Has there been a piece that has changed your life?

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

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.

that's a great answer, how could i forget my 'hitler techno' days

A Final Fantasy 6 town theme, 'Kids Run around the Corner' or something stupid like that. That was the first music I ever arranged for anything. Then came a slew of video game MIDIs.

Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag was probably my biggest influence - it's the first piece I could play on piano. It's also why Aflat is my favorite key. I also learned a great deal about form and structure from playing all that ragtime. Oh, and syncopation. Ragtime rocks!!

And then there's Nixon in China, John Adams' opera from 1987. I discovered this piece late in my 'minimalism' stage, and practically changed how I wrote music. John Adams is the man.

I probably told this story before a couple of years ago but...when I was 14, I attended my first opera, "The Marriage of Figaro" by Mozart. I'd never seen or heard anything like it before. I remember feeling with each number that it couldn't possibly get more wonderful, but it did. Delight after delight came, one after the other. By the time the final act came, and Count Almaviva, caught in the web of his own intrigues and attempted infidelity, begs his wife for forgiveness and is wholeheartedly forgiven (one of my favoute magical Mozart moments to this day), I was in tears. It was a great performance, and received many curtain calls...I wept through them all, and all the way home in the car. My family thought I was insane...all but my mother, who understood.

I was never the same as a musician, composer or person again. It didn't change the path I was on as a composer, but rather galvanised it.

Well not exactly, but I remember an experience I had that really made me change the way I thought about music in general.

I was listening on an mp3 player the Rite of Spring (a piece that I really love) being lost in the magical rhythms and melodies of the piece enjoying every moment of it. The piece ended at some point and I thought to turn off the player, but then without expecting it Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' concerto began playing (I thought that I'd set the mp3 player in replay mode). I cannot explain it, but at this moment I felt so strangely. What I was hearing was so beautiful, just like Stravinsky's work, but in a different way (don't get me wrong. I love Vivaldi, but this time it felt differently while hearing his concerto). And then while Vivaldi was playing in the background I started "playing" in my head music that I didn't really appreciate and found how beautiful it was. I realised the inherent beauty in music and sound and in its diversity something that I didn't really understand or appreciate before. I can easily say that it was an enlightening experience for me!

Alexandros

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

Ah, then you should find Schoenberg and Webern to be most amazing!

Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings.

I don't know what it is, I've always been a sucker for strings, and this one is just so hauntingly beautiful. It gives me a lot of inspiration.

It's got to be Einaudi, he spawned my love for classical music.

Or not.

Originally Posted by jujimufu

Ah, then you should find Schoenberg and Webern to be most amazing!

And Bach

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.

I found this one funny..too bad he was being sarcastic

One of the pieces that really has changed my life is Sibelius' 5th symphony. After all, it was one of the first works that got me interested into classical/orchestral music in the first place, several years ago. I still hold it very dear to my heart. Other works that have had a big impact on me are Sibelius' 2nd, Mahler's 1st, the "Titan," Mahler's 6th, the "Tragic," Mahler's 7th, Walton's 1st, Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot," and Tchaikovsky's 6th, the "Pathetique."