I've been listening to classical music most of my life. Jean Sibelius and Dmitri Shostakovich were the composers who introduced me to classical music. Their works changed me, but I wasn't fearful. The music touched me before I could start listing all the things I already liked. I never worried whether I was the right person. It didn't even occur to me. I also didn't think I was better than someone else. It wasn't about that.
Later the works of Olivier Messiaen, Erik Satie, Krzysztof Penderecki and Louis Vierne changed me even more. Classical music was never just background music. Not even Erik Satie. I first heard Satie's Gymnopedie 1 when it played during a Swedish television test pattern. I was amazed because it found me. I wanted to find a recording of it that spoke to me the most.
How would I describe classical music? Enduring, ambitious, powerful, subtle, entrancing, extraordinary. It's not just one thing. Start listening to concertos, symphonies, nocturnes, quartets and cantatas from all periods. Stop worrying and fussing.
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