Introducing New Listeners to Classical Music

[Daverz]

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Andrea Bocelli in concert at Boston Garden. It was clearly a sold-out crowd in a venue with a capacity of 20,000. I'm sure the vast majority of attendees were not serious classical music listeners, but the ovations for the genuine classical works were just as loud as those for the more mainstream pieces. Classical "crossover" artists are often criticized for not sticking to the "authentic" repertoire, but their value in introducing new listeners to classical music is immeasurable.

I think a good way to transition someone from that sort of crossover is Canteloube's songs, particularly the Davrath recordings.  I can't imagine anyone not being enchanted by, for example, Bailero.

https://www.youtube.com/v/-iI8tMHrD_c

[SimonNZ]

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Andrea Bocelli in concert at Boston Garden. It was clearly a sold-out crowd in a venue with a capacity of 20,000. I'm sure the vast majority of attendees were not serious classical music listeners, but the ovations for the genuine classical works were just as loud as those for the more mainstream pieces. Classical "crossover" artists are often criticized for not sticking to the "authentic" repertoire, but their value in introducing new listeners to classical music is immeasurable.

I don't share your faith in that. Pretty much nobody I talk to online or irl who loves classical says they got in via crossover stuff. And all the people I know who like crossover seem happy to have found their level.they

[SimonNZ]

I think a good way to transition someone from that sort of crossover is Canteloube's songs, particularly the Davrath recordings.  I can't imagine anyone not being enchanted by, for example, Bailero.

https://www.youtube.com/v/-iI8tMHrD_c

Ironically it was the Devrath recording of that work I played to a friend of mine who likes pop-opera crossover.

He didn't get it. I mean not at all. He's welcome to like what he likes of course, but I felt a little saddened by that.

[Daverz]

Ironically it was the Devrath recording of that work I played to a friend of mine who likes pop-opera crossover.

He didn't get it. I mean not at all. He's welcome to like what he likes of course, but I felt a little saddened by that.

It's also been sung by some pop singers, and there have been many more operatic treatments (e.g. von Stade, Moffo, etc).

[SimonNZ]

I don't think that's the problem. I think it's more that these oversweetened chocolate box collections misrepresent the wider repertoire, and trying to hear some greatest hit in its context and in its unsweetened form is like then being told to eat your greens.

He also had a duet from Monteverdi' Poppea on something which he particularly liked and I tried to gently build on that with a collection of Monteverdi duets with Kirkby and Tubbs, but that too was a nonstarter.

He lost interest after that and I knew better than to keep trying, even gently.

[Rinaldo]

A young collegue at my work heard me playing the classical radio station a few weeks back and next time we had to work together asked that it be left playing for the whole of our ten hour shift so he could get a sense of it.

Luckily for him the station changed some years back to playing only individual movements rather than whole works, so its more useful as a sampler and if there is something he might actively dislike it will be replaced in short order.

He had questions for me all through the night and it was unexpected just how little context he had fot the most basic assumptions about classical music performance I would previously thought were acquired through osmosis or films and tv even if you've never heard a whole symphony.

At one point he recognized a tune from an advertisement, I said it was Vivaldi, and much of our conversation was centered on Vivaldi. He was surprised to learn he died going on three hundred years ago and people were writing music back then. He said "So you haven't been to a Vivaldi concert, then". I said I'd been to many, and he honestly didn't understand how that was possible and I had to explain publishing and that most concerts are without the composer and using only the sheet music as their guide. At another point he looked up Vivaldi on Spotify and asked if these were Vivaldi's own recordings, and I had to explain that he died before recorded sound and how and when that technology happened. I showed him a portrait and again he was genuinely baffled that someone should look and dress so strangely.

I don't offer these anecdotes here to mock him, but to express my own surprise that its now possible to reach the age of twenty five with absolute zero context. I was given at least a sketchy outline at school. He tells me it was never mentioned.

Love this post, even if it's a bit maddening. But it's a familiar experience: I come from an astronomer's family and it was eye opening to realize how little schools teach / folks remember about the fundamentals of the universe. "So the Sun is a... star?" is a question I hear from both kids and well-educated adults.

