Prokofiev and Stravinsky, specifically the 5th symphony and the big 3 ballets, respectively. Prokofiev's 2nd and 3rd piano concertos as well.
Up until that point, I'd never heard western classical music that was so fiery and textured. I fell in love with the sarcasm and dissonances in their music, the playfulness and the passion, and both of them opened my eyes and ears to a whole world of neo-classical/20th century composers that I still listen to this day.
Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherezade. It started with snare drum excerpts for auditions when my daughter was in middle school and we were both like "what the heck is with this guy Rimsky-Korsakov?" with no sense of context. So we took a listen and both have been hooked ever since. I was dimly aware of the most famous pieces before that, but that was really when I started to take a deeper dive.
Johann Strauss through experiencing Ball culture and dancing waltz (I am from Vienna) and I had a crush on a girl who was obsessed with classical music, which certainly helped aswell. There wasn't really a single piece though.
Well, I was a toddler and my parents had a CD collection of all the hits through the different periods, each on a different CD. The first CD was Baroque and it was the only one I wanted to listen to. I lost them unfortunately but I'd know those pieces inside and out if I heard it again.
Probably explains why Bach is my favorite composer today, still.
Always surrounded by classical music as a child, but maybe the Abbado version of Janacek’s Sinfonietta coupled with Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes by Weber was the first music I discovered at the library as maybe a 12 or 13 year old, that really resonated with me, and was independent of my parents’ or piano teacher’s tastes.
Or maybe the Dorati Haydn symphony series, similarly loaned disk by disk from the library, that really confirmed my love of this inexhaustibly life affirming music, rather than the Led Zeppelin albums my peers were listening to at the time. I was probably a very rare teenager in the 1970s, that had listened to and knew every Haydn symphony!
Or maybe in my mid teens, David Munrow’s The Art of the Netherlands, that made me ‘get’ the beauty and power of renaissance and medieval music - Ockeghem’s Intemerata Dei Mater was truly a gateway drug into a much greater world of music than the narrower focus I had previously enjoyed. Maybe it’s this one which I’m most grateful for.
Well, I came to it through organ and Bach, but the first thing I ever heard that just captured me was a live performance of Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante for organ and orchestra with Virgil Fox. Later I heard the Saint-Saen's Third (Organ Concerto).
When I broadened out of the organ world, the first thing that I heard that just knocked me over was Earl Wild's "Demonic Liszt" album. That Meyerbeer-Liszt "Robert le Diable," From there I went to his complete Rachmaninoff Concertos and that was the end.
Rach 3.
A senior in high school played it with the school orchestra. Til then I was the typical “just practice 15 mins before the lesson” student. I just didn’t know what the piano was capable of. After hearing Rach 3, I devoured classical music, two years later I played Shostakovich 2 with the same orchestra, and went on to get a music degree, majoring in piano performance. Thanks, Rachmaninoff! 🫡
I love this question! I’m a professional violinist and I often think of “gateway drugs” to invite more people to classical music.
For me it was chamber music summer camp. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden blew my 14-year-old mind.
Dinu Lipatti's performance of Bach chorales (Ich ruf zu dir, Nun kom der Heiden Heiland, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring). Still utterly obsessed with Bach on piano all these years later.
One Christmas my parents got me two CDs: Karajan conducting Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth. And Horowitz performing Beethoven’s Moonlight, Pathétique, and Appassionata sonatas (the one where he’s sitting on a chair outside in the grass on the front).
Those were a good gateway. But hearing your post, I have to say Rach Pag is also a great gateway. What an incredible piece.
Hearing a friend mention Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata made me want to check out Beethoven’s other piano sonatas which then led to everything else. Of course, I was already exposed to piano and violin before as a student but I never was interested in actually exploring classical music until then.
Johann Strauss Blue Danube Waltz (courtesy of 2001) was the first piece I heard that made me realize I was missing out on hundreds of years of music
Rossini’s La Gazza Iadra and Beethoven’s 9th are what turned the curiosity in to an obsession (Courtesy of a Clockwork Orange)
Shout out to the man Kubrick for my gateway drugs
A free CD my mom got from our local pharmacy for Christmas, featuring Smetana and Tchaikovsky. Also Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the animals. Though as a kid I was terrified of the Aquarium.
Peter and the Wolf. Specifically from the Disney books that had a 33RPM record narration inside. Mine was the French (from France) version. I still have it somewhere, but it is about as far as NM grading that you can get that is still readable and playable.
*The Firebird*
I got a CD set of stravinsky’s ballets for Christmas when I was in 8th grade and was transfixed by it, simply staring at a wall while my ears ate up that delectable sound nectar 🤤
What initially got me interested in orchestral music was falling in love with the soundtrack for Star Wars as a little kid... it was enough for me to always ask to have the classical NPR station playing in the car, growing up. I still had a casual relationship with classical music during this time of my life.
