Boom

My introduction to classical music can be credited almost entirely to my darling Roman. Of course I'd been learning about classical music in class since year 7 but it was rammed down our throats in a very unappealing way, especially when it came to attending Meet the Music concerts at the Opera House.
These concerts were treated as a good opportunity for mucking up as much as possible (one recalls vividly a fellow student crying out 'You're not meant to clap between movements! FUCK!' just as the applause subsided...) and not for listening to the mixed quality selection of classical and modern Australian art music.
And then... (please insert your own swelling string section here) I fell in love. I had just turned 17 and suddenly there was this incredibly sophisticated smart boy who knew everything about everything. I was instantly dedicated to bettering myself and my musical knowledge enough to impress him. Not only did I seem to impress the boy, I found that the music I was introduced to quickly became intoxicating.
So here, more than a year and a half later, is my personal classical music canon (boom!) by composer:

Allegri - Miserere Mei, Deus
Bach - Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major & Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Bach/Gounod - Ave Maria
Dvorak - Symphony No. 9: "From the New World"
Elgar - Nimrod from the Enigma Variations
Faure - Requiem, especially Pie Jesu and Libera Me
Handel - Selections from the Messiah - 'The Trumpet Shall Sound', 'All We Like Sheep', 'Death, Where is thy Sting?', 'Glory to God'.
Holst - St. Paul's Suite & Mars from The Planets
Mozart - Requiem, especially Confutatis & Lacrimosa
Rachmaninoff - Vespers, especially Bogoroditse Devo (please excuse my incredibly poor Russian spelling)
Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumblebee
Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre & Symphony No. 3 (Organ)

I've had to control my desire to add about 50 arias from various operas because they will make their own canon at some point in the future.

I hope you enjoy my selections...