I think it's more that these oversweetened chocolate box collections misrepresent the wider repertoire, and trying to hear some greatest hit in its context and in its unsweetened form is like then being told to eat your greens.

Touché.

My main advice was to treat it like getting into any other genre of music: don't treat it like homework - if you find something you like play more of that.

Exactly how I ended up on GMG

In any case, I have no idea if he ever listened to any more classical music after this, but it was illuminating to understand the knowledge barriers people might face even if they do experience chance exposure to classical music and like what they hear.

This. Also reminds me of a funny quote from composer/conductor Petr Kotík, commenting on his short explanatory speech before a rather avantgarde performance: "Sometimes it helps to clarify a few things first."

[Rosalba]

I don't think that's the problem. I think it's more that these oversweetened chocolate box collections misrepresent the wider repertoire, and trying to hear some greatest hit in its context and in its unsweetened form is like then being told to eat your greens.

This is very well-put. I suppose the answer is that an unsweetened chunk of classical music becomes fashionable after appearing in some film or other in-vogue event, and then others jump on the bandwagon and publicise some more unsweetened chunks. Maybe an impossibly handsome pop-star can be bribed to play a classical chunk at a select party he's throwing.

If you don't hear it, you can't like it, and some pieces are an acquired taste that you might need many hearings of before you decide that you love the flavour.

[SimonNZ]

A young collegue at my work heard me playing the classical radio station a few weeks back and next time we had to work together asked that it be left playing for the whole of our ten hour shift so he could get a sense of it.

Luckily for him the station changed some years back to playing only individual movements rather than whole works, so its more useful as a sampler and if there is something he might actively dislike it will be replaced in short order.

He had questions for me all through the night and it was unexpected just how little context he had fot the most basic assumptions about classical music performance I would previously thought were acquired through osmosis or films and tv even if you've never heard a whole symphony.

At one point he recognized a tune from an advertisement, I said it was Vivaldi, and much of our conversation was centered on Vivaldi. He was surprised to learn he died going on three hundred years ago and people were writing music back then. He said "So you haven't been to a Vivaldi concert, then". I said I'd been to many, and he honestly didn't understand how that was possible and I had to explain publishing and that most concerts are without the composer and using only the sheet music as their guide. At another point he looked up Vivaldi on Spotify and asked if these were Vivaldi's own recordings, and I had to explain that he died before recorded sound and how and when that technology happened. I showed him a portrait and again he was genuinely baffled that someone should look and dress so strangely.

I don't offer these anecdotes here to mock him, but to express my own surprise that its now possible to reach the age of twenty five with absolute zero context. I was given at least a sketchy outline at school. He tells me it was never mentioned.

My main advice was to treat it like getting into any other genre of music: don't treat it like homework - if you find something you like play more of that.

I was reminded of this post today.

A coworker roughly the same age as the guy above had just read some thing on his phone and asked me if I wanted to hear something really crazy. He asked me if I'd heard of that tune called The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. I pushed past the "that tune" thing and said yes. Then in a you won't believe this voice told me that he just heard that if played in its entirety it goes for 45 minutes. I gave him the two sentence version of What Concertos Are, which didn't seem to fit with any previously established context.

He said he was going to give this mad thing a try on tomorrow's early start. I said that I didn't think he'd find it in any way difficult, and that he'd probably be surprised by how much he recognized.

[Florestan]

He asked me if I'd heard of that tune called The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. I pushed past the "that tune" thing and said yes. Then in a you won't believe this voice told me that he just heard that if played in its entirety it goes for 45 minutes.

Oh, the horror! 

I wonder what he'd make of that tune called Mahler's Third. 

[Hitch]

Oh, the horror! 

I wonder what he'd make of that tune called Mahler's Third. 

[Cato]

I was reminded of this post today.

