Has there been a piece that has changed your life?

Just as the title asks, has there been a piece of music that changed your life, or the way you composed, or the way you thought about music, ect. Just explain.


For me there are a few pieces that have different reasons.

Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op.95
I had been composing little things for a while and when I sat down with the score and just listened to the music, I knew that I wanted to do this. I wanted to compose music that was amazing and told a story and moved people. This piece made me want to compose seriously.

Britten's War Requiem
Again when I sat down and listened, its changed how I thought about the way I composed music. I knew from then on I wanted/needed to be more daring in my writing.

Corigliano's Symphony No. 1
Again I listened, and it made me want to make my music as personal as this was. Corigliano pour his soul right on the page, you can feel it. I knew that music needed soul, and I needed to put more of mine into everything I wrote.

This all may sound corny, but I am a firm believer in the statement that music cannot be seen, or heard, it must be felt.

Please, share your life-changing pieces!

i did that on arvo part thread.

There are lots of pieces that have influenced me, although many just in small ways here and there. The only piece I can say has had a "drastic" influence on how I composed were the six little piano pieces Op. 19 by Schönberg. I had composed in quite a classical style before, with some Cage-like experiments here and there, but not entirely seriously. I started to become unsure of my own composing and didn't write anything at all for about a year. Then my piano teacher suggested these Schönberg pieces to me, and I was utterly fascinated. I went through a whole Schönberg stage, later analysed his five piano pieces Op. 23 in school, and started to imitate his style in composition. Then I went on to Webern and slowly started to explore 20th century music.

Lovely little pieces I have to orchestrate one of them for a project in school... I'll probably do the 4th one, dunno.

It seems that a lot of composers start from Webern. Even Boulez and Stockhausen, they said that Webern was the way forward (and paradoxically, so did Cage and Feldman, albeit for completely different reasons). Webern is one of the most amazing composers of the early 20th century, and he only wrote so few things

I personally adore Varese (who also wrote very little), and I think composers who have influenced me a lot are (apart from Varease) Cage, Feldman and my teacher (Paul Newland), not so much in terms of style, but rather in terms of concepts and ideas.

Originally Posted by jujimufu

Lovely little pieces I have to orchestrate one of them for a project in school... I'll probably do the 4th one, dunno.

It seems that a lot of composers start from Webern. Even Boulez and Stockhausen, they said that Webern was the way forward (and paradoxically, so did Cage and Feldman, albeit for completely different reasons). Webern is one of the most amazing composers of the early 20th century, and he only wrote so few things

I personally adore Varese (who also wrote very little), and I think composers who have influenced me a lot are (apart from Varease) Cage, Feldman and my teacher (Paul Newland), not so much in terms of style, but rather in terms of concepts and ideas.

i go with webern, feldman and varese with you.
the start of arcana gives me shivers.
and feldman, feldman gives so much space for thought. i used to write so often listening to feldman.

Varèse actually is -currently- influencing me a lot, as it always happens when I'm analysing something in-depth, which I'm just doing with Déserts. Awesome piece!

and joseph schwantner's 'sparrows' amaze every time i hear it. and good old ligeti with his piano etudes. and aphex twin with his drugs, and scorn with his bass, and the doors and nirvana, countless as you start to count...

The quintessential answer... The predictable one... but... the honest one.

Beethoven's 9th symphony changed the way that I looked at music forever. I used to love rock music and occasionally listened to hip-hop music, but once I heard the Maazel recording with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, my jaw dropped. So much anger in the first movement! So much majesty in the second movement! So much love in the third movement! and yes! So much pure love in the fourth movement. The words that Beethoven chose for his fourth movement and the way that it was done completely changed my life. It was as if that Beethoven realized that all of the hardships of the past are done and that you should only look to happiness in the future. What a genius!

You can scorn me all you want . But I loved it and I always will.

Shostakovich's viola sonata... made me realize I wanted to do music for the rest of my life.

Alright, I have a few...

Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major

Simply put, my jaw dropped at this one. I was so amazed by it. It was so different, so strange. It confused me. It intrigued me. I didn't understand it...but I wanted to. It was a piece of music that truly struck me as both original and powerful.

Someday The Dream Will End By Masashi Hamauzu and Nobuo Uematsu

I think I may be the only one here who will cite a track from a videogame as a life-changing one. But simply put, the first time I played through FFX and it got to the moment when this track played, it simply blew me away. For those who have played, they'll know that this is pretty much the climax of the game. And the music definetly play a role. It's just...greatness. The way I felt the first time I heard it is the entire reason why I want to be a videogame composer. To do for other people what this piece did for me.

You may all laugh now.

Debussy's Arabesque No. 1

This piece is what made me fall in love with Impressionism and draw upon it as an influence.

Boulez's Le soleil des eaux

Well, I saw no mention of this thread having to be about pieces of music that impacted your life in a *good* way so I'll mention this one. Simply put, this scared the s*** out of me the first time I heard it and ever since, I have been scared of anything with the label "12 tone" or "atonal" on it.