essay on why classical music is important

The Importance of Supporting Classical Music Education Worldwide

The Classical Music Education of a Generation

In today’s world, people consider everything from Gregorian Chants, Beethoven and Brahms, through Ives and Gershwin “classical music.” So how shall we go about reestablishing the relevance of traditional classical music? And just how are we suppose to rebuild concert audiences with a generation that lives and thinks in the moment, considering the true classics to be something better fitted to our grandparents’ tastes? Education!

We do need to take a cue from our past in order to build a robust future. As a society, we need to make classical music a priority in our homes and in our lives. It needs to start at a very young age, as early exposure is not only vital to the continuation of the arts but also the growing of a healthy, well rounded human being. Classical music not only nurtures our soul but grows our mind in ways that have been substantiated by myriad of studies over recent years. Exposing the very young to classical music has been documented to help develop language skills, reasoning, and spatial intelligence. As we humans grow and are further immersed into the classical music world through private lessons, school orchestras, youth orchestras, concert attendance, and the like, we learn self discipline, problem solving skills, a written, spoken, and deeply felt “second language”, collaboration, cooperation, better motor skills, and creativity. We have a means of self expression which fosters self esteem – and we all know how important that is to a life well lived! As we reach adulthood, these skills carry over to enhance all other areas of our professional and personal world. So maybe our parents and grandparents knew something after all! Who among us would not want to see these skills instilled in future generations?

Classical music expresses the deepest thoughts of our civilization. Through their music, composers paint a picture of the society and times in which they lived. You can experience the greatness and achievements of another generation through its music. If we don’t pass on this incredible thread of creative living history that binds us – one generation to the other – then we diminish all of the humanity that came before us and certainly leave a gaping hole for the future. We must always remember how important classical music is in a world that constantly feels like it stands on the precipice of a frighteningly dark chasm. Music continues to bridge the great divide between cultures and countries. It can bring hope for peace in the darkest of times.

So, how do we groom and nurture another generation of classical music lovers, soloists, professional orchestra members, music teachers, public, private, and youth orchestra board members, audiences, and arts advocates through education in a time of budget cuts and instant gratification? By example! We must not leave the job of educating our children or the public solely to someone else. If you are a musician, share your gift (as I know you are already doing)! Teach your art! Bring students of different cultures, classes, and countries together through the beauty and universality of the music. Form community partnerships to weave classical music into the threads of everyday life. If you have limited resources, you can still be a teacher by the example you set. So support other programs that bring classical music to your community. That includes everything from youth orchestras, private music teachers, classical music festivals, local and national news organizations that review student performances and educational programs, colleges and conservatories. If you are not a musician, get involved! Help out in whatever capacity you can. Take yourself and your children to neighborhood and professional classical music concerts. Play classical music on your i-pod and computer. Clearly, not everyone has the same gifts, but we can each get involved using our individual talents in whatever ways they are relevant. Also, professional musicians and orchestras will have to become creative and imaginative in their marketing strategies to attract today’s much faster paced, younger crowd. Although it’s hard for me to imagine professional orchestras on Twitter, tweet they must!

There is ample hope for the survival of classical music for generations to come. The shear power of the music itself will ensure a life that is not easily extinguished. But our goal is not to ensure that classical music survives, but that it thrives well into the future!

Philadelphia International Music Festival

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Probing Question: Is classical music still relevant in today's world?

"Classical music is alive and well," according to George Trudeau, Director of the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State. The evidence is clear in this June 2013 performance by the Trio Allegria Ensemble. The ensemble gave a free performance, hosted by the Arboretum and Penn State in partnership with Mount Nittany Health and Music at Penn's Woods.   Credit: Alina Gluck / Penn State . Creative Commons

September 10, 2014

Remember the fad of playing Mozart CDs for newborns? In the 1990s, a group of neuroscientists created a surge in classical CD sales when they published findings suggesting that exposure to music by Mozart could enhance human spatial reasoning and memory -- the so-called "Mozart effect." People have long believed that classical recordings are a musical prescription to boost intelligence and test scores and reduce anxiety and depression -- and studies continue to suggest there may be some truth to this notion.

However, this music was created to be enjoyed as an art form, not simply to be used as a therapeutic tool. Does classical music still speak to audiences today?

"Classical music is alive and well," says George Trudeau, Director of the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State. "What has changed is there are more avenues than ever before for classical performance and public education, including public radio, the Internet, and other digital technologies."

Although there are occasional gloom-and-doom forecasts about the imminent death of classical music, the National Endowment for the Arts reports that the total number of adults annually attending classical music performances is down only 2.8 percent from 1982 to 2012, explains Trudeau. "Many people clearly still value the live experience," he notes. "However, attending live performances is only a small part of how classical music is experienced today. There are new ways to attend, as well."

For instance, Trudeau says, "The New York Metropolitan Opera's HD broadcasts , reach millions of viewers each season." This is not only less expensive than attending at the Met, but it's also more casual. Audiences can see a live broadcast of an opera at their local movie theater, while wearing jeans and sweatshirts, explains Trudeau.

"Classical music infuses our daily lives," he adds, "through commercials, films, public life, and popular culture, to motivate, set moods, and inspire other artistic expressions, and the entire genre is now only a download away."

Classical music -- defined as western art music, both sacred and secular -- traces its roots to eleventh-century Europe, notes Trudeau. It was popularized during what's known as the Classical period, from 1750 to 1820. During that time many of the music's most revered composers, such as Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn, created their masterworks. Characteristics include notating or prescribing the music in written form, instruments organized into common ensembles, and the use of similar musical forms. Says Trudeau, contemporary composers and performers keep the art form fresh by exploring links to other musical forms, new combinations of performers, and approaches to the concert experience.

At Penn State, the Center for the Performing Arts is committed to raising the profile of the genre through its Classical Music Project . Now in its fourth season, the project seeks to engage Penn State students, faculty, and the community with classical music programs and provide opportunities to gain an appreciation of the form. The project includes artist residencies, faculty partnerships, student programs, and a partnership with Penn State Altoona.

"Ensembles coming to University Park include the traditional as well as those that take an expansive view of the art form by exploring new instrumental combinations, styles of performance, contemporary artistic voices, and connections to other musical forms," Trudeau explains. "The project also explores a growing interest in experiencing the music in alternative venues and informal settings such as our Classical Coffeehouses ." 

Says Trudeau, the percentage of Penn State students attending classical music performances increased from 26 percent of total sales to 40 percent during the first three seasons of the Classical Music Project. Engagement programs, including workshops and informal performances, have elicited positive student responses.

They're not attending concerts because they hope a "dose" of Mozart will boost their IQ or test scores, points out Trudeau. Students tell him that exposure to classical music is enriching their lives. As one student put it, "I realize that music and the arts are more than what I thought, and can relate to life in many different ways."

For everyone hoping to create a new generation of classical music fans, that sentiment hits all the right notes.

George Trudeau is the director of the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State and can be reached at [email protected] . 

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Why is classical music important.

Classical music has been around for centuries, and there is a reason why it has stood the test of time. It is one of the most important forms of music in our lives, and there are many reasons why we should all make an effort to appreciate it. In this article, we will discuss some of the most important reasons why classical music matters. We will also answer some common questions about classical music, and provide tips on how to get started listening to it!

The Importance of Classical Music in a Modern World

One of the most important reasons why classical music matters is because it can have a positive impact on our mental health. Numerous studies have shown that listening to classical music can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and can also improve our moods. Classical music is also known to be beneficial for people who suffer from conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, many healthcare professionals recommend that patients listen to classical music as part of their treatment plan.

Another reason why classical music is so important is because it can help us focus and concentration. If you are struggling to concentrate on a task or project, try listening to some classical music in the background – you may be surprised at how much it helps! Many students also find that classical music helps them to focus when they are studying for exams. [2]

10 Benefits of Listening to Music

Decreases blood pressure.

Listening to music has been shown to lower blood pressure. A study that compared the effects of listening to classical, folk, and rock music found that all three genres had a positive effect on blood pressure, with classical having the most significant impact.

In addition to lowering blood pressure, music can also help reduce stress and anxiety.

Music can also improve your mood and cognitive function. A study of elderly people found that those who listened to classical music for one hour per day had significantly improved moods and cognitive function compared to those who did not listen to music. [1]

Boosts memory

A recent study has shown that listening to classical music can actually help boost your memory and brain power. The study found that people who listened to classical music while working on a task had better recall than those who didn’t listen to any music at all. [1]

So if you’re looking for a way to improve your memory and focus, Classical music might be worth a try!

Sparks creativity

Classical music has been shown to actually improve the creativity of those who listen to it. In one study, people were asked to come up with new uses for everyday objects. The group that listened to classical music came up with significantly more ideas than the group that didn’t listen to any music at all. [1]

So if you’re feeling stuck in a creative rut, try listening to some Bach or Beethoven. It just might help you come up with that elusive solution you’ve been searching for.

Reduces stress levels

Studies have shown that classical music can help to reduce stress levels. In one study, participants were asked to complete a stressful task while listening to either classical music or white noise. The results showed that those who listened to classical music had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol than those who listened to white noise.

So if you’re feeling stressed, try listening to some classical music. It just might help you relax!

Supercharges brainpower

Classical music has been shown to supercharge brainpower. A study at the University of Stanford found that students who listened to classical music before taking a test improved their scores. The students who didn’t listen to music saw no change in their scores.

This is likely because classical music increases levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps with focus and concentration. Dopamine also plays a role in memory, so listening to classical music may also help you remember information better.

If you need a mental boost, try listening to some Bach or Beethoven. You may just find yourself getting smarter!

Fights depression

Depression is a mental illness that can have a debilitating effect on sufferers. It’s characterized by feelings of hopelessness, emptiness, and despair. According to the National Institutes of Health, about 16 million American adults suffer from depression each year.

Another study found that listening to classical music reduced anxiety and improved mood in patients undergoing surgery. And a review of 20 studies found that music therapy was effective in treating depression in a wide range of populations, including elderly people, cancer patients, and people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Classical music has also been shown to reduce stress levels. A study of office workers found that listening to classical music reduced stress and improved work performance. And a review of 11 studies found that music therapy was effective in reducing stress in a wide range of populations, including pregnant women, heart surgery patients, and intensive care unit patients. [1]

Puts you to sleep

If you’re one of those people who think classical music is boring, you’re not alone. A lot of people believe that classical music is nothing more than elevator music or something that would be played in a dentist’s office. However, there are actually many benefits to listening to classical music. Here are just a few reasons why classical music matters:

Classical music can help you relax and fall asleep. If you have trouble sleeping, try listening to some soothing classical tunes before bedtime. The soft, calming melodies can help put your mind at ease and allow you to drift off into a deep sleep. [1]

Relieves pain

Studies have shown that classical music can help to relieve pain. One study found that patients who listened to classical music had less need for pain medication after surgery than those who did not listen to music.

Another study found that women in labor who listened to classical music had shorter labor and reported less pain than those who did not listen to music.

Classical music can also be helpful for people with chronic pain. One study found that people with chronic back pain who listened to classical music for one hour a day had less pain and were more able to function than those who didn’t listen to music. [1]

Makes you happy

It’s no secret that music has the ability to boost our moods and create positive emotions. But did you know that classical music is particularly effective at promoting happiness? Studies have shown that listening to classical music can increase levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and happiness. So next time you need a pick-me-up, try putting on some Bach or Beethoven!

In addition to making us feel good at the moment, classical music can also have long-term benefits for our mental health. One study found that people who listened to classical music for 30 minutes per day experienced reduced levels of anxiety and stress.

Improves productivity

Classical music can improve productivity in a number of ways. First, it can help us focus and concentrate on the task at hand. Second, it can boost our mood and motivation levels, making us more likely to stick with a project until it’s completed. Finally, classical music has been shown to lower stress levels, which in turn leads to improved cognitive function and overall productivity.

So if you’re looking for a little extra motivation to get things done, try putting on some classical music the next time you sit down to work. You just might be surprised at how much more productive you become!

The Classical Music Education of a Generation

It is well documented that children who study classical music tend to outperform their peers in other academic disciplines. A 2002 study by the Department of Education found that students who participated in music instruction scored higher on standardized tests than those who did not participate in music instruction. Furthermore, a 2006 study found that students who took four years of instrumental music classes had higher math and reading scores on the SAT than those who did not participate in musical activities.

While there are many factors that contribute to a child’s success in school, it is clear that studying classical music can be a significant advantage. In addition to the cognitive benefits, learning to play an instrument can also teach children discipline, patience, and perseverance. [3]

The Importance of Classical Music for Kids

Classical music has been shown to have a positive effect on children’s brain development. A study conducted by the University of Washington found that children who listened to classical music for just 30 minutes per day had significantly higher IQ scores than those who did not listen to any music at all.

So, if you’re looking for a way to give your child a leg up in life, consider introducing them to classical music! It may just make a world of difference. [3]

What occurs in our brain under the influence of classical music?

When we listen to music, different areas of our brain are activated. The auditory cortex is responsible for processing sound, while the motor cortex controls our movement. Other regions handle things like memory and emotion.

But classical music seems to have a particularly strong effect on the brain. A study published in the journal Nature found that when people listened to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, their brains showed increased activity in the regions responsible for planning and problem-solving.

