We were not a musical family in particular. The record player was kept upstairs, and we certainly had some records of performers like Victor Borge, but listening to music wasn't a habit of any sort. I have no memories of the radio beyond the news and The Archers. But at some stage, when I was about ten, my parents bought a Readers' Digest boxed set of classical music, a sort of potted history of classical music in ten albums. A greatest hits selection. I came across this by accident shortly afterwards and started working my way through the collection.
The composers that really interested me were the more modern ones, and in particular Stravinsky, whose Rite of Spring was included in the set and which I played over and over again. I found this to be some of the most exciting music I had ever heard. It opened up completely new perspectives on what music could be, and probably fixed me for ever in preferring 20th Century composers to most others. I then discovered Delius (On First Hearing..), Walton (Facade) and Prokofiev (Romeo and Juliet) through my mother, for whom these were favourite pieces. And when I bought my own first record out of my pocket money, it was an EP of Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting Mars and Venus from Holst's Planets Suite.
No comments:
Post a Comment