How did you get into classical?

[shane]

When I was very young, Dad got hold of an old wind-up gramophone in a cabinet about four feet high (that's 125cm to you youngsters). He took out the wind-up bit, put something hot, glowy and dangerous in the bottom and a Garrard aoutchanger in the top. He had an album of 78s which included Toscanini doing Beethoven's 6th symphony (5 records), some odd bits of Tchaikovsky, a couple of Chopin Nocturnes and Big Noise From Winetka by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats (look it up on Youtube. Brilliant). As soon as I was big enough to lift the lid I was allowed free rein, and it's just sort of stayed with me ever since.

Beethoven and Mozart to me are probably the greatest ever and it took me a long time to embrace anything more radical, but fifty five years later, I'm just beginning to move into the late 19th and 20th centuries!

Doesn't explain why I'm now a dyed-in-the-wool prog fan though. Probably due to 70s substance abuse more than anything...

[Audio Al]

I purchased a job lot of LP;s at a boot sale

4 classical LP's were included

I decided to give one a try and the rest as they say is history

[julesd68]

My youth was dominated by classical music. I was a chorister at Windsor Castle for some years and in addition to singing every day, I learnt to play the violin, viola, trumpet and French Horn. Sadly not all at the same time ...

But when I reached my teenage years I had a very strong backlash against all the hours of practice and discipline. I ditched all the instruments and didn't really listen to classical music at all for the next 30 years. Then, with the birth of my son, I started to put on quiet classical music in the background that I hoped would soothe him and also stimulate his grey matter. Whether this worked or not I have no idea, but I started getting familiar with the music again and found that it relaxed me no end in these stressful early sleep deprived years. Listening to Classic FM simply became a bit of a default for me - I would make a note of works that I liked and then started to collect my favourites on vinyl. I was simply staggered by how good a 40 year old recording could sound! The more I got into the music again, I started going to classical concerts regularly and I now hope that this is something I will continue to do for the rest of my life.

[keiths]

I was never exposed to classical music at home - both my parents hated it (my dad still does) and I never got to enjoy it when played in the very few music lessons we had in school.

Straight after university, I started working in a small IT department (though back then it was called 'Data Processing' ). There were three of us in the department and one Friday evening each month we would all work late applying OS patches, testing new applications and doing the bits of IT housekeeping you can only do when there are no users on the system.

We had a 'ghetto blaster' in the office which would get played whilst we were working late. One of my collegues - a lady in her mid 50's - would bring in tapes of classical music to play. After a few months, I found myself enjoying the music she brought in more and more. I bought my first classical CD - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble/Nils-Erik Sparf on BIS label) - after hearing that piece on one of Joan's tapes.

Soon the office ghetto blaster was replaced with a cobbled-together office stereo - Sony Discman and Walkman, Sony amp and Wharfedale Dentons

[tannoyman]

Hi Barry

Classical music has been a major part of my life since I was very young. As a child I sang in local school and church choirs. When I was 9yrs old the choirmaster of our local church, Mr Harvey, thought that I had some promise and suggested to my mother that I should audition for St Paul’s Cathedral Choir in London. I went along to St Pauls and did reasonably well in the singing element of the audition (I remember that my solo piece was ‘How Beautiful are the Feet’ from Part 3 of Messiah) but rather less well in the unexpected written tests. Sadly I did not get in and in later life I frequently joked to friends that my musical claim to fame was as a St Pauls Cathedral reject. I say sadly, because in those days (1959) as a St Paul’s chorister you not only received a first class musical education, you also received a top class public school general education at the St Pauls Cathedral School at no cost, which was a big thing.

Mr Harvey was not a man to give up and shortly afterwards he saw an advertisement in the Church Times for choristers for St Mary of the Angels Song School (named after the Vienna Song School) in Beaconsfield and persuaded my mother to allow me to audition. This time I was lucky and got in and the 2nd January 1960 marked the beginning of 4 years of being totally immersed in classical music. The school run by the Reverend Desmond Morse-Boycott who founded it in the slums of Somerstown in London in 1932. Father Desmond as he was known, was a remarkable fellow who not only founded the school but also was a journalist for the Church Times, once played football for Tottenham Hotspur and was a cousin of Winston Churchill. Immersion of this intensity leads either to total rejection of classical music later on or as it did in my case, to its becoming a lifelong passion .