Other research has shown that classical music can improve memory, relieve stress, and even boost immunity. It’s no wonder that so many people find comfort and joy in listening to this type of music. [3]

Harmonious Legacy: Why Classical Music Is Important

Classical music holds a significant place in the world of music. Here’s a comparison of why classical music is important, including its historical significance, influence on modern music, and notable composers.

Explanation of the Table:

• Historical Significance: Highlights the cultural richness associated with classical music.
• Influence on Modern Music: Discusses classical music’s impact on various music genres.
• Notable Composers: Lists some of the renowned classical composers who contributed significantly.

Classical music’s importance stems from its:

Historical Significance: Classical music embodies cultural richness and historical depth, reflecting the traditions and innovations of its time.

Influence on Modern Music: The classical era laid the foundations for many music genres and techniques that persist in modern music.

Notable Composers: The classical repertoire is enriched by legendary composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and many others.

Classical music’s enduring appeal, artistic innovation, and global impact continue to make it a vital and revered part of the musical landscape.

Why is classical music so powerful?

There are a few reasons why classical music is so powerful. First, the melodies are often incredibly beautiful and can touch our emotions in a way that no other genre can. Second, the pieces are usually very complex and require a great deal of skill to perform, which makes them all the more impressive to listen to. Finally, classical music has a long history and tradition behind it, which gives it an air of sophistication and importance.

What is the role of classical music in our culture today?

Classical music has been around for centuries, and its role in our culture has changed over time. Today, classical music is appreciated by people of all ages and backgrounds. It plays an important role in our lives, providing us with a way to relax, escape the stresses of daily life, and connect with others.

For many of us, classical music is a source of joy and inspiration. It can lift our spirits and make us feel more connected to the world around us. Classical music can also help us better understand ourselves and the world we live in. When we listen to classical music, we are exposed to new ideas and perspectives. We learn about other cultures and times gone by. And we gain a greater appreciation for the beauty and complexity of the world we live in.

Classical music matters because it enhances our lives in so many ways. It can make us happier, healthier, and more well-rounded individuals. So if you haven’t already, I encourage you to give classical music a try. You just might find that it makes a world of difference in your life.

What does classical music mean to people?

For many people, classical music is the epitome of sophistication. It conjures up images of wealthy aristocrats in formal wear attending grand concerts in lavish opera houses. But classical music is much more than that. It is a genre with a rich history and tradition that has something to offer everyone.

Classical music dates back centuries and its popularity has waxed and waned over time. Today, it enjoys a resurgence in popularity thanks to accessible streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, which make it easy for anyone to discover and enjoy classical music from the comfort of their own home.

Why is classical music so emotional?

Classical music is often seen as being very emotional. This is because it can make use of a much wider range of dynamics than other genres. It can be incredibly powerful when used correctly, which is why it’s often used in film and television to create an emotional response in the viewer.

One of the reasons that classical music is so effective at evoking emotion is that it often uses what’s known as “thematic development.” This means that a piece of music will take a single theme or idea and develop it over the course of the composition. This can create a sense of journey or progression, which can be very moving for listeners.

Another reason why classical music is so emotional is that it tends to have a more complex harmonic structure than other genres. This means that there are often more opportunities for dissonance, which can create a sense of tension and release that can be very effective at evoking an emotional response.

Is classical music good for mental health?

Classical music has been shown to be beneficial for mental health in a number of ways. For example, it can reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood and sleep quality, and increase cognitive performance and memory. Additionally, classical music can provide a sense of social connectedness and belonging.

How does classical music contribute to cultural heritage and identity?

Classical music is important because it is an integral part of a culture’s heritage and identity. It reflects the historical and artistic developments of a society, preserving traditions and influencing future generations.

What role does classical music play in music education and development?

Classical music is vital in music education as it provides a strong foundation in music theory, composition, and instrumental skills. It helps students develop discipline, creativity, and an appreciation for diverse musical styles.

How has classical music influenced other genres of music and contemporary compositions?

Classical music has had a significant impact on various genres, including rock, jazz, and film scores. Its complex harmonies, melodies, and compositional techniques have inspired modern musicians and composers.

Why is classical music important for emotional expression and catharsis?

Classical music has the power to evoke a wide range of emotions and provide a cathartic experience for listeners. It offers a profound and emotional connection that can help individuals process their feelings and find solace.

What is the significance of classical music in live performances and orchestral concerts?

Live performances of classical music provide a unique and immersive experience, allowing audiences to witness the skill and artistry of musicians. Orchestral concerts showcase the beauty of large-scale compositions and the synergy of musicians working together.

How does classical music contribute to the cultural enrichment of society?

Classical music enriches society by offering cultural experiences, fostering creativity, and promoting artistic appreciation. It adds depth and beauty to our lives and encourages intellectual and emotional growth.

What impact does classical music have on cognitive development and academic achievement?

Numerous studies have shown that exposure to classical music can enhance cognitive skills, improve memory, and boost academic performance, particularly in areas like mathematics and problem-solving.

Why is classical music important for the preservation of historical periods and artistic movements?

Classical music serves as a historical record of different musical periods and artistic movements. Each era has its distinct style, and classical compositions provide insight into the artistic, social, and cultural contexts of their time.

How does classical music contribute to social and community bonding through shared experiences?

Classical music concerts and events offer opportunities for people to come together and share in a collective musical experience. This sense of community and shared appreciation fosters social connections and a sense of belonging.

What is the role of classical music in promoting creativity and innovation in society?

Classical music’s complexity and creativity serve as a source of inspiration for individuals in various fields, including science, technology, and the arts. It encourages innovation by showcasing the possibilities of human expression and imagination.

Useful Video: Syntax: Why Classical Music is Better than Modern Music

It’s evident that classical music plays an important role in our lives, whether we realize it or not. It can provide us with a much-needed sense of calm and relaxation, help us focus and be more productive, boost our moods and mental well-being, and even improve our physical health. So the next time you find yourself reaching for your headphones, consider giving classical music a try – you might just be surprised at how good it makes you feel!

Do you think classical music is important? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends using the social media buttons below – we’d really appreciate it! Thanks for reading!

References:

• https://takelessons.com/blog/benefits-of-listening-to-classical-music-z15
• https://www.minuteschool.com/2017/08/the-importance-of-classical-music-in-a-modern-world/
• https://philadelphiamusicfestival.org/the-importance-of-supporting-classical-music-education-worldwide/#

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The Importance of Classical Music in a Modern World

by Nathan | Aug 4, 2017 | Arts , Music

In a society focused on the latest technology, dance crazes, and what is trending on social media, it is easily understood why so many believe the art of classical music is in many ways irrelevant. However, with more music being produced in today’s era than ever before, and with many artist drawing inspiration from classical pieces, this old art form is long from dead. Over the centuries, classical music has transformed itself to become a building block, setting the framework for musicians of all types today. Many studies have even shown that music especially learning or listening to classical can have a wide variety of benefits.

Whether you are interested in rock, pop or even rap, the musical influence from classical composers, though sometimes hidden, can become clear the more you study music’s history. Further, classical composers such as Bach, Schubert and Mozart, despite how long ago their music was composed remains relevant because of how it played such a major factor into the evolution of music and its genres. An example of music’s evolution due to one of these composers was when Bach wrote the piece Prelude and Fugue Number 20 in A Minor , a composition that combined Bach’s classical style with a more modern approach, which was later deemed the first Jazz song. Also, the structure of almost every popular song in today’s musical era can be traced back to Schubert’s creation of the three minute, verse-chorus based song. Schubert, though he was a classical composer, wanted to create short melodic songs that everyone could enjoy, this lead him after writing hundreds of pieces to perfect the design of music, we are very familiar with today. Mozart similarly to Schubert came up with his own structure of music in which many of his pieces were simplistic in comparison to the earlier work of Bach. Mozart found that a four chord melody, similar to that of modern pop and rock music, though simple could be beautiful. This simple method allowed him to become one of the most well know composers of all time.

Though the roots of music is important, classical music’s reach extends further than just a step in music’s evolution. In fact, many popular artists in today’s music industry have a close relationship to classical music. A large portion of today’s musicians grew up playing some sort of classical instrument such as the piano or violin, because reading music is such a transferable skill in the music industry. The relationship between modern and classical music is especially shown with artists such as Onerepublic , Coldplay , U2 , Justin Bieber , Jon Bellion, Childish Gambino, Adele, Avicii and many more have used or adapted classical music into their works. I highly recommend watching Jon Bellion’s acoustic versions of his famous pop songs; or go check out how Childish Gambino worked with Ludwig Göransson on the song Redbone . After watching these videos you can clearly see how the musicians use their knowledge of major and minor chords or triads to create the base of many popular songs. If you still believe that classical music is irrelevant go see The Piano Guys or 2 Cellos youtube channels and watch how they deconstruct many popular tunes with classical instruments.

Playing or listening to classical music has a wide variety of benefits . Both playing or listening to music can be a great stress reliever. It has been proven that playing any type of music can increase a person’s intelligence, this is due to the fact that music can relate to so many other academic subjects. The way in which musical notes are written in a set of different fractions help with early on math skills because they help give real examples of how numbers can be broken down and even multiplied by a set tempo. As well, once you are able to play a piece or song after awhile, music gives you a sense of accomplishment and can boost your overall confidence. Also, playing music especially at high levels music can increase one’s creativity. Since music education stimulates your emotional and cognitive abilities, it can allow our brain to think in new and different ways.

Overall, whether you have learned several different instruments, or simply listen to music, the influence of classical music is undeniable. Though many believe classical music is a dying art form, its longevity allows for it to remain relevant in today’s society and in ones to come.

Try listening to classical music while you study with Minute School.

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• > Journals
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• > How Classical Music is Better than Popular Music

Article contents

How classical music is better than popular music.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2016

In at least one respect, classical music is superior to popular music. Classical music (understood as common practice composition) has greater potential for expressiveness and, consequently, has more potential for psychological insight and profundity. The greater potential for expressiveness in classical music is due, in large part, to it greater harmonic resources. The harmonies in classical music are more likely to be functional, more contrary motion is employed, and modulation is more common. Although popular music employs rhythms not found in classical music, on the whole there is less rhythmic variety in popular music than there is in classical.

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1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popular_music_genres . Accessed 5 May, 2016.

2 Theodore W. Adorno, ‘On Popular Music’, in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture , third edition, ed. John Storey (Harlow: Pearson, 2006), 74–84.

3 Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987).

4 Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

5 Theodore Gracyk, Listening to Popular Music or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Led Zepplin (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007).

6 Kidd , David Comer and Castano , Emanuele , ‘ Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind ’, Science 342 ( 2013 ), 377 –80 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed .

7 Björnberg , Alf , ‘ On aeolian harmony in contemporary popular music ’, Nordic IASPM Working Paper DK 1 ( 1989 ), 1 Google Scholar .

8 de Clercq , Trevor and Temperley , David , ‘ A corpus analysis of rock harmony ’, Popular Music 30 ( 2011 ), 47 – 70 CrossRef Google Scholar .

9 Smith , J. David and Melara , Robert J. , ‘ Aesthetic preference and syntactic prototypicality in music: ‘Tis the gift to be simple ’ Cognition , 34 ( 1990 ), 279 – 298 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed .

10 Op. cit. note 7, 2.

11 Biamonte , Nicole , ‘ Triadic Modal and Pentatonic Patterns in Rock Music ’, Music Theory Spectrum 32 ( 2010 ), 95 – 110 CrossRef Google Scholar .

12 Leonard B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 54.

13 Steinbeis , Nikolaus , Koelsch , Stefan and Sloboda , John A. , ‘ The Role of Harmonic Expectancy Violations in Musical Emotions: Evidence from Subjective, Physiological, and Neural Responses ’, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18 ( 2006 ), 1380 –93 CrossRef Google Scholar .

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15 Allan F. Moore was among the first to note this feature of popular music harmony. See, for example, his Rock: The Primary Text , 2 nd ed. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 52ff.

16 Op. cit. note 7, 3.

17 Lerdahl , Fred , ‘ Calculating Tonal Tension ’, Music Perception 13 ( 1996 ), 319 –63 CrossRef Google Scholar .

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19 Moore , Allan , ‘ The so–called “flattened seventh” in rock ’ Popular Music 14 ( 1995 ), 190 CrossRef Google Scholar .

20 See, for example, Brower , Candace , ‘ A Cognitive Theory of Musical Meaning ’, Journal of Music Theory 44 ( 2000 ), 370 CrossRef Google Scholar .

21 Charles–Henri Blainville, L'esprit de l'art musical, ou réflexions sur la musique, et ses différentes parties (Geneva, 1754), 61–2.

22 Korsakova-Kreyn , Marina and Dowling , W. Jay , ‘ Emotional Processing in Music: Study in Affective Responses to Tonal Modulation in Controlled Harmonic Progressions and Real Music ’, Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain 24 ( 2014 ), 4 – 20 CrossRef Google Scholar .

23 Hevner , Kate , ‘ The Affective Character of the Major and Minor Modes in Music ’, American Journal of Psychology 47 ( 1935 ), 103 –18 CrossRef Google Scholar .

24 Op. cit. note 5, 18.

25 Not coincidentally, Brian Wilson composed the songs on Pet Sounds , the album from which ‘God Only Knows’ is drawn, after hearing The Beatles' Rubber Soul . Wilson resolved to match The Beatles' achievement on The Beatles' terms.

