Classical : starters

[thrawn86]

great lists guys, finally somewhere to start in the enormous jungle that is classical music.

My first real interest in classical came in high school, our wind ensemble played Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol that year. brilliant music...but I was playing 1st clarinet. That was not fun. We never could play it at the written tempo.

 

[some1x]

The first piece of music that really moved me was, strangely enough, Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. I forgot what motivated me to listen in the first place. Not long after the introduction, I stopped listening, but the music continued playing.

For me, something just "clicked" during the climax of the Funeral March movement. "WOW! This is powerful stuff," I thought. In hindsight, I suspect that even though I wasn't listening, my subconscious was somehow in tune with the music. I started to listen attentively, and thus the Eroica became my first favorite classical piece.




Lately, I've been listening to Beethoven's String Quartets most. They were recommended to me by an alcoholic bum who frequented my chess club. There is a great quote about the quartets (I'll look it up tomorrow) in a recently published biography, "[space for quote]"

 

[saint.panda]

I'll second the Dvorak symphony #9 recommendation. This is an absolutely amazing piece of music that started my interest in classical music and has remained my overall favourite ever since. Kubelik has the popular vote as the definitive performance and it's my favourite as well. The Deutsche Grammophon release with Dvorak 8th and 9th would be the one to get.

For Beethoven, I'd also suggest his violin concerto. Personally, I really like Perlman with Guilini conducting but Hilary Hahn also puts on a brilliant performance with pretty good recording quality on top of that. Not so much of fan of Schneiderhan's Beethoven violin concerto even thought it's most likely the popular vote. The Heifetz/Munch recording is not bad either but I've never really liked Heifetz too much.

 

[Alu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSmith08 I'd start with the 9th of Beethoven (any good recording will do). It's recognizable, and it has more to it than the theme everyone knows.

I agree, that was my first one as well.

 

[adhoc]

concertoes are imo an excellent 'appetiser' for classical:

violin - bruch, mendelssohn, beethoven (in D), tchaikovsky, prokofiev
piano - chopin (1), rachmaninov (2 or 3), tchaikovsky
cello - elgar, boccherini, dvorak, saint-saens, haydn (1, 2)

the mahler 2nd or 5th is imo the 'easier' mahler symphonies to digest for those green to classical.