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I was fortunate to have grown up in a household that always had music at its center. When I was four years old, my mother bought my sister and I a Christmas Carol album that was my introduction to classical music - Noël - the Choir of Men and Boys of the St. Thomas Church in New York City. The album has traditional English Christmas Carols. My sister and I would ask my Mother when she got in from work - Mom, can you play the little boys for us? We would sit quietly on the couch and listen and sing along as best we could. No doubt that this was a major influence in my love of classical music. She also played us Strauss waltzes and Prokofiev - Peter and the Wolf. As I got older, Warner Bros. and Merry Melodies cartoons were a staple. They incorporated many classical scores in their cartoons. This is where I first heard them and developed a love for classical. Back then, TV was very instrumental.

When I was an infant my mother and my sisters apparently sang "The Bells of St. Mary's" to me in the crib. According to them I started humming it long before I could say "Mama."

My family was somewhat musical. My much older sisters and my mother would sing three-part harmony as they washed the dishes...simple stuff like "I Don't Know Why I Love You Like I Do." It was a great way to learn about harmony by ear, and I listened to them from the time I can remember.

At the age of 3 I would sit under our small grand while my oldest sister practiced. As she loved Brahms, I remember hearing the three Op. 117 Intermezzi frequently. I loved how the sound enveloped me and transported me to a beautiful happy/sad safe place.

About the same time, I distinctly remember listening to Jose Iturbi playing Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu on an RCA 45. Back then even classical music was released on 45 rpm records, one piece per side. The RCA 45s were transparent red, I recall. I listened to that piece over and over and over; I couldn't tell you what was on the B-side of the record!

Not much later I recall my second-oldest sister and her friend Christine practicing "Tutti Fior" from Puccini's "Madame Butterfly," and again I was transported.

I suppose that's how it began.

Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, especially No. 3 allegro. I don't remember exactly when I first heard it, I suspect I was 6 or 7, and was floored by how much more complex and interesting it was than the folk music my mom loved and played and the Bee Gees my sister obsessed over. At 7 I got very serious about classical music and since we couldn't afford an instrument I wound up singing and on a track to be an opera singer, though computers eventually derailed that Never lost my interest in music, and Bach holds a very special place in my brain.

As a child in the late 1940s/early 1950s I was immersed in "popular" music. My Dad taught ballroom dance, my Mom sang in night clubs, and I had access to recordings of songs from popular Disney animated films. The first piece of classical music that really made an impression on me (at age 7) was the Bacchanale from Saint-Saen's' Samson and Delilah (which was on an LP of classical music selections we bought at a Safeway supermarket). At age 9 I recall being very much into the Disney film "Fantasia" (particularly the Sorcerer's Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain sequences) By age 10 I was reading biographies of Mozart and Chopin and listening to Beethoven's 5th Symphony. I was completely hooked.

Carmina Burana in the Old Spice ad.

“Fantasie Impromptu” on an old 78 by Jose Iturbi; Dad bought it in a sale when I was nine. I had been exposed to classical music by my first teacher but those passages through the sharp minor keys did something extraordinary to my brain. Even now, at seventy-two, I can see the detail of my parents’ dining room, smell the fire roaring in the grate, when the real power of music hit me for the first time. It wasn’t that I wanted to play it and master it, although I wasted no time in learning it and playing it badly, but rather that I knew I must create music myself in order to again experience the same magical sensation. There were many subsequent and similar visionary moments but they do not pertain to classical music.

According to my parents, the record (they were all 78s) I responded to the most at age 3 was Stravinsky's "The Firebird."

Oh yes, of course; I forgot to mention Disney’s Fantasia, (the original one).

I listened to lots of music as a child.
The first classical piece I remember dreaming of was Rossini's ouverture "La Gazza Ladra". It was on a record my mother often put on when she, my older sister and me were playing board games.

And until you mentioned it here, I'd completely forgotten about the existence of Fantasia 2000. Might be worth a look since it includes Beethoven's 5th and The Firebird.

Nice post, Ted !!

Disney cartoons have been mentioned a few times.

But though I do remember watching Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry as a kid (- even in the tiny obscure insignificant minuscule country from which I sprang, the national TV station did show a few imported Western programs), I don't remember ever hearing any music of significance in them. Maybe I was too engrossed in their antics to take much notice of the music.

However, I definitely never saw Fantasia.

In fact, it was quite curious what programs that one national TV station (at the time) chose to broadcast. All the years I lived there as a child and teenager, there was only one (series of) classical music program shown (which I've mentioned before) - but what a series it was: the complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle played by Paul Badura-Skoda and Jörg Demus, who shared the sonatas between them, produced by ORF (Austria). No spoken commentary at all (not even in German), just the titles, then the pianist seated at the piano and playing the sonata from start to finish. One sonata per program, except for the Op.49 ones. The programs were therefore of various lengths, and were shown at closing time around midnight. Did the TV station import them because of requests from the many piano teachers in the country? (The piano was the only Western instrument widely available there, and we had many qualified teachers, all with teaching diplomas, and ABRSM exams were almost mandatory if you took piano lessons.) Or - more likely - ORF sold them cheap to 'countries with no music' and the TV station used them as convenient fillers prior to closing time .

I stayed up for all of them, of course, even though I was still early on in my exploration of classical music (I was in my second year of piano lessons, I think) and the music was all new to me, apart from a few movements which my first teacher had played for me. I do remember that it was the Waldstein and Appassionata that made the most impression on me. And I also remember that the piano was a Bösendorfer, which I thought was quite an exotic-sounding name (almost as exotic as the names of the two pianists ). It probably had extra keys at the bottom, but at the time, it wouldn't be something I'd notice.

Some fifteen years later, I found myself in Vienna, and played a Bösendorfer Imperial at their showroom.......(and it was every bit as good as I expected it to be ).

It’s beautiful. I’m especially fond of the graceful winged horses, (Beethoven’s 6th), and the dinosaurs, (Rite of Spring.) If I remember correctly, it was written to introduce children to classical music.

I think it's fantastic that there are so many diverse routes taken that inspired each person's love of music.

The Disney cartoons I referred to were actually full-length animated features dating back to 1937 - 1954 (i.e., Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinnocihio, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp) . All of these had original music - and some great songs. (i.e., "When you wish upon a star" from Pinnochio won an Academy Award for best song in 1941). The 1940 "Fantasia" featured music from the Rite of Spring, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, the Pastorale Symphony, Night on Bald Mountain, the Nutcracker Suite, Dance of the Hours, and Schubert's Ave Maria. It was a bold effort at the time.

Some excerpts.....
https://youtu.be/b756FPiLlp8
https://youtu.be/MJ7IGnQPZPQ
https://youtu.be/dkh_B6jxvWM
https://youtu.be/LpKA9n-75tQ
https://youtu.be/rfi7IDgVa5s

Thanks - that explains why I never saw any of them.

All the cartoons shown on TV when I was a kid were short recent productions, with lots of sight gags that would be funny and understandable to a predominantly non-English-speaking audience and what I'd term 'cartoon music', not orchestral.

I was given piano lessons for 7 years as a child starting at age 6, but had never been to a classical concert or heard a classical recording. It was just a sterile educational exercise. Then I heard a recording of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring performed on organ and I was hooked. I switched to studying classical organ for 4 years, but ultimately switched back to piano for practical reasons.

As a working musician, it pays the bills. Gotta REALLY love it...

The 2nd Movement of the Pathetique Sonata. Interestingly enough, despite this, I've always had a hard time connecting to classical period works finding the emotional restraint and tight structures too confining to really feel at home playing them. The issues of youthful passion I guess?