101 Classical Music CDs is now one year old, and if you'll permit me a brief fit of gratitude, I'd like to list ten things I've learned and discovered from my first year of finally listening to my collection of classical music. 1) I learned how much I loved Mozart. I spent years hating Mozart's music as a high school trumpet player--as far as I was concerned, it was all oom-pah parts and rest-counting. It wasn't until I started this blog (and had high school recede 20 years into my past) that I could at last hear him through fresh ears. 2) I learned even more how much I loved Haydn (yep, trumpet playing again ), and it taught me never to take great composers like these for granted. 3) I became much more familiar with each and every one of Beethoven's symphonies , by itself a worthwhile exercise if there ever was one. 4) It taught me about less-well known composers like Sibelius , who were sitting on my CD shelf, collecting just as much dust as my Bach...
"The study of the history of music and the hearing of masterworks of different epochs will speediest of all cure you of vanity and self-adoration."