hall of the Mountian King' on the computer in my mid-teens that this stuff was my life. Musically speaking, much of my family is made of buffoons, so it ended up being awhile till I understood my own taste.

I had always had a keen interest in pop and rock music, from when I was 16 (1973) until 30 (1987). At that time, the quality of pop and rock started to decline IMO, and I looked around for something to fill the gap. I started to explore classical music, fortunately at the same time that CD's started to penetrate the market. In the next 12 years I have built a collection of about 2000 classical CD's, ranging from ambrosian chants to contemporary composers, whilst specializing in British and Scandinavian composers. Since the late nineties I have rediscovered my love for pop and rock, and now both genres get about the same playing time.

Hello! That's true. There is a lot of relaxing classical music and it serves a healthy purpose today. There's also physical music whereby the composer takes you on a road, or a trip, into time and space. There's historical music composed during a specific time, to convey the whole human landscape of what happened. There's music for the imagination, a lot of it, like the movement of the sea. I stop here not because I'm out of ideas but to share with you a little moment in life. It was one of those violent storms in early fall, a hurricane I guess, one of those with a specific name. Gloria, I think it was called. For some subconscious reason, I decided that I wanted to be part of that natural phenomenon, but in a relatively safe place. I put on Beethoven's ninth symphony, opened up both sliding doors to my backyard and placed myself in a spot where I could "mix" the music with all the natural sounds of the storm. It was amazing! The great thing about classicial music, in its full span, is that it offers a mega-store of psychological states of mind. I wish you a lot of discoveries.

The reason you get sleepy is because you haven't memorized the composition. Classical from the Romantic period usually is passionate, even if it is slow, except for some music from the Baroque or Classical periods, which meant to be background music, such as Luigi Bocherini (Might have spelled his name wrong). If you memorize a composition it wouldn't be boring, that's all I'm trying to say.

Wow, Ouled Nails, it could be amazing!
Btw my most important God-experiences are connected with music. Sometimes I feel I could fly, even if I'm just listening to it (Tuba mirum - Requiem by Verdi, or Rachmaninoff's Bogoroditse devo in a very old church, and my favourite preacher, J. S. Bach, of course...)
Am I too sentimental?

Wunderhorn said:

The reason you get sleepy is because you haven't memorized the composition. Classical from the Romantic period usually is passionate, even if it is slow, except for some music from the Baroque or Classical periods, which meant to be background music, such as Luigi Bocherini (Might have spelled his name wrong). If you memorize a composition it wouldn't be boring, that's all I'm trying to say.

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Is 'getting sleepy' the same as being 'bored'?

Perhaps what some listeners experience is a very soothing sense of relaxation?

I'm also intrigued but mystified by the idea of memorising musical works – something that a couple of posters have mentioned here and in other threads. Of course different things work for different people, but it sounds rather like school. Familiarity is one thing. Making the effort to really sit and listen to a piece is something else. Finding out enough to have a sense of the context in which the music was written is yet another. All can add to the experience of the listener.

Surely though, for the majority of people, any music – classical or otherwise – is about pleasure? Classical music – as with the 'higher' forms of other art (the great literary novel as opposed to the potboiler) – requires a little more attention and commitment to be fulfilling, but "memorising"? Unless you're a musician or a student, I'm not sure that I see the advantage (assuming I'm not misreading "memorising").

Hi Sybarite,

Well, I think what folks (me in particular) mean is that one should give a work more than just one listen; one should get to know it more thoroughly by listening to it several times. One tends to learn it that way, and can usually even sing, hum or whistle various parts of it at that point. One doesn`t have to learn every single note, (although sometimes one wants to do that anyway...) but at least a few themes, or melodies.

When one can sing/hum/whistle the music, then it has been memorized.

Classical music can be appreciated on a first listen, but don`t you find sometimes that when you listen to it a second time, there are things you didn`t notice the first time? Things that you appreciate and enjoy? And sometimes even more things on a third, fourth listen? Etc., you get my point.

Usually, memorizing a piece is not work, nor difficult; it`s a treat! One doesn`t really even notice one is doing it, until suddenly you`re humming it while doing the laundry. And in some works one can find new things to discover after many listens. And then one can start to truly compare various interpretations by various artists; listen to the different nuances involved.

Probably there are already many works that you have memorized; any work that you can sing or hum. I don`t memorize every single work I listen to, but there are many, many works that I have memorized thoroughly, mainly my faves! :up:

I'm not really sure how I became interested in classical music... I think my mum used to play classical music to put me to sleep in the evenings, when I was only a few years old. Over the years I have heard various classical pieces like Fur Elise and the "Moonlight" Sonata, and really liked them, though I guess not enough to actively pursue the interest. After seeing a few Stanley Kubrick films I became more enthusiastic, and bought the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange as I loved Rossini's Thieving Magpie Overture. From there I moved on to Beethoven, and gradually stopped listening to anything else except classical... I had also wanted to learn piano for some time, and finally got the chance about a year ago when mum's old piano was moved out of storage to our house. This cemented my interest, and a while later I couldn't help trying to compose some music... By now I had begun hiring CD's from the local library which featured my favourite composers, and also listened to some music by composers I had never heard of. I loved composing and playing music more and more, and eventually decided to study composition at a nearby conservatorium, which I start in a couple of months.

Oh, and I always memorise my favourite pieces without even trying to... After a few listens I can usually remember the main themes. The best part is hearing parts of symphonies in my head - this is sometimes even more enjoyable than humming! :grin:

Necessity

I got interested in classical musical more out of necessity than anything else. At 19 I enrolled on a jazz/rock music course at the local college. We studied music theory and shared accommodation with lots of music students on the classical courses.

After a year - I wanted to study music at university. To do that I had to embrace classical music whether I liked it or not. I listened to a lot of it, but the only composers that stay with me (in the sense that I would choose to put their music on) is Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Satie. I enjoy other classical music, but not so much that I would choose to listen to it when I have time to myself. The French composers (and Stravinsky) however had something in common with the progressive rock music I liked - their harmonies were often based on modal scales, rather than diatonic ones. I think, for that reason, the music appealled to me much more.

Five years of living in the classical world of music, however, didn't induce me to love it the way I love other genres of the music. What else can I say?

Best wishes
Rory