That magical 'breakthrough' moment....

[LMcD]

Many years ago, Radio 4 (it may even have been the old 'Home Service') had a weekly slot called 'Music To Remember' which featured a complete recording of a classical work. I'd heard classical 'pops' - the William Tell Overture, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik etc. - but on this occasion I suddenly became aware of a wonderful surge of sound - a huge sigh, possibly a burst of anguish. It was the 2nd movement of Elgar's 2nd symphony. That proved to be my real introduction to the many delights of classical music. Would other Forum members like to share their 'breakthrough' work and the circumstances in which they heard - or saw - it?

[pastoralguy]

My father was a merchant seaman who was able to take his family on voyages. In 1976/77 we left Bideford and embarked on a 6 month cruise around the globe that took us through the Panama Canal via Baton Rouge and then to Japan and Australia. At that point in my life I was just getting interested in classical music and since my father had a few classical cassette tapes, (quite a new technology in those days), I played them over and over. The one tape I remember was a CfP disc of the Grieg Piano Concerto c/w selections from the 'Peer Gynt' suite. Peter Katin was the pianist with the LPO under Sir John Pritchard. (Actually, I came across the Gramphones original review from, iirc, 1975, and they were pretty sniffy about it!)

Alas, that recording has never made it to cd although I still have my father's original CfP tape with his name on DYMO tape on it. Anyway, that was probably my breakthrough moment.

[Alison]

It was at primary school, the teacher played the March from the Nutcracker Suite and I was hooked. The brass, the woodwind and the swirling strings and the atmospheric cymbals.

Many years later I heard the same music sitting in the RFH choir seats and I still marvelled at the excitement of it all.

The recording was also CfP, Philharmonia/Malko.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It was early in 1960. I was 10 years old, and there was a Sunday evening children's radio programme about classical music on the BBC Home Service (now Radio 4). I liked the bit of Beethoven I heard, so my father played me a 78 rpm record of the opening movement of Mozart's 40th symphony. I was transfixed by this, and wanted to hear it every day. Later, the other two discs turned up, so I got to know the whole symphony. Whilst still at primary school, I had acquired the miniature score of the work.

[Rolmill]

The one tape I remember was a CfP disc of the Grieg Piano Concerto c/w selections from the 'Peer Gynt' suite. Peter Katin was the pianist with the LPO under Sir John Pritchard. (Actually, I came across the Gramphones original review from, iirc, 1975, and they were pretty sniffy about it!)

Alas, that recording has never made it to cd although I still have my father's original CfP tape with his name on DYMO tape on it. Anyway, that was probably my breakthrough moment.

That was the second LP I ever bought - don't recall any reviews, but (although I haven't heard it in nigh on 30 years now) I still remember the trombones being very behind the beat in 'In the hall of the mountain king', so maybe that caused the sniffy reception! First LP was Colin Davis conducting the Sinfonia of London in Haydn Variations, Hebrides overture, Fidelio overture and Siegfried Idyll.

My breakthrough was being taken to a local concert as a school outing aged 13 and hearing Dvorak's 'New World' symphony - loved the power and excitement generated by the full orchestra in the climaxes.

[french frank]

I was probably about 12 and my brother had the Monteux/BSO recording of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 (he also had Beethoven 5, the 1812 Overture and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. Big collection). It was the finale that I was transfixed by, as being something that held my entire attention for minutes on end , blocking out everything else, no fidgeting or talking. That was the discovery of something much larger … (in which Tchaikovsky now seldom figures).

[silvestrione]

My mother took me to the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth to hear the Messiah when I was a boy (11 or 12? Not sure). I'm not sure how much of it went home, but I can still remember the soprano (Isobel Baillie I think) singing 'I know that my redeemer liveth'. I think I was open-mouthed, astonished and captivated, that someone could stand there and fill the whole huge space with such a beautiful sound...

Probably the real breakthrough moment was later, the BSO again, in Sibelius 2nd Symphony (Silvestri perhaps?). An adolescent by then, I'd go about exclaiming, 'if only Beethoven or Mozart could have written real music, like Sibelius!' I was greatly helped by excellent notes in the programme (a Julian Budden, I think), which enthused about the music and linked it to Finnish landscapes, I think. Later his programme notes won me over to Mozart PC 25.

[cloughie]

I was probably about 12 and my brother had the Monteux/BSO recording of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 (he also had Beethoven 5, the 1812 Overture and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. Big collection). It was the finale that I was transfixed by, as being something that held my entire attention for minutes on end , blocking out everything else, no fidgeting or talking. That was the discovery of something much larger … (in which Tchaikovsky now seldom figures).

As a small child I would listen to 'Listen with Mother' with my Mum, so I guess that bit of the Dolly Suite was an early earworm, but then Women's Hour followed and the serial used Classical music as a signature tune. One of these way back was the Rondo from Mozart's Divertimento 17 K334. Another very early piece I liked aged 6 or so - Dad was always an avid listener and collector of Classical music, I guess I inherited that gene! - was Beethoven's Spring Sonata - it was the Joseph Fuchs/Arthur Balsam recording on Brunswick. I was reunited with it via the Naxos Historical reissue a couple of years ago - it still sounds good. As for the Mozart I had for many years the Vienna Octet on an ancient LXT orange label LP, now on an Eloquence CD. Still sounds better as an Octet rather than the lush Karajan BPO I have in the big box!