What *REALLY* made me start to grasp the magnitude of the profound depth and expressive greatness that classical had to offer was hearing Krzyzstov Penderecki's Threnody For The Victims of Hiroshima for the first time when I was 19... that flipped my whole world upside down. It helped me to understand the level of focus classical music demanded to understand the depth of what a composer is communicating with their opuses as I moved forward with my progressively growing classical music obsession over the next 12 years.
Two. My third grade teacher played classical during class. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything about who or what she played. But in fourth grade, our school's music teacher took us to the local community college for a performance of the Jupiter Symphony. The North Carolina Symphony does a few free shows per year as part of a rural outreach. I'm forever grateful that they did that.
Either Liszt Transcendental Etudes or Maurice Ravel's Miroirs, Sonatine, and Pavane pour une infante defunte.
Liszt' transcendental etudes played by Daniil Trifonov is my go-to, next comes Ravel's Pavane played by Lang Lang.
And when I'm sad and miss my mother, I listen to Maurice Ravel's Piano concerto in G major, Adagio Assai, Helene Grimaud, Vladimir Jurowski.
All depending on the mood.
I’ve listened to classical music casually since i was much younger but it was only 2 years ago that i discovered Rachamninoff’s 2nd concerto which made me seriously want to explore the classical repertoire.
Mozart Piano Concertos 21 & 24 Casadesus/Szell on a $2 cassette I bought 35 years ago.
Prokofiev and Stravinsky, specifically the 5th symphony and the big 3 ballets, respectively. Prokofiev's 2nd and 3rd piano concertos as well. Up until that point, I'd never heard western classical music that was so fiery and textured. I fell in love with the sarcasm and dissonances in their music, the playfulness and the passion, and both of them opened my eyes and ears to a whole world of neo-classical/20th century composers that I still listen to this day.
Mozart's Requiem
Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherezade. It started with snare drum excerpts for auditions when my daughter was in middle school and we were both like "what the heck is with this guy Rimsky-Korsakov?" with no sense of context. So we took a listen and both have been hooked ever since. I was dimly aware of the most famous pieces before that, but that was really when I started to take a deeper dive.
A full set of Beethoven symphonies on vinyl I splurged on in my youth many long decades ago. Beethoven, Wagner and Mahler became my trifecta.
Baby Einstein & Little Einsteins
little einsteins the goat
All older millennial moms know this one. So many fond memories.
Johann Strauss through experiencing Ball culture and dancing waltz (I am from Vienna) and I had a crush on a girl who was obsessed with classical music, which certainly helped aswell. There wasn't really a single piece though.
Tchaikovsky violin concerto!
1985. Two cassettes. Mozart Posthorn Concerto, and Mozart Symphony no.39.
The rite of spring
Bach: Chaconne listened as a midi file from 2008 Nokia phone on wired headset during the train ride. I was moved to tears.
The overture to Mozart's *Die Zauberflöte.* At the time I'd never heard anything like it.
Well, I was a toddler and my parents had a CD collection of all the hits through the different periods, each on a different CD. The first CD was Baroque and it was the only one I wanted to listen to. I lost them unfortunately but I'd know those pieces inside and out if I heard it again. Probably explains why Bach is my favorite composer today, still.
I was obsessed with the original Fantasia as a little kid. Eventually you want more music like that.
Always surrounded by classical music as a child, but maybe the Abbado version of Janacek’s Sinfonietta coupled with Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes by Weber was the first music I discovered at the library as maybe a 12 or 13 year old, that really resonated with me, and was independent of my parents’ or piano teacher’s tastes. Or maybe the Dorati Haydn symphony series, similarly loaned disk by disk from the library, that really confirmed my love of this inexhaustibly life affirming music, rather than the Led Zeppelin albums my peers were listening to at the time. I was probably a very rare teenager in the 1970s, that had listened to and knew every Haydn symphony! Or maybe in my mid teens, David Munrow’s The Art of the Netherlands, that made me ‘get’ the beauty and power of renaissance and medieval music - Ockeghem’s Intemerata Dei Mater was truly a gateway drug into a much greater world of music than the narrower focus I had previously enjoyed. Maybe it’s this one which I’m most grateful for.
Well, I came to it through organ and Bach, but the first thing I ever heard that just captured me was a live performance of Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante for organ and orchestra with Virgil Fox. Later I heard the Saint-Saen's Third (Organ Concerto). When I broadened out of the organ world, the first thing that I heard that just knocked me over was Earl Wild's "Demonic Liszt" album. That Meyerbeer-Liszt "Robert le Diable," From there I went to his complete Rachmaninoff Concertos and that was the end.
Rach 3. A senior in high school played it with the school orchestra. Til then I was the typical “just practice 15 mins before the lesson” student. I just didn’t know what the piano was capable of. After hearing Rach 3, I devoured classical music, two years later I played Shostakovich 2 with the same orchestra, and went on to get a music degree, majoring in piano performance. Thanks, Rachmaninoff! 🫡
Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony, for sure.
