Interested in classical music?

Trying to revive a dormant group here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/476/Classical-Music

Made a couple of attempts!

Thanks, Tess. I haven't joined the group, but I have posted to it and put it on my watch list.

Strictly a dabbler. I can't read music, don't play a classical instrument -- only folk and rock guitar. I have my favorites -- BEETHOVEN, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Renaissance masters like Dowland and the Lawes brothers; and I enjoy other obvious greats such as Bach,Mozart, Haydn, Mendelsohn, Lizst, Schubert etc. Don't like Copland. Don't understand compositional theory.
Anything beyond listening for pleasure goes over my head,

I’m strictly a dabbler, or something, also. Don’t read music, don’t play any instrument, but I love classical music (and some jazz, some pop/rock, some everything …). I’m prepared to listen to almost anything, but the concerts I go to are mostly those between Bach and Brahms. Andràs Schiff said that there is Bach and music traceable to Bach and everything else is secondary. I wouldn’t go that far, but I see where he’s coming from.

Thank you all! I applied to be an admin there 3-4 years ago, before I become one in this group and in birding. Had forgotten all about it and just got a message from Abigail that I was the new admin. I need a new group like another ache or pain! You don't have to be an expert in music to join. Just one who like to talk about it or stalk about it!

After looking at the topics, I decided to join the group. I guess I'm qualified - first record I ever bought was Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, when I was around ten years old. I read music and play three instruments (started learning classical guitar when I turned 70.) I'll stop whatever I'm doing and just listen when Beethoven, Stravinsky or Puccini are playing, though I've developed an equally strong love for jazz as well.

Yes, and have been for over fifty years. In elementary etc. school I was always musically involved with orchestra, band, musicals, etc. There is not any other music for me (except liturgical / Gregorian chant).

I always tune into the classical station whenever I read, and if I don't particularly care for what's playing, I've got 6 CDs loaded into tuner.
Like Crypto-Willobie, I'm more of a folkie -- introduced as Mike, the Song Butcher at Open Mike nights. You can blame my love of classical music on my high school band director -- Robert Bednar, whom I'll be visiting again this coming October during the 3rd attempt of my high school class celebrating its 50th anniversary. Because of the same problem I have reading whole words, I also can't sight-read music, ergo my instrument was percussion. But he encouraged me, and I took a year of music theory with him, and he made it all make sense. I still can't read music, but I can transpose to any key faster than anyone I know. I'm an I-know-what-I-like sort of classical music appreciator; anything with a harp or a harpsichord for reasons unexplained, and string quartets. It's a funny little world, you know.

My earliest memory of classical music is being taken with the school to a kids' performance by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane City Hall. I would have been no more than 10 years old, so at least 60 years ago. I remember that Schubert's Marche Militaire No 1 (arranged for orchestra) was on the programme. I also have a vague memory of being introduced to Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata at about the same age, although it may have been just that the fiction of how the sonata got its popular name turned up in one of our reading books.

Since then: pop music from about 1956 to the mid-eighties; various flirtations with jazz, in particular the MJQ and Dave Brubeck; then a deep dive (or bellyflop perhaps--nothing graceful about it) into all kinds of Western art music, but most of all, anything that shows its descent from Bach, particularly when played on a piano. One piece that I tend to play over and over in certain moods is Víkingur Ólafsson's recording of Busoni's transcription of Bach's chorale prelude BWV 659, "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland". I'm not a believer, but if anything could turn me into one, that recording comes pretty close.

Many decades ago my mother used to play her 78s for us. I especially remember Moonlight Sonata and her favorite Clair de Lune. She was not fond of the Lohengrin wedding march so she had the Marche Militaire instead. The guests were a little confused.

>11 Taphophile13: Whenever the Moonlight Sonata was played in our house, my mother would cry. I never understood why and she would never explain....

>12 TempleCat: Strange and sad, very sad. It's too bad she couldn't tell you but there must have been some negative association for her.

>13 Taphophile13: Not for me! It is just so moving and hauntingly beautiful that I want to cry (but I don't!).

>14 Tess_W: Yes! I always loved that one too although it doesn't move me to tears, just feelings of happiness.