[richardfinegold]

My father was a merchant seaman who was able to take his family on voyages. In 1976/77 we left Bideford and embarked on a 6 month cruise around the globe that took us through the Panama Canal via Baton Rouge and then to Japan and Australia. At that point in my life I was just getting interested in classical music and since my father had a few classical cassette tapes, (quite a new technology in those days), I played them over and over. The one tape I remember was a CfP disc of the Grieg Piano Concerto c/w selections from the 'Peer Gynt' suite. Peter Katin was the pianist with the LPO under Sir John Pritchard. (Actually, I came across the Gramphones original review from, iirc, 1975, and they were pretty sniffy about it!)

Alas, that recording has never made it to cd although I still have my father's original CfP tape with his name on DYMO tape on it. Anyway, that was probably my breakthrough moment.

About that same year I took a shine to Grieg’s In The Hall of the Mountain King, probably from a Music Teacher playing a record in school. My local department store had a Grieg disc with the Peer Gynt Suites and the First movement of the PC. Conductor was Odd Gruner Haegge—I think- and a Norwegian Orchestra. The PC movement hooked me so I bought an lp of the complete work with the same performers—can’t remember the Soloist now—and began exploring other Composers. It was probably 20 years before I bought another Grieg recording, but that was my gateway drug

[gradus]

I wonder if the same pieces would still attract youngsters to classical music. Do primary teachers still buy records (or the current equivalent) to play to their class as mine did?

[vinteuil]

.

... like wot I wrote back in 2011 -

i think I was about nine or ten - perhaps 1960-1961 - taken to a concert at the Guildhall in Bath - front row, left hand side, feet away from the performers - Monteverdi's il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda - I was completely entranced by the noise of the harpsichord (in hindsight, a completely anachronistic 18th century Kirckmann - but for Bath in 1960, not bad... [harpsichordist - Edward Malins, a friend of my father... ]) - and from then onwards a complete convert to plucked instruments, the early music movement with all that it implies (as Kipling put it*)...

* As Easy as A.B.C. [1912]

[Alain Maréchal]

...the First movement of the PC. Conductor was Odd Gruner Haegge—I think- and a Norwegian Orchestra. The PC movement hooked me so I bought an lp of the complete work with the same performers—can’t remember the Soloist now—and began exploring other Composers.

Almost certainly either Kjell Baekkelund or Robert Riefling, with the Oslo PO. Those recordings appeared on almost every mid-price or bargain label in Europe. Gruner-Hegge recorded it so often I sometimes wondered if the same recorded accompaniment was used each time and the soloist dubbed on. (Stranger things happened).

[Cockney Sparrow]

I wonder if the same pieces would still attract youngsters to classical music. Do primary teachers still buy records (or the current equivalent) to play to their class as mine did?

Less and less likely - but that is only from our local perspective. My wife taught, with great dedication, primary school music for more than 40 years. Keeping up with the times it was an iPod but latterly it was with a powerpoint presentation giving some context/history,whatever might interest the children - at music assembly. She used at least some of the BBC Ten Pieces (Peter Grimes "Storm" interlude caught the children's imagination in particular). Not being that far from London she took them to LSO school performances, persuading the school that the effort was worth it.

That last point is relevant - my wife had so much music activity going on in that school that it fell to the principal menace to all enterprising and dedicated teachers - The New Head. Mrs CS had managed to convince a Science/Sport head and get full backing, then emerged from a period of a frankly unbalanced head to succumb, after much rear-guard action to an example of pure ignorance. The new head didn't want music to the extent it was happening - it highlighted the rather meagre achievements in art, drama etc. In a zero sum perspective, it had to be detracting from the survival criteria for head teachers - maths, science and literacy and of course music is elitist to boot despite the wide curriculum and the unremitting effort to engage with and support ethnic and other minority childrent (also those from homes which were just plain poor).

We are convinced the school's music has to be in a decline - the days of cello, viola, violin and double bass players in quantity will be numbered, the choir will likely end up a sad rag taggle, the samba band will be no more. Coming back to the point, they might just get their powerpoints as after all the school has boxes to tick for OFSTED.

(Having said that, a tale from a local primary - OFSTED inspectors arrived on a day where there was some (pre-timetabled) music activity worth seeing, but they would not be persuaded to give it 5 minutes of their time. Says it all really).

Its all in the hands of head teachers - Gove put it there - "here's the powers, you've got the budget - I want the results" (in maths, science and literacy that is). Rattle and his ilk have a big fight on their hands to bring about change in current circumstances, where Secondary heads are also ditching arts provision to balance budgets with rising costs.

[Serial_Apologist]

Being raised by musical parents - my mum had graduated as a LRAM in the 1920s and broadcast for the BBC in the 1930s, my dad liked to self-accompany on our black-lacquered upright Bluthner, singing mainly 19th century parlour songs - music enterd the veins before I was aware of any particular moment of awakening to classical music per se, more of historical and stylistic breakthroughs at various points.

[Bryn]

I got pretty much hooked early on in life. Probably by Nutcracker excerpts or Finlandia, both of which were favourites from my father's small collection of 78s. He was mainly into early 20th century Italian opera arias. I was not. At around 6 or 7 I got taken to The Firebird (as ballet, rather than concert performance) but it was later hearing the Symphony in Three Movements which really opened my ears to Stravinsky. I think I would have been around 8 at that time.