26 Johansson , K.G. , ‘ The Harmonic Language of the Beatles ’, STM–online 2 ( 1999 ) Google Scholar .

27 Carpenter , Francesca R. Dillman and Potter , Robert F. , ‘ Effects of Music on Physiological Arousal: Explorations into Tempo and Genre ’, Media Psychology 10 ( 2007 ), 339 –63 CrossRef Google Scholar .

28 Op. cit. note 27, 351.

29 Walton , Kendall , ‘ Categories of Art ’, Philosophical Review 79 ( 1970 ), 334 –67 CrossRef Google Scholar .

30 Op. cit. note 8, 56.

31 Schäfer , Thomas and Sedlmeier , Peter , ‘ From the functions of music to music preference ’, Psychology of Music 37 ( 2009 ), 279 – 300 CrossRef Google Scholar .

32 Laiho , Luvi , ‘ The Psychological Functions of Music in Adolescence ’, Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 13 ( 2004 ), 47 – 63 CrossRef Google Scholar .

33 T.S. Eliot, Poetry and Drama (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951), 42–3.

34 Charles Batteux, The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle , trans. James O. Young (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 140.

35 Edward Macan, ‘Bring Back the Balance’, in Scott Calef (ed.), Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will be Revealed (Chicago, Il: Open Court, 2009), 199.

36 Scott Calef, ‘A Little of the Human Touch: Knowledge and Empathy in the Music of Bruce Springsteen’, in Randall E. Auxier and Doug Anderson (eds), Bruce Springsteen and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 2008), 225.

37 An earlier version on this essay was written for a panel on popular art organised by Stephanie Ross and held on 19 February 2015 at the American Philosophical Association Central Division meeting in St. Louis. Subsequent versions were presented at the Dubrovnik Philosophy of Art Conference, 24 April 2015 and the American Society for Aesthetics Conference, Savannah, Georgia, 15 November 2015. Audience members at these talks, particularly Ted Gracyk and Stephen Davies, provided valuable comments. In the course of writing this paper, I profited from discussions with Craig Derksen.

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• Volume 91, Issue 4
• James O. Young
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819116000334

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Discover Music

10 incredible benefits of listening to classical music

17 October 2023, 19:17

By Rosie Pentreath

From improving memory to reducing stress, listening to classical music can have surprising and astounding benefits. Discover the potential classical music has to improve your life.

Listen to this article

Listening to classical music is an enjoyable, often profound, and nearly always completely joyous activity. But it’s also good for us.

Studies have shown that classical music can improve memory and reduce stress , boost overall mental wellbeing , and even improve children’s performance in school .

Join us in discovering and celebrating 10 incredible and surprising ways classical music can bring benefits to all our lives.

Read more: Classical music boosts mental health and wellbeing in isolation, study finds

Improving memory

In 1957, more than 10,000 high school graduates in Wisconsin were invited to fill out a survey about their school, family income, and future life goals. Their responses were cross-referenced with their engagement with music activities captured in yearbook entries.

The same group of people were surveyed in the years 1964, 1975, 1993, 2004 and 2011, and their lifetime of responses was collected as data that revealed that 38 percent of them played music in high school, and 21 percent played music in adulthood.

They were then invited to participate in memory recall tests and the musicians were found to perform better across the board. And the more music they had played, the better their memory test scores had been.

Read more: Spine-tingling moment ballerina with Alzheimer’s remembers routine to Swan Lake

Norwegian Chamber Orchestra play Prokofiev from memory

Reducing stress

Listening to classical music has been proven to reduce stress. From the moment the play button is gently clicked, your heart-rate starts to slow, and your blood pressure lowers, the stress of the day floating away to be replaced with the pleasing feeling of familiarity or the joy of making a new discovery as you listen.

Various studies have shown that music reduces cortisol levels associated with stress, including one piece of research published by Chanda and Levitin in 2013 which sought to demonstrate the direct impact music has on neurochemical systems for creating reward, motivation, and pleasure responses, reducing stress and arousal, boosting immunity, and improving social affiliation.

“We’ve found compelling evidence that musical interventions can play a health care role in settings ranging from operating rooms to family clinics,” professor Daniel Levitin said. “But even more importantly, we were able to document the neurochemical mechanisms by which music has an effect in four domains: management of mood, stress, immunity and as an aid to social bonding.”

Read more: 10 most relaxing pieces of classical music

Man reacts as his baby sings Wheels of a Dream in sweet footage

Boosting mental wellbeing

In 2020, while the world grappled with lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London conducted a study looking into the role classical music was playing in helping people through the difficult day-to-day.

The study found that listening to orchestral music helped boost respondents’ mood in times of worry and stress. 35 percent of people said listening to orchestral music helped them to relax and feel calm during lockdown, and a further 18 percent said orchestral music lifted their spirits during times of worry.

Classical music makes you happier, basically.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma plays Schubert’s Ave Maria at vaccine clinic

Eliminating causes of depression

The logical conclusion of these reductions in the neurochemical responses to stress, and the role music can play in our lives at times of uncertainty, trends nicely towards music’s potential to eliminate causes of depression.

“Culture and the arts bring meaning to our lives [and] make us the human beings we are and give structure and sense to the society we create; they provide us with real values and fulfil our mental and emotional existence,” conductor Vasily Petrenko said in relation to the 2021 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra study above.

“Today at a time of unprecedented risk and anxiety, the orchestral genre has once again helped people and as musicians we are desperate to join in the battle to rebuild society, to help people improve their mental health, to fire their spirit and to give comfort during this most isolated and most lonely time in our modern history.”

Lowering blood pressure

Part of classical music’s stress-reducing power lies in its ability to quite literally lower blood pressure.

If your blood pressure is too high, it puts extra strain on your blood vessels, heart and other organs, such as the brain, kidneys and eyes, according to the NHS.

Persistent high blood pressure can increase a person’s risk of a number of serious and potentially life-threatening health conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, kidney disease and vascular dementia.

According to a 2022 study of music and the brain , there is a clear physical explanation for how music lowers blood pressure. The vagus nerve, which is the main nerve of your parasympathetic nervous system controlling specific body functions such as your digestion, heart rate and immune system, is located near the eardrum, and responds to musical vibrations by triggering the body to relax. In the study, participants’ blood pressure became lower after listening to slow classical music.

Read more: The most soothing pieces of classical music – in Mental Health Awareness Month

Violinist performs while having brain surgery

Improving physical movement

Teams at Harvard found an even more extraordinary benefit linked to classical music. Music therapy was being proven to help stroke survivors regain movement and speech through something called ‘entrainment’.

Entrainment describes the process where a repeated musical pulse activates neurons in the brain. “When you hear a steady rhythm, it activates your auditory system but also automatically engages your motor system,” music therapist Brian Harris told Harvard . “When people entrain, it makes the neurological process more efficient because everything fires at the same time.”

People were found to be able to recall music and sing more easily than to regain the speech they’ve lost, in a surprisingly high number of cases.

Read more: ‘Smart gloves’ could allow stroke patients to relearn to play the piano

Relieving pain

Similarly, music can be funnelled into pain management and elimination. The same neurons that can be activated by music in the process of entrainment can be the source and solution to easing pain for people.

In 2010, these scientists looked at what happened when they programmed entrainment music to match the frequency of a child or adolescent’s pain, and once that was matched, changed the music to have the frequency of ‘healing’. They identified positive results.

Improving sleep patterns

It follows that relaxing classical music that reduces stress, lowers blood pressure and gives listeners an overall sense of mental wellbeing would improve sleep for people.

While it would be a shame to miss beautiful moments of classical music by sleeping through them, it’s helpful to think about creating the right conditions for a peaceful slumber. The incredible benefits of listening to classical music can be carried from the waking day through to a relaxing night.

Read more: Study finds Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata most popular music to fall asleep to

This incredible cellist played a Brahms lullaby to help airline passengers sleep

Improving literacy and numeracy

Many studies and programs have linked children’s progress with their access to music.

In 1993, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, reported on the ‘Mozart effect’, the phenomenon where individuals who listened to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos (K448) for 10 minutes significantly increased their spatial reasoning skills compared to those who listened to either silence or relaxation audio designed to lower blood pressure.

Other studies have linked music and attention span, and ongoing positive impacts especially for young people then seeing an improvement in their wider learning as a direct result.

Read more: Study reveals children who play a musical instrument have better memory and attention span

Boosting immunity

How does sound relate to immunity, and your body’s response to disease?

Your immune system is your body’s defence against infection and disease. If you’re ill, your immune system produces antibodies that attack the cause of the illness.

According to a 2019 study, music has a positive impact on our immune systems because of its ability to induce relaxation and alleviate stress and anxiety, as detailed in the examples above.

Music has also been found to have literal impacts on hormones and biomarkers involved in the body’s immune response.

Incredible.

Sir Anthony Hopkins plays his own music, on a hotel lobby piano

Listen to Classic FM’s ‘Baby Bedtime’ playlist on Global Player – non-stop soothing music to relax your little ones.

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Why Classical Music Still Matters

• Lawrence Kramer
• X / Twitter

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• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Copyright year: 2007
• Main content: 251
• Published: May 2, 2007
• ISBN: 9780520933644

10 Reasons Why Classical Music is Still Relevant Today

Classical music has stood the test of time and remains highly relevant in today’s world. Here are 10 reasons why classical music continues to be influential and significant:

• Timeless Beauty: Classical compositions possess enduring beauty and emotional depth that resonate with listeners across generations.
• Historical Significance: Classical music provides insight into different eras, reflecting the cultural, political, and social contexts of its time, making it a valuable historical record.
• Emotional Expression: Classical music offers a wide range of emotions and moods, providing a cathartic and emotional outlet for both performers and audiences.
• Skill and Precision: The intricate compositions demand exceptional skill and precision from musicians, showcasing the highest levels of musical craftsmanship.
• Inspiring Innovation: Classical music has historically inspired innovation and experimentation, leading to the development of new musical genres and styles.
• Cognitive Benefits: Research suggests that listening to classical music can improve cognitive functions, enhance concentration, and reduce stress.
• Cross-Cultural Appeal: Classical music transcends cultural boundaries, connecting people worldwide through its universal language of sound.
• Influence in Popular Culture: Classical music has left a profound impact on various genres, influencing contemporary artists and film composers.
• Educational Value: Studying classical music provides a solid foundation in music theory, history, and technique, benefiting musicians across genres.
• Live Performances: Classical concerts offer unique and captivating live experiences, allowing audiences to connect with the music and performers on a profound level.

In conclusion, classical music’s enduring beauty, historical significance, emotional expression, and cognitive benefits ensure its continued relevance in today’s world. Its ability to inspire, connect, and educate underscores its importance and enduring appeal.

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Think Twice

Does listening to classical music improve academic performance.

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In the 18th century, Amadeus Mozart gripped the musical world with his elegantly crafted symphonies and intricate, melodic orchestral pieces. But can his music help students with studying? 

“The Mozart Effect” was first suggested in 1993 in a study conducted by psychologist Francis Rauscher at the University of California in Irvine. Students assigned to listen to a piano sonata composed by Mozart scored higher on a spatial reasoning test compared to those who did not.  

According to a study published in Learning and Individual Differences , students who listened to classical music during a lecture received superior marks on exams compared to their peers who did not. However, this may relate to classical music in general rather than Mozart in particular. An additional study on “The impact of music on the bioelectrical oscillations of the brain” used EEG data to measure brain activity, which suggested that music had a positive impact on brain function. The theory is that music reduces stress while stimulating happiness and arousal, which in turn helps students better concentrate on the task at hand. In the experiment, as long as the music was not too dynamic and did not become distracting, it was associated with better student performance on cognitive based exams.  

So the next time you are stressing about an exam, consider popping in some earbuds and listening to classical music. It might offer heightened stimulation to help you focus on the task at hand and get the most out of your studying time. 

https://news.usc.edu/71969/studying-for-finals-let-classical-music-help/

https://www.incadence.org/post/the-mozart-effect-explaining-a-musical-theory#:~:text=The%20Mozart%20Effect%20refers%20to,and%20their%20reactions%20when%20listening .

https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/please-explain/february-2022/please-explain-does-music-help-you-study

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02044/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6130927/#:~:text=According%20to%20scientists%2C%20music%20that,right%20frontal%20and%20temporal%20regions

One thought on “Does listening to classical music improve academic performance?”

I noticed that every year more and more people are interested in the subject of classical music. But unfortunately very often only online. Therefore, any such information helps to revive interest in real concerts.

