Gareth Malone - Gareth Malone’s Guide to Classical Music - The Perfect Introduction to Classical Music

4 There is no one correct way to listen to classical music or any other kind of music because it’s an intensely personal business.

Discovery

‘Discovery’ is the name given to the London Symphony Orchestra education and outreach department by its founder Richard McNicol, my mentor and music education guru. He chose this name because for him that’s the best way for people to connect with music: when they make the discovery themselves. This is your guide to discovering music.

Richard told me a story which illustrates the importance of feeling that music belongs to you. He encouraged a group of children to create music based loosely on ideas taken from a piece for full orchestra by the great Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. The children worked on these pieces for weeks before performing them to their schoolmates. At the end of the project the schoolchildren attended a concert of Stravinsky’s work. After the concert a young boy spoke to Richard and asked him ‘Here, mister, how did that Stravinsky know our music?’

I was lucky enough to work closely with Richard for two years at the LSO, watching how he brought people to music and not the other way round. An overly didactic approach often fails with music because I can’t make you like something. I can only point you in the direction of it and hope that you hear what I hear. I also hope that through using this book you will come to feel that music does indeed belong to everyone and that much of this wonderful repertoire can be yours. There’s no instant answer to understanding or knowing about classical music; the first step is building a positive relationship with the music.

Inexplicably, certain works have a hold on me and refuse to let go. I could listen to Bach’s Mass in B Minor every day without growing tired, whereas some pieces, although fascinating, don’t put down roots in the way that a truly great work does. What appeals to me might not appeal to you and although I do make recommendations in this book I’m aware that my evangelism for a piece may fall on stony ground. This book is not a prescriptive list of works that you should appreciate. The purpose is to give you the tools to make your own discoveries.

Most people struggle with pieces that are too complex or simply not tuneful enough for their taste. Length and complexity are factors in limiting appreciation of music but there is much to recommend on the musical nursery slopes before you tackle the great summits.

Music appreciation is as subjective as any other artistic discipline because our brains are changed by any musical experience we have during our lives and that in turn affects how we listen to new pieces. Although I make a case for the importance of a little background research in Chapter 4 there is no right way to listen to Mozart and there never will be. You should not feel that Mozart is somehow superhuman and therefore beyond your comprehension.

I have seen time and time again how anyone can learn to appreciate music. During my years working for English National Opera’s Baylis Programme (their community and education wing) I was sent to schools in deprived areas of London. From Hackney to the less salubrious parts of Ealing, if there was a school whose pupils knew nothing of opera then I’d be sent there, armed only with a score, an opera singer and a répétiteur (official term for an opera rehearsal pianist). What I observed was the dramatic effect these workshops had on students’ attitudes towards opera.

One of the most striking examples of the success of this practical approach to learning about music was working with some young homeless people at St Martin-in-the-Fields. We brought a singer from the ENO Chorus to sing ‘Vissi d’Arte’ (‘I lived for art’) from Verdi’s Tosca . For most people it’s rare to get so intimate with a voice that has been trained to fill every corner of an opera house. It’s like standing next to a jumbo jet on a runway (though it does sound a bit better). Huddled round in their slightly shabby canteen, drinking strong, sugary tea from polystyrene cups, these young people were profoundly affected by the physical presence of a large operatic voice: they couldn’t believe it. The voice didn’t belong in that space and it transported us all. We explored the story of Tosca – a bleak and violent opera – and I genuinely believe that their opinion of the art-form was transformed. They spoke with the singer, they heard from us about production at ENO and most importantly they took part by singing sections of the opera.

I’m not saying that they all became opera fans, but it was clear that until then they had completely the wrong impression of opera: ‘fat ladies screaming’. It’s interesting how many people can carry a vivid – and sometimes prejudiced – impression of what opera is like, having only experienced it from those adverts for ‘Go compare’ or ‘Just one Cornetto’. Within a few hours we started to recalibrate that popular misconception, using a little knowledge of the story, a basic understanding of how some of the music was composed and the unforgettable experience of hearing an opera singer in the flesh. Given this sort of preparation the most unlikely children can sit through up to three hours of opera, something many adults struggle with.

For me these workshops were a baptism of fire, because in order to prepare I would often be sent the music just a few days in advance and I’d have precious little time to get to know a new opera before being sent into a school as an evangelical advocate. The discipline of sitting with a score (the written musical notes), reading the synopsis (the plot), digging out the programme (if I could find one), reading the director’s production notes (if they’d written any) and living with the music for a few days before being hurled into a school was an excellent cramming course. The job gave me the opportunity to talk to singers from the production, to grapple with the themes during workshops – and finally after all that I’d go to see the opera for the first time. If they’d known then how little I knew about opera, and how much study I was having to do, perhaps they’d have employed someone else. It proved an excellent training for opera appreciation.

So sometimes, in order to appreciate music, a little homework is required. My dad’s school motto was ‘ nil sine labore ’ – ‘Nothing without work’ (how I loathed it when he stood over my piano practice quoting this aphorism). I’m afraid it applies here, but it needn’t be a chore. Of course I understand that by some definitions music that requires ‘work’ is an anathema – surely we should love a great piece of music at first listening? But think how often you meet someone and fall in love at first sight – once in a lifetime? Many pieces of music take time to get to know.

I’m assuming if you’ve bought this book about classical music then you are ready to apply yourself. So let’s move on.

You know more than you think you do

Whether you notice it or not, classical music is everywhere, keeping teenagers at bay in train stations, 1persuading you to buy wine on TV adverts and pulling no punches in film soundtracks. I believe it is the ultimate destination for all true music lovers. Once the sheen has rubbed off lesser forms, the gems of classical music shine even brighter.

If you’re reading this book, then it probably means that you already feel that you know a little something about classical music. Maybe you’d like to know more. Or perhaps, like Socrates, you know enough to know that you don’t know anything. Hopefully you have been enticed to dip into this strange and wonderful world. This book is intended to build on your tentative enthusiasms; I’m here to help. If, as I hope, you have enjoyed any classical music, there will be something in this book for you. Once you discover an area of music that you like, given the number of composers and over 500 years of Western musical history, there are hundreds of discoveries to be made.