planetveil replied to your post: planetveil replied to your audio post: Frédéric…

Lack of popularity? Well aren’t you quite the optimist ;) This is beautiful Alfoxus. You know I’ve only recently begun listening to classical, Beethoven my gateway drug. So I will be looking to you for some great suggestions. No pressure :)

Beethoven was my gateway drug too funnily enough. The Moonlight Sonata was the first classical piece I remember liking (particularly 1st and 3rd movs). I’ve always had a slightly weird relationship with classical music as a result of having formal piano lessons as a kid and being made to practice pieces I didn’t like. But now that I’m writing my own music I’m on the lookout for inspiration wherever I can find it!

As for some suggestions…

• Chopin’s nocturnes (particularly Op 48 No 1 and Op 55 No 1)
• Lizst - Hungarian Rhapsody No 2
• Prokofiev - Lieutenant Kijé 
• Shostakovich - 5th Symphony
• Rachmaninoff - Prelude in G minor op. 23.
• Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach

So Russians and Romantics basically (if you discount Glass).

Hope that helps :)

Shostakovich - Symphony no. 5

Philip Ridley had a life-changing formative experience when he first heard this as a teenager.