A coworker roughly the same age as the guy above had just read some thing on his phone and asked me if I wanted to hear something really crazy. He asked me if I'd heard of that tune called The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. I pushed past the "that tune" thing and said yes. Then in a you won't believe this voice told me that he just heard that if played in its entirety it goes for 45 minutes. I gave him the two sentence version of What Concertos Are, which didn't seem to fit with any previously established context.

He said he was going to give this mad thing a try on tomorrow's early start. I said that I didn't think he'd find it in any way difficult, and that he'd probably be surprised by how much he recognized.

I am reminded of overhearing a conversation in 1969 about some pseudo-musical group's latest record and the astonishment of the two 20-somethings upon seeing that one "song" lasted...

17 MINUTES!!!

I commented quietly that in Classical Music, many works average around an hour, while operas last 2, 3, or even 5 hours.

One of them commented: "How can you listen to one thing for that long?!"

The Short-Attention-Span Society was already up and running c. 60 years ago!

[Belle]

"I knew it was classical music because there was no vocal" (Marilyn Monroe, "The Seven Year Itch").

[relm1]

I am reminded of overhearing a conversation in 1969 about some pseudo-musical group's latest record and the astonishment of the two 20-somethings upon seeing that one "song" lasted...

17 MINUTES!!!

I commented quietly that in Classical Music, many works average around an hour, while operas last 2, 3, or even 5 hours.

One of them commented: "How can you listen to one thing for that long?!"

The Short-Attention-Span Society was already up and running c. 60 years ago!

That is so true.  The same issue in getting someone to read a book.  Who has time for that, or they might just read the end and eliminate the journey.  Thank you tiktok and just about everything else online.

[Cato]

That is so true.  The same issue in getting someone to read a book.  Who has time for that, or they might just read the end and eliminate the journey.  Thank you tiktok and just about everything else online.

As a teacher, I did not need to wonder back in the 1990's and beyond why ever more children were being diagnosed as "ADHD."

From little on up, they are surrounded by things to which - by design - you do not need to pay attention!

The average image on a T.V. screen is 2 seconds!  Video games by design never linger on an image.

M-TV in the 1980's?  Half a second for an image was an eternity!  Modern movies: "cut - cut - cut" to create fake excitement because the scene and the story have little of interest.

Watching images flash by with no particular meaning has become almost the essence of how too many children and adults
spend their time!

And then in school, we ask children to concentrate on a book, which does not move, has no color, no flashing lights, no soundtrack, nothing to compete with The Culture of The Constant Three-Ring Circuses surrounding them.

Or we ask them to sit still and listen to e.g. 10-minute work by Mozart in Music Class, or to observe the intricacies of a woodcut or a painting by Albrecht Duerer in Art class, or to spend time reading a novel by Charles Dickens or even a short story by e.g. Flannery O'Connor.

To be sure, "short-attention-span" people have always existed throughout humanity's history, and many of them, I suspect, were the explorers of new lands and seas, or inventors, or whatever involved a wandering mind (inventing stories    ).

Patience and Concentration do not necessarily come naturally to people, and must be taught and encouraged.

Today's hyperactive world stands in opposition to such virtues. 

I used to say to parents at the meetings at the beginning of the school year:

"Unless you stand against most of the things found in popular kulcher, you are not doing your job!"  😇



'

[Belle]

Cato, this is so very well expressed and I agree with you.  I used to tell my high-school students (in fear of censure from the head teacher) that "those who can read, write, speak and think will be running things;  the rest will hand the spanner to the fitter"!!

One morning I came into a fractious Year 8 (top class, 13yo);  it happened that the main road of the school had created a diversion and I had to get there the long way round.  The alternate route was filled with public housing, junk in every yard, torn blinds and curtains and a general look of disrepair = despair.  I said to the kids that I meant no insult and that I'd driven to school via the public housing streets .. and I wondered if anyone of them living there had a university degree.  Silence.  "OK, are you ready to get to work now?"

"Yes miss".

[Kalevala]

I heard a news story lately about film students (as in majoring in it) weren't able to watch a movie all the way through whilst in a classroom.  The teacher finally gave in and said that they could watch it online/at home.  Well, he/she would quiz them the next day about about how the film ended and they couldn't answer it correctly!   

