Classical Music Forum banner

Hi from. England

3K views 29 replies 11 participants last post by  PeteW 
#1 ·
Hi. I am a classical music fan and adult beginner pianist from the North of England. I go to about 3 or 4 concerts a month, some local and occasionally further away. I love chamber music especially but I like to try new things too. About to take my grade 5 piano exam.
This looks like a friendly forum and quite diverse. Any more people from the north?
 
#4 ·
Welcome and good luck on those exams!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Taggart
#6 ·
Hi again and thanks for the welcome :) I'm playing JCF Bach Allegretto which is fun and not too hard. McDowell To a wild rose which is very romantic and trickier than it looks, and Kabalevsky, Cavalryman which is the hardest of the three. It's very fast and has some odd parts where you are playing legato and staccato notes with the same hand at the same time.

I usually change my mind on my favourite composers after nearly every concert I go to. If I've heard Beethoven then it's his turn until the next concert. I love Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Albeniz, and JS Bach - so quite a range.
 
#8 ·
I love Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Albeniz, and JS Bach - so quite a range.
Yes that is a nice range, much broader than mine. I recently discovered Mendelssohn's symphonies are great. Recommend starting with the 4th, 1st and 5th, which as I recall are his first three (chronologically 1, 5, 4). #2 is choral. He also has 12 string symphonies that he wrote when he was 14-16 years old--they are wonderful. Other than that I love Beethoven and operas with happy endings.
 
#7 ·
Hi, I suspect I might be from the north! Mind you I've heard some from Northumberland say Lancashire isn't really northern! I passed the grade 5 piano exam many years ago, just before I went to university ( I started piano at age 14) - unfortunately I never took piano lessons after university and took no further piano exams. I still play for my own satisfaction. I go to concerts in Manchester reasonably often - the last one I went to was to hear Philip Glass.
 
#15 ·
The only place where I've been called a Southerner! (Technically Central Scotland but most places are south of Aberdeen)

Welcome to the site. I'm also an adult semi-beginner pianist. I started as a child, didn't take exams, then gave up. Then I started again in my thirties and got up to grade 4 but the pressure of work meant that I gave up. After I retired, I took it up again and am now approaching grade 7.
 
#11 ·
LancsMan, I love Manchester and have heard concerts at Bridgewater hall. Last one was September and Beethoven 9 with the BBC SO. Next time will be in March when the RLPO visit with Nikolai Lugansky playing Tchaikovsky.


Florestan. I haven't really heard Mendelssohn's symphonies yet but I love his chamber music and the songs without words for piano.

I discovered classical music about 4 years ago and it's slowly taken over my life since then. The more I listened, the more I wanted to understand it better - hence the piano studies and huge amount of reading I now do about music history, musical nationalism and the lives of the composers. I'm discovering new music all the time but my friends don't really get it. They think of listening to classical music as boring and elitist. You can't really tell them how wrong they are!!

TurnaboutVox I visited your lovely concert hall in Aberdeen a couple of years ago to hear the RSNO. I like the town but it's a loooooong train ride from Leeds!!
 
#12 · (Edited)
I discovered classical music about 4 years ago and it's slowly taken over my life since then.
Ah yes, it is a beautiful thing.

As for non classical listeners, I find often the react similar to as if I were telling them what a great book (it is by the way) Capital and Interest by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk is. They just respond with total lack of interest.
 
#14 · (Edited)
Welcome, pianissimo - I'm sure you'll have great fun on this forum and I look forward to reading your posts. Leeds, hey - that was where we went if we wanted to shop for something big in the olden days when I was young. Believe it or not, I remember riding on a Leeds tram when I was a very small girl; it smelled of leather and the motion made me feel sick!

I grew up in York and also spent about twelve years in Durham, so in my heart, I'm a Northerner, despite living in the Midlands, the South, and now Norfolk, and being married to a Scotsman of Irish descent. :)
 
#19 ·
I got to grade 3 when I was a teenager, then returned to lessons a few years ago (ie 40-something mid-life crisis), but playing just for pleasure now - don't fancy the stress of exams!
Good luck with the Grade 5, or have you now sat it? Hope it went well - what were the pieces?
 
#24 ·
Haha, don't ask! the pieces went to pieces and so did I! I have another chance in March though.
The stress of exams is bad but I'm not going to be beaten by it. I take the exams so that I know for sure that I'm improving.
My teacher is very encouraging and always telling me I'm good. I don't quite believe it until I have the piece of paper with my name on!!
I actually like the challenge. Yes I'd like to play complicated music, but that's not the point. I love learning how to play a new piece and I love how something starts out almost too difficult to read but after a few months it seems too easy.
Even scales and sight reading are fun - sad I know!!

What kind of thing do you like to play?
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top