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The Relevance of Classical Music

Music was meant to create an effect in its listeners that embraced more than the perception of its sounds alone; it was meant to have an effect deeper than words, deeper than rational thought, and touching the emotions and that mysterious thing which the poets call “the soul”…

But what do we mean by “classical music?” Does traditional art music in cultures other than our Western one count? For the sake of our argument, we will consider only Western classical art music as it is practiced in our central performance culture, since the music of other cultures operates in a very different historical and social perspective. Western classical music can be divided into two categories: 1) all serious music from Gregorian chant onwards, up to and including music of the late Baroque era; and 2) the music from the second half of the eighteenth century onwards, up to and including twentieth-century classical music. This distinction is based upon performance practice and instruments. The regular, classical performance world has developed from the classical repertoire as seen from a nineteenth-century perspective: Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven formed the basis of a performance culture that set standards in both performance and composition quality, and for the first time in Western history, works from the past began to form a venerated canon, to which new works began to relate, both in terms of performance practice and composition, however obliquely at times. In the twentieth century, the music of pre-classical times was explored, and a new performance practice was created next to the central performance culture: the Historically Informed Performance practice (or HIP). The study of lost ways of performance led to both the attempt to create an “authentic” rendering of scores (which were often rather poor in information density) and the building—or rather, reconstruction—of pre-classical instruments together with the re-creation of the art of playing them. All this comprises the Western classical tradition, which continued alongside the development of twentieth-century atonal modernism. That, in turn, created yet another category: the field of sonic art—or, as the Germans have appropriately named it, Klangkunst. (This purely acoustical art form will not be part of these deliberations for reasons that will become clear in the course of the argument, but it will be dealt with in part II of this essay.)

All Western classical music thus described has been intended to communicate something—but what? Not clear information, as one might communicate using language. It was meant to create an effect in its listeners that embraced more than the perception of its sounds alone; it was meant to have an effect deeper than words, deeper than rational thought, and touching the emotions and that mysterious thing which the poets call “the soul.” Music was considered, by its composers as well as by its performers and audiences, to be an expressive art—an art that had to “say” something that could not, or could only inadequately, be put into words. In these terms, we must think not only of Romantic music but also of quasi-abstract works like Bach’s Goldberg Variations , which express something very different than does a Schumann song cycle or a Mahler symphony. These incredibly beautiful and introspective variations could be understood as an expression of the composer’s meditative reflections on the order of the universe, or on the religious vision of the world and the human soul. (The German poet, novelist, and cultural philosopher Goethe said of the Goldberg Variations that it sounded like God musing on Himself.) All this points towards the obvious conclusion that classical music was meant to create an effect on the inner life of the listener, bypassing language and reason, and touching those layers of inner awareness that we might relate to intuition, dream, instinct, and soul. Where words were used, as in church music, it was assumed that music would render the deeper meaning of the texts, making the message more emotionally powerful and therefore more convincing than if the words were simply recited alone. The setting of religious texts was therefore carefully monitored by the religious authorities and, where necessary, restricted by rules which kept the clarity of the words intact. In the Lied tradition of the nineteenth century, it was accepted that the music was directly expressing the emotional dimension of the text, thereby doubling the effect of the words; the same with opera which attempted to engage the audience with a combined spectacle of words, stage action, music, and the creation of some sort of stylized reality.

In spite of the many successive changes in style, form, purposes, and social and political circumstances, serious art music in the West has always been relevant, i.e. it was a fully integrated part of the best that the culture of a time and place could offer. The ambitions which drove composers, performers, and commissioning patrons were always focused on “the Best,” in any and every sense. Relevance has never been an issue, and it would have been very difficult for a composer or performer in those periods to articulate the relevance of his art, as it would have been hard for a fish to explain the relevance of water. So it was until our own time: with democratization and emancipation of the masses, social mobility, technological progress, the development of an extensive media culture, and the abundance of information channels and distribution networks, authority no longer goes unquestioned. And classical music, as an art form that costs a lot of money (in Europe, mostly from the tax payer’s purse), is—for the first time—coming under pressure to justify its existence and its funding. This is, by all means, not an altogether bad development, since it forces musical professionals to rethink what they are doing and to what purpose. In a time where all the parameters of our civilization are shifting, and especially considering the current rise of populism everywhere in the Western world—a populism that is hostile to anything that may give the impression of “elitism”—it is of the greatest importance that the nature and purpose of classical music be articulated and argued, that it be protected from erosion and attacks based on ignorance and misunderstanding.

There are already many efforts underway to make classical music more accessible and to counter the impression that this is a museum culture for the happy few, like the numerous educational and “community projects” that orchestras all over the world have initiated. And in general, they seem to work well. One is sometimes surprised to discover that “classical music” is being presented as something that it is obviously not : hip, easily understood, and entirely in touch with modern times. In 2010, Holger Noltze, a music journalist and lecturer at the Technical University in Dortmund, published his book Die Leichtigkeitslüge ( The Lie about Easiness ), in which he criticized the way that classical music is increasingly presented to potential new audiences as something “easy.” He explains that complexity is an inherent quality of the art form, and claims that culture should be allowed not to be easy at all—that it can be painful at times for the audience, that it may hurt, and that this demonstrates its power and meaning. He has nothing to say against the element of entertainment in classical music, but claims that something important is lost when all of it is approached as nothing more than another form of aural fun. The book stirred up public opinion in Germany—and the fact that it was written in the Holy Land of Classical Music at all is a phenomenon which invites serious reflection. If even in Germany, the European country that sees itself as a “Kulturnation,” there are rising doubts about one of its greatest cultural assets, we all have to worry. So there is indeed a problem with classical music as a genre, a problem that goes to the heart of its nature and meaning and which can be best described as the problem of relevance in the context of the modern world, in relation to modern life which is in many ways so different from the art form and the times and places of its birth.

The problem which Noltze describes—making classical music “easy”—grows out of the idea that this art form is old, that it comes to us from premodern times (at least the heart of its repertoire does), and that the only way to make it relevant for modern times is to make it in some way compatible with the modern age. That means, not only making it “easy,” but also combining it with elements which typify our world today: visuals, media’s various cultural artifacts, a promotional cult surrounding it like that of pop music marketing, performers who adopt the images of pop idols complete with “bling,” and new concert halls which outdo each other in their efforts to look like futuristic spaceships from sci-fi TV series or computer games. Central to this approach is the reassuring suggestion that classical music is as quickly digested and understood as all the other offerings of modernity. These are all attempts to rescue the art form from its historic shelter and to bring it into the bright daylight of our own time, with its intense and evanescent life experiences.  But here we touch the real problem which is ignored in these attempts: the real nature of the art form is its interiority .

We could point towards classical music as a repository of emotional knowledge and civilizational values, as an emotionally uplifting experience, as a signifier of cultural identity and a symbol of ethical awareness, but since these things have different meanings for every individual, it is much better to describe the art form in a way which includes all of these things: as offering an alternative to the modern world, contrary to the idea that classical music should be a reflection of the modern world. Where modernity draws modern man out of his own inner realm, classical music offers a place of inner restoration, anchoring one’s Self and creating a point of orientation and awareness from which the outward, modern world can be seen and dealt with. In this way, it protects the Self from being constantly bombarded with contradictory and confusing stimuli that cannot be properly digested because there is no coherent filter to manage them. So then, classical music is not a form of escapism but a balancing act to keep the inner world sane.

But how is this possible at all—the repertoire of classical music has been created in a time and place where the rattling of passing carriages was the worst sonic distraction, where none of the raging noises of modernity could even be imagined? In those times, people had enough time on their hands to reflect upon life, upon their experiences, to be aware of their own reactions to them, and to quietly contemplate the perspectives of the past, present, and future. People had the time and the attention to allow ideas to sink in, to mature, to take on individual and collective form; craft had a long trajectory of development accompanied by constant reflection. The result of such a life was that the experiences of interiority were close to the surface and artists were strongly aware of them. The “interior world of individual experience” was the normal wavelength on which they operated. And since music is an abstract art, i.e. non-conceptual, composers could embed their experiences in the structures of their music, where those experience shed their temporality and specifics to become universal.

This means that the “old repertoire” which forms the mainstay of classical music, together with its aesthetic values, has never become old at all, but remains as fresh as ever, reflecting interior experience which is accessible to every new generation. In our modern world this interiority has become rare and something to be wrestled from the modern world; the noisier the world becomes, the more valuable the realm where people can restore their inner balance and awareness of individuality.

The implications of the true nature of classical music as the art form of universal interiority are drastic: They call not for its adaptation to modern life, but instead offer an utterly contrasting experience that makes classical music an indispensable part of the modern world. It is the very thing the modern world desperately needs if it wants to preserve the common sense and equilibrium it needs in order to function at all.

If classical music is the art  of “therapeutic” interiority, then thinking about presentation, marketing, funding, etc. needs to be developed from this insight. “Selling” music in wrapping paper which belies its nature will inevitably lead to disappointment: The regular listeners will feel their experience is being diminished and dumbed down and may stay away in the future; potential new audiences—especially the younger generations without much exposure to classical music—will feel cheated when they find out that a Mahler symphony does not sound at all like heavy metal or hip-hop. One could revisit the many rubbing points that characterize the problems of classical music with this perspective in mind and try to find new and better ways to connect the art form to the needs of modern society instead of trying to make it compatible with modernity. Symphony orchestras especially, vulnerable because of their complex bureaucracy and great expenses, could find explorative trajectories to anchor the institution within society in a way that secures their existence in the present and in the future. And at the heart of such considerations lies the way in which the orchestra, as an institution, is perceived from the outside, from the modern world to which it offers a much-needed alternative space.

A short word about the sonic art performance culture is appropriate here. Since the Second World War, this entirely new art form has developed aesthetic and, especially, psychological receptive frameworks which differ fundamentally from those of music. This has meant an entirely different approach to composition, performance, education, and marketing. Sonic art does not intend to address the listener’s interior life but instead wants him to become aware of the aesthetics of pure sound patterns, which is more like an observation process of patterns which are not means of any communication of interior, emotional experience, but are objective, independent entities to be enjoyed for themselves, as natural phenomena are. Sonic art is not an art of interiority but an objective art that belongs to the world of objective entities. Given the ideological nature of much sonic art and its promotion, which insistently relates it to the specific character of modernity, it can never offer the contrast to modernity as explained in the first part of this essay. It belongs firmly to the modern world to which classical music, as the art of interiority, in contrast, offers an alternative experience. In other words: Audiences who want to immerse themselves again in the modern experience will seek sonic art; listeners who long for an experience that confirms their inner life and universal humanity will try to find this in classical music.

Let us now try, with the concept of interiority in mind, to find indications of possible solutions that can help to preserve classical music in the future. What follows are mere general suggestions which, however, can be further explored in specific cases and thus may offer new and fertile trajectories.

Educational programs of classical music should be organized from primary schools onwards and clearly presented as an alternative music to pop, in the way healthy fruit is presented as an alternative to fast food, ice cream, and candy. It should not be treated as something old-fashioned but instead as something that has proven, by experience, to be wholesome to people’s emotional development. Active playing and singing, however simple, should be part of such programs. Comparisons with pop music which children will hear elsewhere in abundance, comparisons in which classical music is told to be superior, should be avoided, since patronizing overtones of a truth hinder communication; children will have to discover for themselves the quality difference when they engage in classical music; and if they do not, that’s too bad—but you cannot force love and appreciation. At least children who do not appear to be sensitive to classical music will know it exists and that it is important for a lot of people, and a normal part of civilization.

At the level of secondary school, the case of interiority and timelessness can be discussed around active playing and informative listening sessions. And at the university level, music history and general education in classical music culture should be a normal part of the humanities and of first-year, or preparatory, orientation programs. Every student leaving university should know the basics of the classical music culture, irrespective of the profession he has been prepared for. As for “diversity”: Since classical music is universal (because human interiority is universal), it is not bound to culturally-defined mental territories; it is open to everybody with enough interest and sensitivity to spend some effort and time on it, and will give its full and rich rewards to listeners irrespective of ethnic background or culture. Such music information courses at the university level should not be part of gender studies, or music-sociological courses where music history is treated as part of political or social agendas; however interesting such courses may be, they do not touch the heart of the art form which transcends such contexts.

When information given in the media and on websites about concerts, ensembles, orchestras, and opera houses, apart from the practical data, is presented in a style which does justice to the dignity of the art form and which refrains from any association with vulgar commercial advertisement, such an approach will be an honest and correct service to prospective listeners. Where orchestras and opera houses also include the more popular genres like musicals and cross-over programs, the style of presentation should be as different as possible from the presentation style of the classical programs, so that it will be clear to prospective listeners that classical music is really a different genre and will address the more sophisticated and developed inner life of audiences.

The star cult around brilliant performers has always been part of the classical music culture, and it would be much too puritanical to bring up arguments against it, since the real, live presence of such artists is one of the great attractions of a concert. But it makes quite a difference whether performers are presented as the main subject of the event, or as serving the music. A certain measure of dignity and chastity will keep the balance right (one thinks of pianists dressed up like pop stars, or singers almost drowning in their cleavage—a misapplication of the idea of interiority—which creates a barrier between the listener and the music by exaggerating the outer appearances of the intermediate).

If the promotion and marketing of concerts focus on the contemporary need for interior experience, one has the best chance to get audiences, both old and new, who will recognize the value of the event and will come back for more. When attracting young and new audiences, it will not be references to the modern world, or pop, or superficial glamor that will bring them around more than once, but the argument that they will find something of their own inner identity touched and confirmed by classical music. Surely young people, still finding their way into life and into a confusing and often insecure world, will be interested in experiencing something that will strengthen their sense of self, that will stimulate aspirations, and that connects them to the long organic chain of generations, an experience which may insert some awareness of human greatness, individual potential, and all the important human values which cannot be defined by “the market” or fashion or hip technologies.