When I left the school in 1963 I went back to my home town, Reading, and Mum enrolled me in a local dancing school mistakenly believing that I could earn a living in the entertainment industry. Sadly Mum’s ambition exceeded my talent by no small margin but I did get heavily involved in amateur revue shows and acquired a great love of show music and other popular stuff. When I first I went to work met a guy who owned a Decca Decola radiogram which was my first real introduction to the world of hi-fi. In 1968 I bought my first system which consisted of the ubiquitous Garrard SP25II with Decca Deram cartridge, a Tripletone valve amplifier and a pair of Paraline Horn speakers designed by Rex Baldock which my Dad helped me to build in his garage. I have been through many systems since then including Garrard 401 with SME 3009II arm, Linn Sondek LP12, Tannoy Lancaster’s with 15” Monitor Gold drivers and numerous Meridian components. I have built a number a magazine loudspeaker designs such as the Chris Rogers 4 way Transmission Line enclosures from Hi Fi Answers and the John Atkinson 5 way Transmission Line from Hi Fi News.

For me, much as I like the kit, it has always been the music and the records that really float my boat and it is today. I can no more imagine my life without classical music than I could without my wife or family, though my wife sometimes wonders which comes first! I love Bach Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Handel, Elgar and most classical composers. Berlioz I find a struggle by even he had his good moments such as Les nuits d’ete (the recording by Regina Crespin with Ansermet and the OSR is ravishing) or the Te Deum.

Sorry this post is so long but like many enthusiasts I could, and frequently do, bore for England on my subject!

David

[Eremite]

Classical music was always around me at home. My father had a Garrard turntable built into a self-made bit of furniture; and a Quad valve amp driving a single (yes, mono!) ESL-57. He collected old Archiv recordings - especially of Bach and had a love of Russian chant! I was a chorister from the age of 7 pretty much until I left home to go to Uni.

When I started collecting my own stuff, it was pretty main stream: the Planets, 1812 Overture, Four Sea Interludes, New World Symphony; that sort of stuff. Then teen-age came along...

...I grew up eventually though

[MartinT]

I bought my first classical CD - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble/Nils-Erik Sparf on BIS label)

What an absolutely fantastic first recording to buy - one of my desert island discs! I played it to Jerry and I think he liked it

[Andrei]

I got in through an open mind. Just sitting in the car as a young teen and every now and then something would come on the radio - The Anvil Chorus , Beethoven's fifth, Tchaikovsky's first PC. It gradually dawned on me that there must be a lot more of this stuff. I taped things from the radio and then made the first of a long list of discoveries. I discovered Tchaikovsky. Then I discovered Beethoven. Then I discovered Rachmaninov.

I did some reading and there was so much talk about Stravinsky, how different and strange. I borrowed the The Rite from a library. It was here that I made my greatest discovery. This 'music' did not sound like music. I knew in the depths of my mind (I was about 24 at the time) that there was some sort of key to be unlocked. I listened and listened again and it actually started to make sense. I think what I had learned, amongst other things, was that great music did not have to have a catchy tune. Today it is still astonishing to me that 'classical' music is so varied, beautiful, and contains pretty mush every human feeling there is. I am still making discoveries, a couple of years ago it was Piazzolla, and now I am dipping my toes into Chinese Classical music.

Nice thread Barry and I have enjoyed others' experiences.

[JJack]

So many great stories, and the stretch from immersion as a youth to pure chance.

[Tarzan]

Another thing for me regarding classical music is the album artwork, walking round Charity shops, could look at some of the covers for ages, and buy albums based on how the cover looks alone, my last was Vaughan Williams "London Symphony", conducted by Vernon Handley,how good is this! Amazingly atmospheric,that includes both album and cover.