How did your enthusiasm for classical music begin?

I was always exposed to classical from various sources as a kid--Bugs Bunny, Fantasia, piano lessons, Kubrick, and music class in school.

Later, hearing an LP of Eugene Ormandy conducting Beethoven's 9th in the college dorm, while under tow of certain "chemical refreshments," made me a lifetime fan of that work.

But what really got me rabidly into classical was hearing my brother-in-law from my first marriage play with the NY Philharmonic outdoors in Vail. All those layers of sound! After that, I could not get enough.

 

Dunno how far my "enthusiasm" goes since I'm only starting to research and listen to classical music, but my interest first came about from my mother whose favorite classical work was Orff's Carmina Burana. Having heard it a thousand times over as a kid, as I grew to love progressive rock, I began to realize that my appreciation for Orff's opus might have in part been due to it being structured similarly to one of those extended Yes songs - one long piece made up of short, completely unrelated sections. (Or obviously more accurately that the prog rock resembled classical works of this type.)

What has gotten me interested in discovering more classical pieces most recently was the ability to compose something orchestral myself via FL Studio which I started as a lark. I ended up having a lot of fun doing that and somehow it has made me feel that I've been avoiding a lot of great modern music simply because the most often-recorded composers don't float my boat.

 

Grade school music class. I LOVED "The Firebird". One of the first times I can recall being taken somewhere else by music.

I guess it was kind of a good thing that "bring your own albums" day in 5th grade got ended by ZZ Top's "Mexican Blackbird". I got to hear a lot more classical. But that didn't stop me from going to my friends house so I could hear the rest of that Top LP either.

 

listening to my Grandmother's Reader's Digest record of the Beethoven symphonies with Rene Liebowitz conducting, and looking at the packaging, etc. as a very small child made me want to be a composer

I used to pretend to "compose" by "writing out" what I thought was music, which I guess was some kind of graphic representation of vague sounds I was imagining at the time

I still have the set of records - my Grandmother gave it to me at the time because I was so obsessed with it

 

Yet another one for the classical music in movies and TV. What really cemented it for me was seeing Immortal Beloved. Gary Oldman is one of my favorite actors, and that movie turned me on to Beethoven. The Emperor Piano Concerto is by far my all time favorite classical work, especially the 2nd and 3rd movements.

 

What a nice story.

 

My folks escorted us to most of the Philly Orchestra concerts at the Academy of Music and for a 13th birthday I was given my Dad's old Dynaco FM tube tuner. We spent lots of hours listening to WFLN the all Classical Radio station for many years.

 

Hearing Hovhaness's 'Mysterious Mountain' for the first time, and realizing that classical music could actually sound pretty cool.

 

The Stokowski interpretation (also on Sony) is electrifying!

 

Me too... the Nutcracker being played for the kids in my third grade class (Spring, 1953). For me, though, I didn't know what the music was called.

I bought my first classical album — Steinberg with the Pittsburgh Symphony playing Beethoven's 5th — when I was a junior in high school (1960). Someone had told me that this was the most famous classical work ever.

 

Same here !

 

I have this set on a 2-record LP set, which I have not played in ages. I started my appreciation of baroque music with this set at the recommendation of my grad school buddy in the late 70's. Then I was attracted to the English trio, Pinnock, Hogwood and Gardiner and for the past twenty years have not paid much attention to this original pioneer of the period instrument movements. The rediscovery came with the 2 DVD's of Harnoncourt, which are excellent. Too bad I have to watch these DVD's on my 22" computer monitor since I do not yet have any surround sound setup.

 

Particularly when the movie soundtrack was played by none other than Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in-the-fields and not some schmucky orchestra "normally" favored by Hollywood.

 

Tomita - Pictures at an Exhibition. That electronic version was so playful that I learned to listen to the piano and orchestral version a lot.

Rick Wakeman - Lisztomania

 

Having my junior high school band director ask me to also learn to play a string bass since the orchestra class didn't have any bass players and neither did the before-school jazz band. I kept all three up until the end of high school.

The other strongest influence was Walter/Wendy Carlos actually.

 

When I saw 2001.

 

1st grade listening to Copland on a hand-held cassette player which my babysitter bought for me at my request---"The Celebration after Billy's Capture"----that was the first piece that I can remember grabbing my attention. A little later I sat and listened to "The Magic Flute" for 2 1/2 hours on my dad's Pioneer PL-518 which I have now.

 

Seeing 2001 is the first time I remember hearing classical music that I had to go and buy. Second time was going into a Music Plus store and they were playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by von Karajan and the Berlin Phil. I bought it right then. Third time was Clockwork Orange, especially La gaza ladra.