A short word upon “diversity,” a term which often crops up in government reports, fundraising initiatives, and defenses of the art form in relation to social changes. The classical repertoire was created in times and places which were different from our own times. The idea that the art form should be accessible to all community types within society is perfectly legitimate and right; given the universality of classical music, it cannot be nailed down to a mere product of dead, white males from undemocratic times and thus an expression of white, male, European dominance. The music transcends such narrow-minded notions. It is not anti-women, anti-proletariat, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-whatever, but addresses itself to any human being prepared to open her heart and ears (probably the latter in the first place). So, programming which seeks to meet requirements of diversity by including works which do not belong to the genre is creating a barrier: Listeners from backgrounds where Western classical music is not heard should not come to the concert hall to recognize something of their culture at home, but to be invited to explore an art form which may be unfamiliar at first but which can be absorbed by their own inner Self in the same it absorbed their own cultural symbols and metaphors, and thus provide an enrichment without any suggestion of “giving up” something of their own cultural identity. As Western listeners can learn to understand and experience Indian traditional music, Indians can do the same with Western classical music. Because of its all-embracing universality, Western classical music is particularly suited to the needs of our own globalized, and therefore increasingly neurotic, times.

As we know, funding of classical music differs from country to country and especially from the USA to Europe. Where concerts are dependent upon private donors and corporate sponsorship, again the contemporary need for the interior experience that classical music offers, best be at the heart of the fundraising exercise. Also references to permanence, continuity, and the civilizing influence of the art form should help to attract donors who feel committed to such values and corporate sponsors who wish their products to be associated with an art form contributing to compelling, interior experience. (A good example of the presentation of classical music with a dignified emanation of quality—and with a discrete reference to sponsorship but without the suggestion that music is a mere luxury product—is the website of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, where a mere little clock on the left indicates that the orchestra has a sponsor relationship with Rolex.)

Where governments support classical music, as they do in Europe, orchestras’ existence is secured by structural subsidies. Spending tax money on such institutions has to be politically motivated and this results in the dependence of the institutions—orchestras, opera houses, concert halls, etc.—upon just how politicians think about cultural identity and the political gain they may derive from supporting the arts or else cutting the subsidies (as recently happened in Denmark and the Netherlands, both countries gravely suffering from populist inroads into the cultural sector). Most countries in Europe, however, still have a strong traditional cultural identity in spite of the erosion that comes with globalization. Germany and Austria understand themselves as Kulturnationen , “nations of culture,” where classical music especially forms an important part of national self-understanding. France still cultivates its patrimoine , the total of cultural monuments, artifacts, and traditions which have come down through the ages, not to mention Italy and Spain with their rich inheritances. The arguments that institutions have to regularly present to the state funding bodies have to relate to the political agendas of the reigning parties, and where the political landscape changes these arguments change as well. The current rise of populism, which infects many political parties who had been immune against such erosion before, means that musical institutions have to find other accents in their arguments to justify their function within society. In the discourse with governments, the populist agenda is entirely against any culture which claims high quality experience since any such suggestion is considered “elitist.” The best an institution could do when confronted by such an agenda is to stress the accessibility of classical music and its therapeutic effect on all levels of the community—and be silent about its relationship to notions of “European civilization,” its artistic qualities, its level of craftsmanship, and the like. As for the concept of interiority: this will probably be much too difficult to understand for populist politicians and thus better left untouched.

Concert Halls

A concert hall is not merely a practical space for live concerts; it also creates the appropriate mood where classical music can be experienced in the most appropriate way. But what is the most appropriate way? To begin with, this space will have to underline its separateness from the outside world, not only acoustically (a practical consideration) but also psychologically, to underline the interior nature of the art form. The great concert halls of the nineteenth century, when public music life found its first anchoring in public space, were created like temples, separate from the noise of daily life, often with solemn classicist design and richly-sculpted decorations out- and inside the hall, which had the advantage of both creating an atmosphere of dignity and elevation and spreading and distributing the sound waves in such a way that the music comes into its own right. In the twentieth century, however, architectural modernism sought to stress the contemporaneity of the concert hall building, with the effect that the music being performed inside began to seem “outdated” and “historical.” Together with the splitting-off of the avant-garde from the central performance culture, modern concert halls seemed to underline the museum-like nature of the classical, pre-modernist repertoire. The inescapable conclusion is that, if classical music should be best served in its concert spaces, we need to build concert halls in a classical style, as happened in Nashville with the Schermerhorn Symphony Centre.

Community Work

Fortunately, many musical institutions have extended their activities to educational programs in the communities of their cities, trying to interest young people and hoping to build new audiences for the future. Some of these community programs have taken on the character of a social engineering exercise, as if classical music could heal the social problems of underprivileged neighborhoods suffering from crime and racism, thereby suggesting that the influence of music should be able to change attitudes in the social sphere. But classical music is not an instrument of social change in a direct sense: If it has an influence, it works in an indirect way by civilizing the emotions, awakening aspirations, confirming the self. But it cannot solve the problems resulting from the lack of these things. Those problems are (for music) too far down the chain of cause and effect. Active participation in music-making in ensembles, sponsored by either donors or the state, can certainly improve problem neighborhoods as many reports have shown, but one should not expect miracles from classical music in such areas.

Last but not least, the burning question of repertoire. For classical music as a genre to survive in modern times, renewal of the repertoire is a fundamental requirement: Without renewal, the art form petrifies and audiences will stay away because they will have the repertoire of works on CD at home. An obvious way to rejuvenate the repertoire is to explore works of the past which have gone out of fashion or which have been unjustly overlooked—the filter of history is by no means an “honest” one and many unmusical factors have an influence on the formation of the repertoire that appears to survive the times. There are works by well-known composers which were once popular but then fell out of fashion, as well as works by these composers which were never very popular but are nevertheless definitely worthwhile. Among the examples which come to mind are César Franck’s symphonic poem Le Chasseur Maudit  and his Variations Symphoniques  for piano and orchestra; Fauré’s Ballade  for piano and orchestra; the operas of Cherubini (highly appreciated by Beethoven); symphonic poems by Saint-Saëns; the neoclassical repertoire by Stravinsky and De Falla. Music which has been overshadowed by “the Greats” can also offer surprising works, like Reger’s Romantic Suite  (a most remarkable work), or the many engaging works by British composers of the early twentieth century (Vaughan Williams, Holst, Delius). The twentieth-century tonal tradition, much maligned and pushed to the margins by modernism and academia, offers a veritable treasure trove of interesting music which, fortunately, is currently explored by recording labels and which has been thoroughly mapped by Canadian musicologist Herbert Pauls. There is so much unfamiliar and engaging music already written that it won’t be very hard, with some serious time spent on it, to find additional repertoire which enriches concert life with an injection of adventure and exploration.

And then there is contemporary production, which, on the surface, seems to carry the stronger symbolism of renewal and development for the art form. But this invokes some quite complex questions. If renewal means programming a new, still unknown work, then how do we know beforehand that it is worthwhile, given the immensely wide range of idioms and the fact that a lot of new music is unsuited for classical music’s performance format? How to find your way into that jungle, and with which value framework? How do we know beforehand that announcing the new work won’t reduce ticket sales—since an unknown or contemporary name on the program often invites grave suspicion with prospective audiences that it may be one of those indigestible pieces that are painfully endured rather than a compelling and interesting experience? And then, could a new work which is painful on first hearing not be a great work after all when performed more than once—and if so, how could we know? After all, orchestras, opera companies, and smaller ensembles can function perfectly well without any “unfamiliar” work, the established repertoire being so large and varied. Orchestras and opera companies work under strong pressures to get the planned performances realized in the best possible way. The many letters, proposals, and recordings they receive from composers, their agents, or their publishers every day create mountains of unsolicited mail in corners of their offices and they simply don’t have the capacity to deal with those masses of information which are mostly seen as a mere threat to their working routine. In general, orchestras and opera companies don’t have a specialized staff member dedicated exclusively exploring such material, and the staff dealing with artistic planning can’t afford to lose valuable time assessing material they are not equipped to judge.

Another problem is the sheer amount of new music being produced every minute of every hour nowadays. Because the musical fashions that have arisen since WWII claim total freedom from traditional musical standards and aesthetic norms, composing has become open to anybody—including people with the ambition but without the talents to really write meaningful music. And they are many. What’s more, current computer technology makes putting something together that one could call a “composition” possible for people who in former periods would not have dreamed of becoming a musician, let alone a composer. This has resulted in the current proliferation of “composers” thronging at the doors of orchestras, ensembles, and opera houses, creating a dense fog that is looked upon with suspicion and gloom from the closed windows of artistic leadership. It has thus become very difficult for institutions to find new, valuable works.

What is the role of conductors in introducing unfamiliar works? They compete for restricted opportunities in the field, and career choices are often given priority over interest in content. But fortunately, quite a few conductors—mostly of the younger generation—understand that restricting their repertoire to warhorses will not benefit either their career or the art form itself, and proposals from conductors to the planning staff are a possible route to performance. But conductors who have earned the trust of the orchestral staff, whether of their own orchestra or of other orchestras where they make guest appearances, generally have little time to explore the labyrinth of new music and to react to the flood of proposals coming their way.

Orchestras and opera companies try to give as many performances as possible to exploit the available financial and practical resources to the fullest. Well-known works of the repertoire only need rehearsing for the “how” and not for the “what,” so works from the standard repertoire are cheaper and more practical than unfamiliar or new works. Most of the time, new works are only rehearsed for the “what;” and where the music in itself does not intend to transcend the sound level, where the “how” consists in getting the notes and timbres in the right place and nothing more (which is mostly the case with postwar music), preparations are finished when the structure is more or less correct. But this does not leave listeners with the impression of communication and a deeper musical meaning. The result is that the work is soon forgotten and not repeated because it does not invite more hearings. What happens to the rare works in which, as in “older” music, the level of sound is a mere carrier of musical expression? Extra rehearsal time is needed to create the opportunity of exploring the expressive dimension, and that is only possible when first the “what,” the right notes in the right place, has been realized. Given the cost of rehearsal time, this rarely happens, with the result that works which may offer the unique opportunity to add to the repertoire are put in the same category as the superficial, musically-empty products and share the same fate of oblivion. Postwar modernism and its hip progeny, in combination with the expensive cost of operation for orchestras and opera houses, created barriers which hinder renewal of the repertoire—a self-destructive mix, pushing classical music into the corner as a “museum culture.”

The only possibility for orchestras and opera houses to find new repertoire, with the chance that they hit upon something of real value, is to preserve a practical framework: the one which defines the fundamentals of the art form. This means ignoring the postwar modernist ideologies of progress—because there is no progress in the arts—and requiring of new repertoire that it be suited to the medium as it has developed over time. In other words, new music should be rooted in some sort of tonality, create the possibility of communication and expression, and offer the players (and singers when in opera) the opportunity to create a coherent total musical experience which can be combined with existing repertoire and which avoids disruption of the general format of the art form—which, after all, is merely a means to an end: the compelling musical experience. Only then will the expensive extra rehearsal time needed for a satisfying result be justified. Does this sound “conservative?” Is preserving fundamentals of a precious art form “conservative?” Or is it merely common sense? If we want classical music to survive in modern times, it should be its intrinsic, artistic quality which carries developments, not its deviations from the only format within which the art form can thrive. New music which needs to deconstruct the fundamentals of the art form to make its mark is dealing not with content but with the outer form, which points toward a lack of artistic motivation. Even the most deviating works in the past, like Stravinsky’s Sacre , made use of the basic format of classical music to introduce a highly original treatment of melody, harmony, rhythm, and instrumentation—all of which were rooted in music that existed already at the time. The Sacre was not avant-garde and modernist (which is modernist jargon) but highly idiosyncratic and an extreme version of an existing musical tradition: the one of Russian folklore, being prepared and practiced long before Stravinsky laid his hands on it.

Thus two possibilities readily present themselves regarding the renewal of the repertoire:

• Exploring unfamiliar works from the past, of which there are many that deserve a new hearing; and
• Looking for contemporary music which conforms to the fundamentals and medium of our performance culture (orchestra, ensemble, opera house).

Either way, it would be best if orchestras and opera houses appointed a special staff member to explore and select new ideas for programming. Someone with both performance experience and an extensive education in music history and aesthetics would be ideal for such undertaking and able to intelligently discuss new ideas with the conductor(s) concerned.

Fortunately, there is already much effort being spent on the survival of classical music by both the established institutions and many ad ho c initiatives. However it is to be hoped that musical institutions will, in the course of time, become still more adept at navigating their routine pressures which, though entirely understandable, in the long run may prevent necessary reform. In spite of all the stories of “a dying art” and the completely unfounded criticism that it is “outdated’ and “incompatible with modern times,” Western classical music as a genre remains one of the greatest human achievements and inspires hope that the we will, at some stage, be capable of creating a civilized world in which the benefits of the mind and spirit can flourish.

Republished with gracious permission from the Future Symphony Institute (Spring 2017). 

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Each listener will have his/her own visions with a classical(or any imaginative) piece of music. Perhaps the aesthetic value is whether or not the visions deepen or multiply and deepen upon numerous re-listening over years?

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Nineteenth-century classical music.

