Has there been a piece that has changed your life?

no

Not yet.

Mozart's Piano concerto in C major K.503.

Also to a lesser extent the one in Bb, K.595.

The C major concerto is really what got me hooked on classical music as a teenager..... I just kept coming back to it.......and take such joy in listening to that piece.
Strangely it's a work not so typical of Mozart.......or at least not so typical of the public view of him.... it's very personal, and not-showy, and .....absolutely beautiful.

If it wasn't for that concerto, God only knows what I'd be studying now.

Of course maybe I'd have found another piece - I loved listening to Bach when I was a child.

Mahler Symphony 8 E flat Major

Honestly I thank goodness That I was bored of listening to the 1812 overture over the summer of 2007 and decide to listen to a video entitled Mahler 8, on youtube. It came after the 1812 overture video was complete as a recommendation. The symphony of 1000 as it is called was being conducted by simon rattle and boy was it huge, I was bored naturally with the first few minutes, silly piccolo playing an G for 40 measures and harps doing glissandos, but I gained interest when the choir of 800 began singing so softly text from Goethe's faust. And then there was this sudden lush explosion of sound the choir instruments, everything, the emotions I felt were unexplainable it was joy and everything just muddled together. Finally the choir and instruments after singing for 4 measures "Zieht uns Hinan" which roughly in German translates to "Draws us (upward) on high" the choir reaches a climax that pulled everything out of me. Soon the brass instruments offstage would recap the main melody to the symphony (G F E-flat) in a fanfare of sound. Soon the drums come in, playing a haunting Eb for three measures...representing the rise to heaven and the power of love as the music really attempts to portray. Woodwinds and orchestra soon ensue in such a lush Chord, it is in this part of the work that I became a little girl and started tearing...seriously...the music was so powerful and overwhelming. After the melody is once more Played by the brass, a cymbal crash ensues...with the trumpets and trombones playing octave unisons...giving it an odd sound...another cymbal clash and the unison returns...a third and final clash..and the upward climb begins and reaches the absolute climax of the entire symphony...and then finally it ends..so suddenly and extravagantly.


Barber's Adagio for strings op. 11


I don't think this one needs explaining, if anyone has ever heard it..you'd probably understand..if you have not..please get a decent recording or youtube it

barber's adagio for strings makes me think of someone ordering me to murder my father..out of love.......spooky music....

Yeah, it's amazing how Barber builds the piece out of a single motif.

The closest I've come to hearing lifechanging music is Turandot. Before, I didn't like opera very much, but since then, I've loved to listen to vocal music, and most of my work so far has been art songs.

Bach's Prelude number 2 from the Well Tempered Clavier was the first bit of 'classical' music I really listened to - I remember being captivated by the way the two voices were moving in different directions yet still sounding together. From then I listened to loads of Bach, and Vivaldi and other late Baroque composers.
It was Brahms 3 that got my into Romantic music. I saw it performed by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra last April. This was my first experience of hearing a professional orchestra playing a piece I know back to front and I loved every second of it.
Mentions are also deserved by Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Sibelius 7

pieces that considerably changed my life outside of music

Pet Sounds
Rite Of Spring a little bit

Has a piece of music changed my life?

When I was a baby, a Bach 2-part invention ran into a burning building and saved my life, pulling me to safety.

Seriously? No, nothing by anyone else.

On the other hand, writing my own first piece did put me on a new life path.