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Last week I attended a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.3 at the Barbican Centre in the City of London. Gustavo Dudamel conducted his former orchestra, which he nurtured to global fame: the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra from Venezuela. It was a special night, as pretty much every performance of this symphony is.
Mahler’s third is gigantic in every sense. His level of ambition for it was insane. He set out to do nothing less than capture the whole world: the creation of the earth, mountains and valleys, flora and fauna; all of music, high and low: the village band, church choir and Romantic orchestra; and all of humanity: joy and nostalgia and pain and terror, and, above all, love.
To achieve this, he decided to compose the longest symphony anyone had ever written. Instead of the conventional four movements, he wrote six. The entire piece takes more than ninety minutes to perform, which when he wrote it was about twice the length of a standard symphony and is still pretty much the longest in the repertoire. He also scored it for the largest ensemble anyone had ever put together. It requires a massive orchestra - there were ten double basses and two harps on stage last week, but every section needs to be supersized - plus a soprano soloist, and not one, but two choirs.
It’s mad. And the maddest thing of all is, it works. What could have been a failure on the grand scale of its ambition is today considered one of the greatest of all symphonies. The proof is that it’s still being played, despite the logistical complexity and injurious expense of putting it on. People flock to see it. There weren’t any empty seats at the Barbican.
Why does it work? Because Mahler knew what he was doing, obviously; he was a supreme musical architect. But if I had to boil it down to one thing it’s his genius for transmitting the white hot intensity of his feelings and beliefs through the medium of music. At every moment, whether the music is bombastic or sweet, you feel he is grabbing you by the shoulders and saying listen to this. And you do, even if you have no idea what he’s on about. The emotional effect is electrifying.
It’s not just the sound, it’s what you’re watching. The piece is great to listen to at home but it’s nothing like seeing it live. The sight of 150 or so highly skilled, committed musicians moving in tandem, and giving absolutely everything they’ve got for an hour and a half - giving it to you, the audience - becomes very much part of the effect. The symphonic experience is utterly distinctive, unlike any other live music or art form.
As I caught the tube home, I felt exhilarated, and I also felt lucky. That I was able to enjoy that concert was down to at least three things: a four-hundred-year old tradition of music-making that represents the most fertile, inexhaustible and polyphonous flourishing of communal creativity in history. A social consensus - now fading - that this tradition is worth cultivating. And, finally, my own capacity for appreciating it. By this, I don’t mean my ability to sit in a comfy seat and listen to music, although yes, I am very talented at that. I mean the ability to derive enjoyment from, and to be moved by, a genre of music that isn’t that easy to appreciate if you aren’t in some sense trained in it.
I don’t mean formal training, just time spent getting to understand it. Classical music proselytisers will sometimes claim that all the stuff about having to be educated into the tradition before you can enjoy it is so much snobbish guff. Just look at how many people are moved by it when it’s used in films and ads or by Classic FM! This is true, up to a point. But it’s also just undeniably true that the genre is less immediately accessible than popular music (the clue being in the name there), and that this isn’t just down to social norms but to the music itself, which demands some measures of attention, concentration, persistence.
It takes a bit of effort to fully appreciate classical music. I still have to put work in, to get the kind of rewards I reaped last week, and I’ve been into it for decades. In a culture that offers so much by the way of effortless entertainment and stimulation, classical music is always going to suffer. But as with longform reading that investment only makes the rewards richer.
I was lucky. I had parents with the foresight to see that despite my protestations - I was a very unwilling violin student - I would appreciate having a musical education later in life. I grew up in a household where classical music was routinely played (even if for most of that time I disdained it). In my teens I played in youth orchestras and became friends with people who were really into this music, and then started to get into it myself.
Today, even though I haven’t played violin or any other instrument for many years (though I do sing in a choir), I feel enriched by all the classical music that lives inside me and by my ability to appreciate it, including pieces I don’t yet know. It’s amazing how much great, essential music there is in this genre. It’s not just the number of great composers and eras and styles and pieces, it’s the recordings, the soloists, ensembles, orchestras and conductors. Classical music is like a grand, magically infinite palace, to which I have a golden ticket. I know how to get to the places within that I love. But there are so many different, stunning rooms and vistas in this palace that I can wander through it forever and never feel like I’ve exhausted its wonders. So I keep venturing further down corridors, into whole new wings and exquisite hidden chambers, happily aware that I’ll never get to know all of it.
I want everyone to feel the same way. The more people that are into classical music, the better chance we have of keeping this magnificent ship (switching metaphor) afloat. While I do think this music takes some effort, I don’t think you need have to have grown up with it. I know many people who started listening to classical music well into adulthood and are now even more into it than I am. There are definitely barriers, but the barriers are good ones: the kind that make you appreciate what’s on the other side all the more. Once you’re in, you’re in, and you never want to leave.
So here are my ten tips for getting into classical music from a standing start.
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