That’ll do, pig.
Tchaikovsky piano concerto. The intro is just too majestic. Pre-school me liked it so much I used to hum it.
I love this question! I’m a professional violinist and I often think of “gateway drugs” to invite more people to classical music. For me it was chamber music summer camp. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden blew my 14-year-old mind.
Rach 3, Chopin ballades, Beethoven egmont overture
Dinu Lipatti's performance of Bach chorales (Ich ruf zu dir, Nun kom der Heiden Heiland, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring). Still utterly obsessed with Bach on piano all these years later.
Bach Cello suite No. 1 Prelude
Started listening because I played the violin and wanted to explore violin music. Fell in love with Bach’s 1st unaccompanied violin sonata
Holst's The Planets Dvorak No. 9 Smetana - Má Vlast
Rhapsody in Blue
One Christmas my parents got me two CDs: Karajan conducting Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth. And Horowitz performing Beethoven’s Moonlight, Pathétique, and Appassionata sonatas (the one where he’s sitting on a chair outside in the grass on the front). Those were a good gateway. But hearing your post, I have to say Rach Pag is also a great gateway. What an incredible piece.
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and chorals by Pavel Chesnokov.
Hearing a friend mention Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata made me want to check out Beethoven’s other piano sonatas which then led to everything else. Of course, I was already exposed to piano and violin before as a student but I never was interested in actually exploring classical music until then.
Johann Strauss Blue Danube Waltz (courtesy of 2001) was the first piece I heard that made me realize I was missing out on hundreds of years of music Rossini’s La Gazza Iadra and Beethoven’s 9th are what turned the curiosity in to an obsession (Courtesy of a Clockwork Orange) Shout out to the man Kubrick for my gateway drugs
grieg and schumann piano concertos on road trips (we always had those cds in the car for some reason)
Bach Brandenburgs.
A free CD my mom got from our local pharmacy for Christmas, featuring Smetana and Tchaikovsky. Also Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the animals. Though as a kid I was terrified of the Aquarium.
Beethoven, 3rd symphony, 1st movement. I finally "got it." For me it was following the structure and understanding the play by play.
Peter and the Wolf. Specifically from the Disney books that had a 33RPM record narration inside. Mine was the French (from France) version. I still have it somewhere, but it is about as far as NM grading that you can get that is still readable and playable.
Mine was Beethoven’s moonlight sonata and Chopin’s fantaisie impromptu
For me, it was Peter and the Wolf, then playing in orchestras.
*The Firebird* I got a CD set of stravinsky’s ballets for Christmas when I was in 8th grade and was transfixed by it, simply staring at a wall while my ears ate up that delectable sound nectar 🤤
My gateway was probably the Civ 4 soundtrack. Renaissance and Industrial eras specifically
Dvorak's 7th Symphony
shostakovich's waltz no 2
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Mine was the planets
Mozart symphony 40 and Devils Trill sonata, strangely enough
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto for listening. Or maybe Gershwin’a Rhapsody in Blue which was the first classical concert I attended about 11yrs ago.
What initially got me interested in orchestral music was falling in love with the soundtrack for Star Wars as a little kid... it was enough for me to always ask to have the classical NPR station playing in the car, growing up. I still had a casual relationship with classical music during this time of my life. What *REALLY* made me start to grasp the magnitude of the profound depth and expressive greatness that classical had to offer was hearing Krzyzstov Penderecki's Threnody For The Victims of Hiroshima for the first time when I was 19... that flipped my whole world upside down. It helped me to understand the level of focus classical music demanded to understand the depth of what a composer is communicating with their opuses as I moved forward with my progressively growing classical music obsession over the next 12 years.
The entire repertoire of the Philharmonic of Vienna in occasion of 1993’s New Year conducted by Ricardo Muti.
Two. My third grade teacher played classical during class. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything about who or what she played. But in fourth grade, our school's music teacher took us to the local community college for a performance of the Jupiter Symphony. The North Carolina Symphony does a few free shows per year as part of a rural outreach. I'm forever grateful that they did that.
Mahler 4
Of all things, Für Elise. Once my piano teacher assigned it to me as a child, I was hooked.
Either Liszt Transcendental Etudes or Maurice Ravel's Miroirs, Sonatine, and Pavane pour une infante defunte. Liszt' transcendental etudes played by Daniil Trifonov is my go-to, next comes Ravel's Pavane played by Lang Lang. And when I'm sad and miss my mother, I listen to Maurice Ravel's Piano concerto in G major, Adagio Assai, Helene Grimaud, Vladimir Jurowski. All depending on the mood.
A rachmaninoff set of 2 CDs, Rach 2 and the fantasie tableaux for 2 pianos
I’ve listened to classical music casually since i was much younger but it was only 2 years ago that i discovered Rachamninoff’s 2nd concerto which made me seriously want to explore the classical repertoire.