"Antonius" Violin

Antonio Stradivari

• Dubois et Couturier

Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840)

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Cornet à Pistons in B-flat

Courtois frères

Christian Frederick Martin

Grand Pianoforte

Érard , made in London

Square Piano

Robert Nunns

Grand Piano

• Steinway & Sons

The Music Lesson

John George Brown

Giosue Esposito

Julian Alden Weir

• Lyon & Healy

Two Young Girls at the Piano

Auguste Renoir

Jayson Kerr Dobney Department of Musical Instruments, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2004

The nineteenth century brought great upheaval to Western societies. Democratic ideals and the Industrial Revolution swept through Europe and changed the daily lives of citizens at all levels. Struggles between the old world order and the new were the root causes of conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to the American Civil War . From New York, to London, to Vienna, the world was changing and the consequences can still be felt to this day.

The lives of musicians, composers, and makers of musical instruments were greatly altered by these social changes. In earlier times, musicians were usually employed by either the church or the court and were merely servants to aristocratic circles. Composers wrote music for performances in these venues, and musical instrument makers produced instruments to be played by wealthy patrons or their servant musicians. With the rise of the middle class, more people wanted access to music performances and music education.

A new artistic aesthetic, Romanticism , replaced the ideals of order, symmetry, and form espoused by the classicists of the late eighteenth century. Romantics valued the natural world, idealized the life of the common man, rebelled against social conventions, and stressed the importance of the emotional in art. In music, Romanticism, along with new opportunities for earning a livelihood as a musician or composer, produced two seemingly opposite venues as the primary places for musical activity—the large theater and the parlor.

Music as Public Spectacle One result of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of a middle class. This new economic strata consisted of a larger number of people with more disposable income and more leisure time than had ever existed before. Musical extravaganzas that triumphed the musician or composer gained popularity with the masses of concertgoers. Beginning with Beethoven, composers began to arrange large concerts in order to introduce their works to the public. As audiences desired more, composers wrote larger musical works and demanded more of performers and their instruments.

The “bigger is better” mentality led to new musical forms such as the tone poem and large-scale symphonic and operatic works . Orchestras grew, including larger string sections with a full complement of woodwinds, brass, and ever more percussion instruments. New types of orchestral winds ( 2003.150a–g ) and brass ( 2002.190a–n ) that allowed for greater facility and more accurate playing were introduced. Composers such as Hector Berlioz, and later Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner, continually pushed the limits of the available musical forms, performers, instruments, and performance spaces throughout the nineteenth century.

Musicians who could dazzle and amaze their audiences by their virtuosity became the first musical superstars. The two most famous nineteenth-century examples were the violinist Nicolò Paganini (1782–1840) and the pianist Franz Liszt (1811–1886). Both dazzled audiences throughout Europe with their performances, elevating the status of the musician from servant to demigod. Their fame grew throughout Europe, and their likenesses would be recorded in a variety of visual arts.

In order to withstand the virtuosic and often bombastic playing of these soloists, as well as to provide the type of volume needed in large concert venues, more powerful instruments were needed. Larger and louder violins like those by Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) or Guarneri del Gesù (1698–1744)—preferred by Paganini—replaced the quieter and subtler violins of earlier masters like Jacob Stainer (ca. 1617–1683) or the Amati family. The demands of pianists like Franz Liszt pressed the technology and design of pianos to ever-larger instruments, eventually replacing the internal wooden structures of the eighteenth century with cast-iron frames that could withstand thousands of pounds of pressure.

Parlor Music Conversely, music gained popularity in the intimate nineteenth-century parlor. At the time, home life was centered in the salon, or parlor, where children played and learned with adult supervision, and where the family entertained company. Musical performances for small groups of people became popular events, and some composers/performers were able to support themselves financially by performing in these small venues and attracting wealthy patrons. Most famous among these was Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849).

Music in the parlor was of a very different sort than in the concert hall. Solo performances and chamber music were popular, and included everything from operatic and orchestral transcriptions to sentimental love songs and ballads. In the United States, hymns and folk songs by composers like Stephen Foster (1826–1864) supplemented the European repertoire.

With the rise of the parlor as the center of family life, music education became increasingly important. Children were often taught to play musical instruments as part of a well-rounded education; for girls, playing an instrument was more important than learning to read. When guests and potential suitors visited, the children and teenagers would entertain with performances of the latest popular works.

All sorts of musical instruments were used in the home, and at various times the guitar , harp ( 2001.171 ), concertina, and banjo were extremely popular. However, the most important musical instrument in the home was the piano, because it was useful as both a solo instrument and as accompaniment to a group of singers or instrumentalists. To accommodate home use, smaller pianos were created, first square pianos and later uprights. Small pianos took up less space and, although they were not as powerful as larger types, they were also less expensive. With the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, the mass manufacturing of musical instruments—especially pianos—provided a seemingly endless supply for the huge markets of both the United States and Europe. The piano would remain a central component of domestic life until it was replaced by the phonograph, radio, and television in the twentieth century.

Dobney, Jayson Kerr. “Nineteenth-Century Classical Music.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amcm/hd_amcm.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

Samson, Jim, ed. The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Additional Essays by Jayson Kerr Dobney

• Dobney, Jayson Kerr. “ Archtop Guitars and Mandolins .” (September 2016)
• Dobney, Jayson Kerr. “ The Guitar .” (September 2007)
• Dobney, Jayson Kerr. “ The Piano: Viennese Instruments .” (March 2009)
• Dobney, Jayson Kerr. “ Military Music in American and European Traditions .” (October 2004)

Related Essays

• Military Music in American and European Traditions
• Music in the Renaissance
• The Piano: Viennese Instruments
• Alice Cordelia Morse (1863–1961)
• America Comes of Age: 1876–1900
• American Scenes of Everyday Life, 1840–1910
• Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
• Egyptian Revival
• George Inness (1825–1894)
• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
• James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)
• John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)
• Musical Instruments of the Indian Subcontinent
• Nineteenth-Century American Drawings
• Nineteenth-Century American Folk Art
• Nineteenth-Century American Jewelry
• Nineteenth-Century American Silver
• Photography and the Civil War, 1861–65
• Romanticism
• Violin Makers: Nicolò Amati (1596–1684) and Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737)
• Women Artists in Nineteenth-Century France

List of Rulers

• Presidents of the United States of America
• Central Europe and Low Countries, 1800–1900 A.D.
• France, 1800–1900 A.D.
• Great Britain and Ireland, 1800–1900 A.D.
• The United States and Canada, 1800–1900 A.D.
• 19th Century A.D.
• Biedermeier
• Brass Instrument
• Central Europe
• Musical Instrument
• North America
• Oil on Canvas
• String Instrument
• United States
• Wind Instrument

Artist or Maker

• Amati, Nicolò
• Böhm, Joseph
• Brown, John George
• Clark, John
• Courtois Frères
• Érard & Company
• Esposito, Giosue
• Graf, Conrad
• Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique
• Martin, Christian Frederick
• Nunns, Robert
• Renoir, Auguste
• Stradivari, Antonio
• Weir, Julian Alden

61 Classical Music Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best classical music topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 interesting topics to write about classical music, 📃 good research topics about classical music.

• Classical Music: Merriam’s Tripartite Model of Music Classical music is characterized by the harmony that is full of chromaticism. Music is meant to provide a meaningful interaction of the body and soul.
• Music Appreciation: Reggae Music and Classical Music At the end of the paper, the relationships between reggae and classical music will be considered with the emphasis made on the similarities between the genres.
• Classical Music: Influence on Brain and Mood Considering the potential positive effects of classical music on the mood and the brain, the music can be adapted to influence people to behave in certain ways.
• Classical Music: Composer Philip Glass Classic music emerged in the beginning of the 11th century in the West. Conclusion Philip Glass is a great composer who has helped conserve the unique nature of classical music.
• Classical Symphonies: Investigating Style Evolution of Western Classical Music The formative period of classical music was between the 18th and 19th centuries. Beethoven wrote music slowly and purposely with the romantics’ guidance.
• Modernist Movement in Music: Investigating Style Evolution of Western Classical Music The modernist movement in music seems appropriate for this paper because of the unique and exciting styles of composing modern-era music, such as jazz, pop, and rock.
• Listening to Classical Music This whole thing repeats, but with more complication, and then moves into a slower part like a waltz added in, and then the notes repeat the up and down pattern that sounded like shallow waterfall […]
• Classical Symphony and Classical Chamber Music 140″ is still one of the greatest works of the Baroque era. The composer is famous for many works, and some of them have left riddles.
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The Gramophone Newsletter

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A brief history of classical music

Friday, February 24, 2023

A guided tour of the key composers and artistic movements that have made classical music the rich art-form that today still entrances, moves and uplifts

Johann Sebastian Bach

The birth of classical music

Fixing a date for ‘the beginning of classical music’ is as elusive as pin-pointing the millennium in which dinosaurs became extinct. 1000 AD merely provides a convenient starting point for the birth of modern Western music. It was around that date when the idea first occurred of combining several voices to sing a melody; it was the time, too, when the Church, for so long the most important influence and inspiration on the development of music, recognised a need to standardise the single-line unaccompanied chants that had been used for centuries in sacred ceremonies.

Gregorian chant

This early Christian music, derived from Greek songs and from the chanting used in synagogues, had evolved into what we now call plainsong, plainchant or Gregorian chant, the traditional music of the Western Church – a single melodic line, usually sung without accompaniment. (The Gregorian chant melodies sung today date from after the death of Pope Gregory in 604 AD.) Without any accepted written system to denote the pitch or length of a note, the scoring of music was inevitably a haphazard affair.

The invention of music notation

Guido d’Arezzo, a Benedictine monk whose life as a teacher and musical theorist usefully coincided with the Church’s need for musical unification, is generally credited with the introduction of a stave of horizontal lines by which one could accurately record the pitch of notes. He also came up with what we now call the tonic sol-fa system, used by singers, in which notes are named by their position in the scale, as opposed to being named after letters of the alphabet (a practice derived from the ancient Greeks).

Still there was no method of notating the length of a note. Without this, it is difficult to see how any sense of rhythm could be measured. Some scholars say that this was defined by the natural accentuation and emphasis of speech patterns and that therefore no special device was needed – the singers (without a conductor, of course) provided their own ‘flow’ and expression.

Saint Hildegard of Bingen (born c 1098) left an extraordinary legacy of works from around this time, many of which have been recorded frequently, with one of the most outstanding recordings being ‘A Feather on the Breath of God’, a Gramophone Award-winning album from Gothic Voices with Emma Kirkby and Christopher Page, which has remained one of the best-sellers in the Hyperion catalogue for 40 years. David Fallows once noted in Gramophone that ‘part of her genius is the way she uses a relatively restricted melodic vocabulary with astonishing resource ... I keep hoping to find a medieval melodist who is quite as interesting.’

● Alleluias – a specialist's guide : for many people, the term ‘alleluia’ brings to mind the eponymous Handel chorus, but, as Peter Quantrill argues, there are many and varied examples of the genre through the ages and into the 21st century.

The rules of harmony

With two of the three main elements of music – i.e. Melody and Rhythm – in the process of being codified, the idea of Harmony came into the world. Naturally, not all the singers in a choir would have the same vocal range, a problem for the comfortable unison singing of the psalms. So voices began to be divided according to natural range, chanting the Plainsong in parallel lines at two pitches, five notes apart (C-G for example) The gap between the two notes is called an interval, thus the singers sang the interval of a perfect fifth. From this apparently simple concept, but which took so long to implement, the idea grew that while one line sang the Plainsong (the ‘tenor’ or ‘holding’ part), others could weave another tune around it.

Rules were drawn up as to which part of the service could use which type of intervals. Gradually, the interval of a third (C-E), for long considered to be a dischord, was allowed. Within the moderately short time-scale of a century, we have Pérotin of Notre Dame – one of the early masters of Polyphony – writing music for three and four voices.

Pérotin of Notre Dame

Secular music: the troubadours

Parallel to the development of liturgical (Church) music ran the flowering of the secular music of the troubadours, the poet-musicians who sang of beautiful ladies, chivalry, spring and suchlike. These were the successors of the court minstrels, employed to sing the great sagas and legends, who themselves had their less-educated counterparts in the jongleurs, itinerant singers and instrumentalists. Nobly-born for the most part, the troubadours came from Provence and Aquitaine (the trouvères , their northern counterparts, and the minnesingers of Germany were almost contemporary). Only about 60 manuscripts of troubadour and trouvère poetry survive today and few of them contain musical notation which, again, have indications only of pitch but not of note length.

Troubadours

These 200 years witnessed the birth of harmony, of modern musical notation, the dance and song craze which pervaded Europe during the time of the Crusades and the complex structure of the troubadours’ poetry – more than enough to ignite the imagination of Renaissance man.

The Renaissance

The study and use of chords is what we call Harmony. Diaphony – ‘two-voiced’ music – dominated all musical composition till the 13th century; this two-part singing as applied to plainchant was also called organum . Voices would sing an octave apart (C-C), a perfect fifth (C-G), a perfect fourth (C-F) or a major third (C-E) apart.

