For me the enjoyment of music hasn't faded since I started listening in 1970.
But my taste has changed: developed, widened.
It has defined the areas which I wanted to explore. Now basically leaving to be "done" the bulk of baroque music -especially the French baroque- and opera in general -though my wife recently pointed out that one shouldn't say that with some 150 different works on your shelves
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With developing my taste the excitement returned quite regularly too.
Discovering Beethoven in the early 1970s -and classical music in general- meant: browsing through the RT and marking the Beethoven pieces, to be picked up on a cassette tape (still many of them in listenable working order btw) - and then the excitement of how the work would sound. I recall vividly a Beethoven series by Barenboim on Tele, and I taped the Eroica, i.e. the first mvt only, as that was what Barenboim explained. The excitement a couple of months later as the Radio 3 (or was it still the Third Programme then?) broadcast it in its entirety. Sleepless nights before that happening.....
The fuga at the end of the Missa solemnis' Credo Et venturam still raises goosebumps, as it did as I heard it for the very first time around Easter 1972.
Mahler (1974), Bruckner (1975), Richard Strauss (1976) paved the way to the hot summer of 1976, in which I discovered Webern's Symphony op.28 and Ives' Symphony 4 within days - igniting the excitement of discovering the 20th Century [Webern, Berg and Schönberg as starting point]- and especially attending concerts with newly composed works.
Recently my excitement -still comparable with those early 1970s days- arose as I "invaded" the Renaissance again (did so in the early 1980s, then combined with exploring Stravinsky, Messiaen, Britten and Shostakovich) and for the first time got grip on how polyphony works. Really exciting. I was over the moon as Tallis', de Victoria's and Sweelinck's boxes arrived last year - and feel very happy with all those new experiences.
Striking me time and again are the links between works, who was influenced by whom - one cannot appreciate a mountain if one doesn't know how it looks like down there in the valleys. Exclusively staying at the summit one loses the sense of importance, impact, excitement of those high points. One loses a sense of perspective, of reference in that way. I find it exciting (always have found so) to be able to understand, to listen why Beethoven's (or Mahler's, or Vaughan Williams' or whose-ever) symphonies are that great as is said they are.
My enjoyment won't fade, my excitement can be ignited nearly when I want.
But for me it certainly depends on listening to (for me) unknown works or eras - and listen again in amazement to all those works again which I thought I knew already.....
But my taste has changed: developed, widened.
It has defined the areas which I wanted to explore. Now basically leaving to be "done" the bulk of baroque music -especially the French baroque- and opera in general -though my wife recently pointed out that one shouldn't say that with some 150 different works on your shelves
.With developing my taste the excitement returned quite regularly too.
Discovering Beethoven in the early 1970s -and classical music in general- meant: browsing through the RT and marking the Beethoven pieces, to be picked up on a cassette tape (still many of them in listenable working order btw) - and then the excitement of how the work would sound. I recall vividly a Beethoven series by Barenboim on Tele, and I taped the Eroica, i.e. the first mvt only, as that was what Barenboim explained. The excitement a couple of months later as the Radio 3 (or was it still the Third Programme then?) broadcast it in its entirety. Sleepless nights before that happening.....
The fuga at the end of the Missa solemnis' Credo Et venturam still raises goosebumps, as it did as I heard it for the very first time around Easter 1972.
Mahler (1974), Bruckner (1975), Richard Strauss (1976) paved the way to the hot summer of 1976, in which I discovered Webern's Symphony op.28 and Ives' Symphony 4 within days - igniting the excitement of discovering the 20th Century [Webern, Berg and Schönberg as starting point]- and especially attending concerts with newly composed works.
Recently my excitement -still comparable with those early 1970s days- arose as I "invaded" the Renaissance again (did so in the early 1980s, then combined with exploring Stravinsky, Messiaen, Britten and Shostakovich) and for the first time got grip on how polyphony works. Really exciting. I was over the moon as Tallis', de Victoria's and Sweelinck's boxes arrived last year - and feel very happy with all those new experiences.
Striking me time and again are the links between works, who was influenced by whom - one cannot appreciate a mountain if one doesn't know how it looks like down there in the valleys. Exclusively staying at the summit one loses the sense of importance, impact, excitement of those high points. One loses a sense of perspective, of reference in that way. I find it exciting (always have found so) to be able to understand, to listen why Beethoven's (or Mahler's, or Vaughan Williams' or whose-ever) symphonies are that great as is said they are.
My enjoyment won't fade, my excitement can be ignited nearly when I want.
But for me it certainly depends on listening to (for me) unknown works or eras - and listen again in amazement to all those works again which I thought I knew already.....
And I'm still waiting for most baroque opera to burst into my brain too...
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