K

[Cato]

Cato, this is so very well expressed and I agree with you.  I used to tell my high-school students (in fear of censure from the head teacher) that "those who can read, write, speak and think will be running things;  the rest will hand the spanner to the fitter"!!

One morning I came into a fractious Year 8 (top class, 13yo);  it happened that the main road of the school had created a diversion and I had to get there the long way round.  The alternate route was filled with public housing, junk in every yard, torn blinds and curtains and a general look of disrepair = despair.  I said to the kids that I meant no insult and that I'd driven to school via the public housing streets .. and I wondered if anyone of them living there had a university degree.  Silence.  "OK, are you ready to get to work now?"


"Yes miss".

Ah, so their eyes can be opened, at least for a while!

I heard a news story lately about film students (as in majoring in it) weren't able to watch a movie all the way through whilst in a classroom.  The teacher finally gave in and said that they could watch it online/at home.  Well, he/she would quiz them the next day about about how the film ended and they couldn't answer it correctly! 

K

I am surprised that they simply did not find a summary online for the quiz! 

I am reminded of how my colleagues in English, History, Religion, and other courses, in which students were supposed to write essays, would come to me and say: "I  am positive that this essay has been plagiarized off the Internet, but how can I prove it?"

I showed them how to type in a few sample sentences, which they suspected were stolen, into a search engine and Voila!  There it was, written by Professor X at the University of ....!

In my Catholic grade school, I constantly battled cheating via the Internet while trying to teach Latin. 

My cowardly quisling principal refused to exact severe punishments for such cheating, and so it became widepsread.

As far as I am concerned, the misuse of the Internet and the rise of cellphones have had deleterious effects throughout society, and not just in Honesty and abilities for Ratiocination.

Let me recommend some books by a seer named Neil Postman, who took a skeptically conservative view of technology of all kinds, especially electronic media and later, the Internet.

Amusing Ourselves to Death, The Disappearance of Childhood, and Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology have never been more salient for our age.

Technopoly was written in the early 1990's, right when the Internet (e.g. America On-Line) was cranking up to be available to a majority of Americans (and majorities in other countries).

Here is just one of his many observations:

"Attend any conference on telecommunications or computer technology, and you will be attending a celebration of innovative machinery that generates, stores, and distributes more information, more conveniently, at greater speed than ever before.

To the question "What problem does the information solve?" the answer is usually "How to generate, store and distribute more information, more conveniently, at greater speeds than ever before."

This is the elevation of information to a metaphysical status: information as both the means and end of human creativity.

In Technopoly, we are driven to fill our lives with the quest to "access" information.

For what purpose or with what limitations, it is not for us to ask; and we are not accustomed to asking, since the problem is unprecedented. The world has never before been confronted with information glut and has hardly had time to reflect on its consequences...

[Belle]

I heard a news story lately about film students (as in majoring in it) weren't able to watch a movie all the way through whilst in a classroom.  The teacher finally gave in and said that they could watch it online/at home.  Well, he/she would quiz them the next day about about how the film ended and they couldn't answer it correctly!   

K

I gave my Year 10 (15yo) "The Man With the Golden Arm" and they observed, 'it's in black and white miss", then groaned.  I said, "no worries, we can spend the rest of the lesson writing and completing comprehension".  "Oh no, that's alright miss, we'll watch it".

They loved it!!!

[Cato]

I gave my Year 10 (15yo) "The Man With the Golden Arm" and they observed, 'it's in black and white miss", then groaned.  I said, "no worries, we can spend the rest of the lesson writing and completing comprehension".  "Oh no, that's alright miss, we'll watch it".

They loved it!!!

Black-and-White movies have been Kryptonite to the younger generations for more than a few decades!

For those who do not know the movie in question:

[Belle]

Black-and-White movies have been Kryptonite to the younger generations for more than a few decades!

For those who do not know the movie in question:

I knew the kids were hooked when a temperamental girl sitting at the back during the 'withdrawal' scene asked "Miss, is he going to be alright?"