Polyphonic music: The New Art

Polyphony is also concerned with the sounding of more than one note, but through melody – the word means ‘many-sounds’, ‘many-voiced’. The addition of a third, fourth or more independent musical lines sung or sounded together was the next obvious development, and it was the extraordinary Philippe de Vitry, a French bishop, musical theorist, composer, poet and diplomat, who showed the way forward in a famous book called The New Art – Ars Nova (as opposed to the Ars Antiqua of Guido d’Arezzo). Time-signatures indicated a rhythm for the music and improvements in notation symbolised note lengths – the ancestors of our minim, breve and semibreve. Guillaume de Machaut (another French priest, poet and composer) took de Vitry’s ideas a stage further and wrote both secular songs and settings of the Mass (1364 – the earliest known complete setting by one composer) with three and four polyphonic voices.

● Recommended recording review: 'Machaut – The lion of nobility' (Orlando Consort)

Though France was the musical centre of Europe at this time, Italy was developing its own ars nova independently with music that reflected the warmth and sensuality of the country, in contrast to the more intellectual Gallic writing. England, less affected by ars nova , did not make a significant contribution to any musical development until the arrival of John Dunstable. Living in France as the court composer to the Duke of Burgundy (the younger brother of Henry V), Dunstable used rhythmic phrases, traditional plainchant and added other free parts, combining them into a flowing, mellifluous style. Nearly 60 pieces of his music still survive.

Guillaume Dufay

Dunstable in turn influenced the Burgundian composers Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, whose music can be said to be the stylistic bridge between ars nova and the fully developed polyphony of the 15th century. The technical aspects of musical composition and the almost mathematical fascination with note combination began slowly to open the door to the personality of a composer being reflected in his music.

● Top 10 Renaissance composers : our beginner's guide to the greatest composers of the Renaissance period.

Out of the church

By the middle of the 15th century, the royal palaces and the great houses of the noblemen had usurped the Church as the single most important influence on the course of music (in 1416, Henry V of England employed more than 30 voices in the Chapel Royal while the Papal Chapel had only nine). One by-product was the closer relationship between secular music and the music of the Church, a cross-pollination which benefited the development of both. The musicians who passed through the Burgundian court disseminated its style and learning to all points of the European compass.

Josquin Desprez and expressive music

The most noticeable advances during this period were the increased freedom composers gave to their vocal lines and the difference in the treatment of the texts they set. Previously, words had to fit the music; now the reverse was the case and this is no better illustrated than by the work of one of the next generation of composers to become renowned throughout Europe, Josquin Desprez. His music incorporates a greater variety of expression than any previously – there are even flashes of quirky humour – and includes attempts at symbolism where the musical ideas match those of the text. With various voices singing in polyphony, it is difficult to follow the words; where the subject called for the words to be heard clearly, Josquin wrote music that had the different voices singing different notes but the same words at the same time – chordal music, in other words.

Not surprisingly, Josquin has been called ‘the first composer whose music appeals to our modern sense of art’. After him, it is easy for our ears to follow the development of music into the language which is familiar to us today through the works of the great classical composers of two centuries later.

Josquin Desprez

The 16th century witnessed four major musical phenomena: the polyphonic school reached its zenith, the tradition of instrumental music was founded, the first opera was produced and music began to be printed for the first time. For most people, the opportunity to see and read music had simply not been there; musicians could now, for the first time, stand around a score printed in a book and sing or play their part. Limited and expensive though it was, music was now available. No wonder it flourished so rapidly.

A musical explosion

It’s hard to conceive now of the central importance of the Christian Church at this time. The buildings which the men of the Renaissance erected with such splendour and confidence symbolised the age of ‘re-birth’ and the music of the time rose to fill the naves of the great European cathedrals. Palestrina in Italy, Lassus in the Netherlands and Byrd in England carried on from where Josquin had left off to produce complex and richly expressive works which took the art of polyphonic writing for the voice to new heights and demonstrated man’s ability to express his faith with a glory and fervour that no previous century had matched.

Giovanni Palestrina

Counterpoint

How was this rich cloth of musical gold woven? One distinguished writer on music, Percy Scholes, drew an illuminating analogy on musical ‘fabric’ when discussing the music of Palestrina. ‘Woven’ he felt, was an appropriate word for this kind of composition. ‘The music consists of the intertwining of a fixed number of strands. And as [the composer] weaves he is producing a ‘woof’ as well as a ‘warp’. Looked at as warp the composition is a horizontal combination of melodies; looked at as woof it is a perpendicular collection of chords. The composer necessarily has both aspects in his mind as he pens his piece, but the horizontal (or ‘warp’) aspect is probably uppermost with him. Such music as this we speak of as ‘Contrapuntal’ or as ‘in Counterpoint’. The ‘woof’ (= perpendicular, ie ‘Harmonic’) element is there, but is less observable than the ‘warp’ (= horizontal, i.e. ‘Contrapuntal’). A moment’s thought will show that all Contrapuntal music must also be Harmonic, and a second moment’s thought that not all Harmonic music need be Counterpoint.’

It had taken 1000 years from the earliest Plainsong for the tradition to develop into the elaborate, highly sophisticated art form, which produced such masterpieces as Palestrina’s  Stabat mater , Victoria’s  Ave verum Corpus  and Byrd’s  O Quam Gloriosum .

● Recommended recording review: Byrd Edition, Volume 13 - Infelix ego (The Cardinall's Musick / Andrew Carwood)

The madrigal and the birth of opera​

Now, new preoccupations challenged composers. The reverent, lush choral works of the Church, mainly from Northern Europe, became fertilised by the lively, sunny dances and songs of the south. The secular counterparts of the church musicians led to the madrigal, a contrapuntal setting of a poem, usually about 12 lines in length, and whose subject was usually amorous or pastoral. The emphasis was on the quality of word-setting and the form proved remarkably popular if short-lived – especially in England (perhaps because of our great literary heritage) where the likes of Gibbons, Weelkes and Morley were the madrigal’s finest exponents.

The madrigals, like the liturgical motets and settings of the Mass, were all for unaccompanied voices – that was how the vast majority of music produced up to this time was conceived. It wasn’t until the end of the 14th century that instrumental music began to emerge as an art-form in its own right. The recorder, lute, viol and spinet had played their part in dance music and in accompanying voices (occasionally replacing them) but now composers such as Byrd, Gibbons, Farnaby and Frescobaldi began to write music for specific instruments, though it must be said that the art form did not truly flourish until the Baroque era. Musicians would join together to play a series of varying dance tunes, forming a loosely-constructed suite; or a player might improvise his own tune round another’s – a ‘fancy’ or ‘fantasia’; or they might compose variations on a tune played over the same repeating bass line – ‘variations on a ground’ as it’s called. Other innovations were by the Italians Andrea Gabrieli ( c 1510-86) – the first to combine voices with brass instruments – and his nephew Giovanni (1557-1612), whose antiphonal effects for choirs of brass instruments might have written for our modern stereo systems.

William Byrd

And it was from Italy that the next important step in musical history was taken. Indeed Italy was the country – actually a collection of small independent states at the time, ruled by a number of affluent and cultured families – which would dominate the musical world for a century and a half from 1600. Such was the power of Italian influence at this time that music adopted the language as its lingua franca. To this day, composers almost universally write their performance directions in Italian. One particular word, opera, described a new art form: that of combining drama and music. No one had thought of the concept till the end of the 16th century.

In the late 16th century, artists, writers and architects became interested in the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome. In Florence, a group of the artistic intelligentsia became interested in how the ancient Greek dramas were performed. Experimenting with declaiming the more poetic passages and using a few chords of instrumental music to accompany other passages in natural speech rhythm, the idea of music reflecting, supporting and commenting upon dramatic action was born:  dramma per musica  (‘drama by means of music’), a play with a musical setting.

Claudio Monteverdi

Into the ring then came one of the supreme musicians of history, Claudio Monteverdi . He did not write the first opera (that honour goes to Jacopo Peri and his  Dafne , now lost, of 1594 or 1597) but with one work,  Orfeo (1607) he drew up the future possibilities of the medium. Solo singers were given a dramatic character to portray and florid songs to sing, there were choruses, dances, orchestral interludes, scenery. Opera was a markedly different entertainment to anything that had gone before but, more importantly, it was a completely new way of using music. The earliest known opera by a woman is La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina by Francesca Caccini, written to celebrate the visit of Archduke Karl of Styria to Florence during the carnival season of 1625, and Caccini's masterpiece. Caccini was the first professional female composer, and there is a fine recording of La liberazione by La Pifarescha led by Elena Sartori on Glossa.

The Baroque period

Monteverdi’s successors such as Pier Cavalli and Marc’Antonio Cesti developed a type of flowing, lyrical song inspired by the flow of spoken Italian – bel canto (‘beautiful singing’) which in turn encouraged the prominence of the singer. Dramatic truth soon went out of the window in favour of the elaborate vocal displays of the opera soloists – composers were only too happy to provide what their new public wanted – and no class of singers were more popular than the castrati. Feted wherever they appeared, the castrati, who had had their testicles removed as young boys to preserve their high voices, were highly paid and immensely popular, a not dissimilar phenomenon to The Three Tenors of today (with two small differences). The practice of castration to produce an entertainer, an extraordinarily barbaric concept, was only halted in the early 19th century. The last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, actually survived until 1922 and made a dozen or so records in 1902.

St Paul had written that women should keep silent in church. They were therefore not available for the taxing high lines in church music. If the origins of the castrati could be laid firmly at the door of the Church, similar dogma can also be held responsible for the slow progress of instrumental composition. From the earliest times the Church had voiced its disapproval of the practice. St Jerome had declared that no Christian maiden should know what a lyre or flute looked like (let alone hear what they sounded like). The weakening of the Church’s authority after the Reformation encouraged composers in the writing of instrumental music for groups, music moreover that took into account the relative strengths and colours of the different instruments, another new concept. The same change of emphasis led also to a flood of brilliant instrumental soloists. Among them was a brilliant Italian-born violinist named Jean-Baptiste Lully who went to France in 1646. Here he worked for King Louis XIV, the extravagant builder of Versailles who employed 120 musicians in various bands. An orchestra of ‘Twenty-four Violins’ provided music at the French court; with Lully’s addition of flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets and timpani, the modern orchestra began to emerge.

Barbara Strozzi (1619-77) was one of the most widely-published composers of her time and her secular songs have a central place in many singer's repertories centuries later. There are dozens of good recordings of Strozzi's music to explore, but most recently the 2023 Gramophone Concept Award-winner 'Battle Cry: She Speaks' by Helen Charlston and Toby Carr featured the compelling ‘L'Eraclito amoroso’ and ‘La travagliata’. In her review, Alexandra Coghlan noted Charlston's 'articulation that pulls us up short, swift shifts of tone and colour that catch the mercurial play of musical light through Strozzi’s monologues'. 

The sonata forms

Another important by-product of the Italian opera was the introduction of the sonata – the term originally simply meant a piece to be sounded (played), as opposed to sung (cantata). Although it quickly took on a variety of forms, the sonata began with the Italian violinists imitating the vocal display elements of opera – a single melody played against a harmonised background or, if you like, accompanied by chords. This was a huge difference from the choral works of a century before driven by their polyphonic interweavings. Now there was music which, even if there was no background accompaniment, the listener’s ears could supply the harmony mentally – you could tell where the tune was going to resolve, you could sense its shape and destination more easily. With the musical emphasis on harmony – a key feature of the coming century and a half – rhythm began to take an increasingly important part. Chordal patterns naturally fall in sequences, in regular measures or bars. Listen to a chaconne by Purcell or Handel and you realise that the theme is not a tune but a sequence of chords. Measuring the beats in a bar ( one -two or one - two-three or one -two-three-four – the emphasis always on the first beat) gives the music a sense of form and helps its onward progress. Phrases lead the ear to the next sequence like the dialogue between two people, exchanging thoughts in single words, in short sentences or in long paragraphs. Sing a simple hymn tune like All people that on earth do dwell and you are aware of what music had now acquired – a strong tonal centre.

Henry Purcell

Makers of musical instruments responded by adapting and improving instruments: the great Italian violin makers Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri, the Ruckers family of Antwerp with its harpsichords and the Harris family of England building organs.

A final contribution to this period was made by Italian opera. The use of the orchestra in opera naturally led to the expression of dramatic musical ideas – one reason why the Italian orchestra developed faster than elsewhere. Round about the start of the 18th century composers began to write overtures in three sections (fast-slow-fast), providing the model for the classical sonata form used in instrumental pieces, concertos and symphonies for the next 200 years and more.

Thus this ‘homophonic’ period, emphasising music with a single melody and harmonic accompaniment, melted seamlessly during the 17th century into the Baroque era of Vivaldi , Bach and Handel .

● Top 10 Baroque composers

The concerto is born

The concerto developed from the dance suites popular in Italy at the beginning of the 17th century, known as the sonata da camera . Originally a composition that contrasted two groups of instrumentalists with each other, the form developed into the concerto grosso (‘great concerto’) of which the first leading exponent was Arcangelo Corelli. Here a group of solo string instrumentalists alternate with the main body of strings in a work, usually of three or four movements. Geminiani, Albinoni, Torelli, Handel and others contributed to the form. The solo concerto was but a short step from here where a soloist is contrasted with (later pitted against) the orchestra. No concertos of this period have achieved the popularity of Vivaldi’s whose 500 essays in the genre (mainly for strings but sometimes for wind instruments) are the product of one of the most remarkable musical minds of the early 18th century. The Four Seasons , among the best known and most frequently-played pieces of classical music, illustrates the new concept.

