First piece of Beethoven music

[OboeKing]

Which was the first piece of Beethoven music that really got you interested in him? Mine of course was the ninth. I was flicking through some television channels when I cma across the sight of a large orchestra, large chorus and 4 soloists belting out something that had an extremely strange and profound effect on me. It was of course the ninth. This was when I was very very young, even before I'd started learning the piano at the age of 6, but I can remember it as if it was yesterday. I didn't remember the name of the composer but in my piano lesson I played a (very much) simplified version of the famous 'Ode,'and it all came flooding back to me. This is where my love of the great man began, and I Began to learn all the Beethoven standards, first movement of Moonlight, Fur Elise, minuet in G etc. I remember a feeling of elation when, aged 8, I cracked my first Beethoven sonata, Opus 49, no. 2. And it has just grown and grown from there really!

Sory for wandering off into my life story a bit there! But, as I have already asked, what was the first piece of music you heard by Beethoven that got you wanting to hear more??

Regards,
Michael.

[Rod]

For me it was. believe it or not a recording of the adagio of the moonlight performed by Dudley Moore (on one of his Derek and Clive recordings with Peter Cook), to which he sung smutty lyrics in an mock operatic manner!

Obviously I thought about finding a 'proper' version of the music but I was so ignorant about classical music then that I didn't even know the name of the composer!

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Grandmother's minuet! The first Beethoven LP I bought though was the 4th and 5th symphonies - then I was hooked, joind the local music library and took the rest of the symphonies and concertos out. The first Beethoven sonata I attempted to play was the Pathetique.

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[spaceray]

I had heard of Beethoven of course and listened to his music out of a corner of my ear.I knew Fidelio but it was on a search of music to sing in English that led me to this forum to ask about the folksong settings of LvB,I downloaded a "rare" offering I'm not sure which one it was and then it was full out hunting down Beethoven and listening to everything I could get my hands on.
Delightful!

[Marta]

I wish I could remember, by I don't...., by the age of seven I was already attending the Conservatory of Music and was exposed to all the great composers at once, but I remember my excitement when at the age of 10 my teacher gave me my first Beethoven Sonata, the Op.10 No1....oh I felt an incredible emotion because I was aloud finally to play Beethoven. This emotion has continued for the rest of my life, every time I learned another Sonata the feeling was the same, each of those works are truly musical worlds in themselves, that for the pianist offers an incredible discovery and challenge.
Beethoven's music was and still is for me the most difficult to interpret, and at the same time the most rewarding.


Marta

[Ahmad]

Fur Elise ...I think it's really great..

[chopithoven]

Mine was the Moonlight Sonata in a horrible midi version (horrible as all midis are). The first true recording I listened was an excerpt of the Allegretto of the 7th downloaded from the old and extinct Napster. All this was before I decided to buy a true recording, and when I did, I purchased all the symphonies in economic recordings.

[melvyn]

The Emperor Piano Concerto on a Decca record by Clifford Curzon. I don't remember why I bought it now, but it has remained one of my favourite Beethoven pieces.

Melvyn.

[John Rasmussen]

The Eroica Symphony, on an ancient vinyl disk with Fritz Busch leading a group called the "Austrian Symphony Orchestra." The recording sounds perfectly awful but the interpretation and playing are wonderful, and of course the music is so glorious I couldn't get enough of it, even though I was already well acquainted with Bach and Mozart. I still get out that record occasionally.

[Gurn Blanston]

Like John, mine was the Eroica also. I got an old casette tape somewhere and simply wore out the life remaining in it. The horns in the third movement were what got me. It was a long time later that I actually began to collect classicl music, but the Eroica was the first CD I purchased.
Regards, Gurn

[Sorrano]

The 5th Symphony impressed me a great deal when I was very young (I do not even recall hearing it, but the opening notes left such a tremendous affect upon me that I spent several years, in youth, searching out all the symphonies). The Sonatina in G (and I believe authorship is in question on this piece) was the first piano piece that I memorized and did so without any lessons or coaching. I enjoyed it that much.

[Chaszz]

Like John and Gurn, it was also the Eroica for me, in an old LP I no longer have, and I don't remember the conductor or orchestra. This was over forty years ago. Like John, I already loved Bach and Mozart, but Beethoven was new to me. I considered him a Romantic and at that time of my life thought of myself as purely a classicist in music and art both. I picked up this used LP at a street sale simply because it was cheap, and thought I'd see what this Beethoven was all about, even though I thought he had contributed greatly to the decadence of music by initiating the Romantic era. I was shocked by the dramatic starkness of the diminished (?) chord in the first movement which repeats, off-rhythm, five times, like hammer blows, every time it occurs. I pondered that strange chord and its off-rhythm for weeks. Gradually I got to love all the music in the first movement and then the other movements, and then on to the other symphonies, etc.

But the argument on this forum, that Beethoven is not a Romantic composer must have some real weight in it, in that I didn't get to like any of the real Romantics for many years, while listening to Beethoven steadily during all that time. I think I regarded him as the only sensible Romantic, in that he controlled things, while the other Romantics were just sloppy emoters. These days, of course, I am beyond help, emoting with the worst of them, Wagner, having hopelessly lost all standards and proportion.

[Poseidan73]

I knew many of Beethoven's works, like the 1st movement of the moonlight sonata, fuer elise and the 1st movement of the 5th, but what made me sit up and really listen (and stick the repeat button on) was the 6th Symphony.

[Joy]

That's what first hooked me onto Beethoven, OboeKing, was the 9th Symphony when I was 6 yrs. old. I didn't know who the composer even was when I first heard it, all I know is that the 2nd movement and the "Ode" moved me so much that I had to ask myself, 'who is this man?' From then on it was no turning back. On the piano the first Beethoven songs I learned was 'Fur Elise' and 'Minuet in G'and through the years by reading books and watching videos, etc. I've been learning more and more about him. He's always been a keen interest of mine and the rest, as they say, is history.

------------------
'Truth and beauty joined'

[Suzie]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peter:
[B]Grandmother's minuet! The first Beethoven LP I bought though was the 4th and 5th symphonies - then I was hooked, joind the local music library and took the rest of the symphonies and concertos out. The first Beethoven sonata I attempted to play was the Pathetique.

Peter,

You had mentioned the Minuet in G before. I remembered hearing it when I was a kid and it reminded me of an old lady. When you said it was called Grandmother's Minuet, I got the chills.

I was pulled in by the 9th Symphony. It was one of those life events that puts you on a whole other course.

Suz