● Top 10 Vivaldi recordings : 10 of the best Vivaldi recordings, including Gramophone Award-winners and Editor's Choice albums

Northern Europe provided the springboard for the rapid development of keyboard music: the North German school of organ music, founded by Frescobaldi and Sweelinck a century before, with its interest in contrapuntal writing, laid the way for the likes of Pachelbel and Buxtehude whose line reached its peak in the great works of Bach. Meanwhile Rameau and Couperin in France were producing short descriptive harpsichord pieces (as well as operas) in a style that is called ‘rococo’ – from the French rocaille , a term originally alluding to fancy shell and scroll work in art. It was predominantly diverting rather than elevating and rococo usefully defines the character of lighter music written in the Baroque period, especially when contrasted with the works of the two musical heavyweights of the time, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Bach in his own time was considered old-fashioned, a provincial composer from central Germany. But his music contains some of the noblest and most sublime expressions of the human spirit and with him the art of contrapuntal writing reached its zenith. The 48 Preludes and Fugues for The Well-Tempered Clavier explore all the permutations of fugal writing in all the major and minor keys; his final work, The Art of Fugue (left incomplete at his death) takes a mathematical delight in the interweaving of contrapuntal variations on the same theme. Yet the technical brilliance of Bach’s music is subsumed in the expressive power of his compositions, in particular his organ music, church cantatas and the great St Matthew Passion and Mass in B minor. His instrumental music is evidence that he was by no means always the stern God-fearing Lutheran – the exuberant six Brandenburg Concertos show that he was well acquainted with the sunny Italian way of doing things and many of his most beautiful and deepest thoughts are reserved for the concertos and orchestral suites. His influence on composers and musicians down the years has been immeasurable. For many he remains the foundation stone of their art.

● Recommended recording review: Bach's St Matthew Passion (Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon)

Bach’s great contemporary, Handel, also came from Germany but in contrast was a widely travelled, man-of-the-world who settled in England and became a shrewd entrepreneur and manipulator of musical affairs. In instrumental forms, such as the  concerto grosso , Handel was equally at home writing in homophonic or polyphonic style and introduced a variety of wind/string combinations in his colourful scoring. He developed the typical 17th-century dance suite into such famous (and still immensely popular) occasional works as  The Water Music  and  Royal Fireworks Music . Opera was a field into which Bach never ventured but Handel – between 1711 and 1729, – produced nearly 30 operas in the Italian style until the public tired of these when, ever the pragmatist, he turned to oratorio. An oratorio is an extended setting of a (usually) religious text in dramatic form but which does not require scenery or stage action. Handel’s have an immense dramatic and emotional range and often employ daring harmonies, never mind the unending stream of glorious melodies and uplifting choruses.

George Frideric Handel

Bach was the last great composer to be employed by the church, fittingly, for the church had been the mainspring for the progress of polyphonic music and Bach was the  ne plus ultra  of the style. Henceforward, musical patronage came from the nobility and the nobility preferred music that was elegant, entertaining and definitely not smacking of anything ‘churchy’. Following the 17th century’s example of the French court and Italian principalities, every European duke worth his salt aspired to his own orchestra and music director. One such was the court of Mannheim where an orchestra under the direction of Johann Stamitz raised orchestral playing to a standard unheard of previously. A new era, breaking away from the contrapuntal writing of the later Baroque, was ushered in.

● The 50 best Johann Sebastian Bach recordings

● The 50 greatest George Frideric Handel recordings

The Classical era

The term ‘Classical Music’ has two meanings: used to describe any music which is supposedly ‘heavy’ (as opposed to pop or jazz as in ‘I can’t stand classical music’) and also a certain period in the development of music, the Classical era. This can be summarised as music which is notable for its masterly economy of form and resources and for its lack of overt emotionalism. If Bach and Handel dominated the first half of the 17th century,  Haydn  and  Mozart  are their counterparts for the latter half and represent all the virtues of the Classical style.

● Top 10 Classical era composers : the Classical era was dominated by many of the greatest composers in the history of music, including Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and Schubert

This can be traced back to a generation or so before the birth of Haydn to the rococo style of Couperin and Rameau and, more powerfully, in the invigorating keyboard works of Domenico Scarlatti whose more than 500 short sonatas composed in his sixties demonstrate a brilliance that only Bach equalled. Scarlatti, though, writing on a smaller scale, had the specific intent of delighting and instructing his pupil, the Queen of Spain. His near-contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann brought the rococo style to Germany. Lighter and even more fecund than Bach, Telemann was held in far greater esteem in his lifetime than Johann Sebastian. Despite his stated credo (‘He who writes for the many does better work than he who writes only for the few… I have always aimed at facility. Music ought not to be an effort, an occult science’) the two greatly admired each other to such an extent that Bach named his son Carl Philipp Emanuel after Telemann and chose him as godfather.

Georg Philipp Telemann

CPE Bach’s music represents a cross-roads between the Franco-Italian rococo and the emerging classical schools – indeed, in some of his keyboard music he seems to anticipate Beethoven. His piano sonatas, making use of the expressive powers of the newly invented pianoforte, lead us to redefine the term ‘sonata’ as used in the previous century. Now the sonata became a formalised structure with related keys and themes. These Bach developed into extended movements, as opposed to the short movements of the Baroque form. Listening to CPE, perhaps the most original and daring composer of the mid-18th century, one becomes aware of the serious and comical, the inspired and the routine, lying side by side with engaging unpredictability.

Parallel to this was the work of Johann Stamitz. His music is rarely heard today yet he and his son Carl (1746-1801) were pioneers in the development of the symphony. This form had grown out of the short quick-slow-quick one-movement overtures or sinfonias of Italian opera. Stamitz, in the employ of the Mannheim court, had one of the most distinguished orchestras in Europe under his direction. The symphonies he wrote were to be the pattern for those of Haydn and Mozart – in them we can see, as in CPE Bach’s sonatas, use of related keys, two contrasted first movement subjects (themes) and the graceful working out and development of material. He was the first to introduce the clarinet into the orchestra (and was probably the first to write a concerto for the instrument), also allowing the brass and woodwind greater prominence. His orchestral crescendos, a novel effect at this time, were said to have excited audiences to rise from their seats.

Italy had dominated the musical world of the 17th and early 18th centuries with its operas and great violinists. From the middle of the 18th century, the centre of musical pre- eminence moved to Vienna, a position it would retain until the last of the Hapsburg emperors in the early years of the 20th century. The Hapsburgs loved music and imported the best foreign musicians to court; the imperial chapel became a second centre of musical excellence. Equally important was Vienna’s location at the centre of Europe. With the Viennese court as its focus, all kinds of influences met and mingled from nearby Germany, Bohemia and Italy.

Sonata form and the symphony

There is less than half a century between the death of Handel (1759) and the first performance of Beethoven ’s Fidelio  (1809). Bach and Handel were still composing when Haydn was a teenager. To compare the individual ‘sound world’ of any of these four composers is to hear amazingly rapid progress in musical thinking. Without doubt, the most important element of this was the development of the sonata and symphonic forms. During this period, a typical example generally followed the same basic pattern: four movements – 1) the longest, sometimes with a slow introduction, 2) slow movement, 3) minuet, 4) fast, short and light in character. Working within this formal structure, each movement in turn had its own internal structure and order of progress. Most of Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas, symphonies and chamber music are written in accordance with this pattern and three-quarters of all Beethoven’s music conforms to ‘sonata form’ in one way or another.

Joseph Haydn

Haydn’s contribution to musical history is immense, he was nicknamed ‘the father of the symphony’ (despite Stamitz’s prior claim) and was progenitor of the string quartet. Like all his well-trained contemporaries, Haydn had a thorough knowledge of polyphony and counterpoint (and, indeed, was not averse to using it) but his music is predominantly homophonic. His 104 symphonies cover a wide range of expression and harmonic ingenuity. The same is true of the string quartets. With its perfect balance of string sound (two violins, viola and cello), the implicit economy in the scoring, the precision and elegance in the handling of the medium, the string quartet is the quintessential Classical art form.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart composed 41 symphonies and in the later ones (try the famous opening of No 40 in G minor) enters a realm beyond Haydn’s – searching, moving and far from impersonal. This is even more true of the great series of piano concertos, among music’s most sublime creations, where the writing becomes deeply involved – the slow movement of the A major Concerto (K488) is grief-stricken, anticipating the writing of a future generation. It was Mozart, too, who raised opera to new heights. Gluck had single-handedly broken away from the ossified, singer-dominated Italian opera and shown in works such as  Orfeo ed Euridice  (1762) that music must correspond to the mood and style of the piece, colour and complement the stage action; arias should be part of the continuous action and not merely stuck in to display the singer’s vocal talents. Mozart went further and in his four masterpieces  The Marriage of Figaro ,  Così fan tutte ,  Don Giovanni  and  The Magic Flute  revealed more realistic characters, truer emotions (and, of course, incomparably greater music) than anything that had gone before. Here, for the first time, opera reflected the foibles and aspirations of mankind, themes on which the Romantic composers were to dwell at length.

● The 50 best Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart recordings

● Haydn - the poor man’s Mozart?

Revolution in the air

‘The Old Order Changeth’: for the first half of the 19th century, Europe, taking its cue from the French Revolution and American War of Independence, was imbued with a spirit of general political unrest, culminating in the 1848 uprisings. Nationalism, the struggle for individual freedom and self-expression were reflected and indeed created by all the arts – the one fed off the other. The neat, well-ordered regime of the periwig and minuet gave way to the impetuous, passionate world of the tousle-headed revolutionary.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven coupled his genius for music with profoundly held political beliefs and an almost religious certainty about his purpose. With the possible exception of Wagner , no other composer has, single-handedly, changed the course of music so dramatically and continued to develop and experiment throughout his entire career. His early music, built on the Classical paths trod by Haydn and Mozart, demonstrates his individuality in taking established musical structures and re-shaping them to his own ends. Unusual keys and harmonic relationships are explored, while as early as the Third Symphony ( Eroica ), the music is vastly more inventive and cogent than anything Mozart achieved even in a late masterpiece like the  Jupiter . Six more symphonies followed, all different in character, all attempting new goals of human expression, culminating in the great  Choral  Symphony (No 9) with its ecstatic final choral movement celebrating man’s existence. No wonder so many composers felt daunted by attempting the symphonic form after Beethoven and that few ever attempted more than the magic Beethovenian number of nine.

● How Beethoven’s symphonies changed the world : Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies have influenced every generation of composers since they were written. Riccardo Chailly talks to Philip Clark about the enduring power of the symphonies

His chamber music tells a similar story, building on the classical form of the string quartet, gradually making it his own (listen to the Middle Period  Razumovsky  quartets) until the final group of late quartets which contain music of profound spirituality and deeply felt personal statements – light years from the recent world of his illustrious predecessors. The cycle of 32 piano sonatas reflect a similar portrait of his life’s journey; the final three of his five piano concertos and the sublime Violin Concerto are on a par with the symphonies and quartets. His single opera  Fidelio , while not a success as a piece of theatre, seems to express all the themes that Beethoven held most dear – his belief in the brotherhood of man, his disgust at revolutionaries-turned-dictators, the redeeming strength of human love. All this was achieved, romantically enough, while he himself struggled with profound deafness. Beethoven’s unquenchable spirit and his ability to use music to express himself places him in the forefront of man’s creative achievements. ‘Come the man, come the moment’ – Beethoven’s lifespan helpfully delineates the late classical period and the early Romantics. His music is the titanic span between the two.

Franz Schubert

Those who followed revered him as a god.  Schubert , the next great Viennese master, 27 years younger but who survived him by a mere 18 months, was in awe of Beethoven. He did not progress the symphonic or sonata forms, there was no revolutionary zeal in his make-up. What he gave was the gift of melody. Schubert is arguably the greatest tunesmith the world has ever known and in his more than 600 songs established the German song (or Lied) tradition. From his  Erlkönig  (1815) onwards, Schubert unerringly caught the heart of a poem’s meaning and reflected it in his setting. For the first time, too, the piano assumed equal importance with the vocal part, painting a tone picture or catching the mood of the piece in its accompaniment.

The Romantic piano

And it was the new iron-strung pianos which came to be the favoured instrument of the first part of the Romantic era. A bewildering number of composer-pianists were born just after the turn of the century, the most prominent of whom were  Liszt , Chopin , Schumann and  Mendelssohn . Of these, Mendelssohn relied on the elegant, traditional structures of Classicism in which to wrap his refined poetic and melodic gifts. Many of his piano works (his  Songs Without Words , for example) and orchestral pieces ( Hebrides  Overture and  Italian  Symphony, No 4) describe nature, places, emotions and so forth. Schumann, too, favoured such short musical essays with titles like  Traümerei  and  Des Abends  to evoke a mood or occasion – ‘characteristic pieces’ they were called, ‘programme music’ later on. The undisputed master of the romantic keyboard style was Frédéric Chopin. Almost his entire oeuvre is devoted to the piano in a string of highly individual and expressive works composed in the short period of 20 years. Fifty years after his early death in 1849, composers were still writing pieces heavily influenced by him. Chopin rarely used descriptive titles for his work (beyond such labels as Nocturne, Berceuse or Barcarolle). The technical and lyrical possibilities of the instrument were raised to new heights in such masterpieces as the Four Ballades, the final two (of three) piano sonatas and the many short dance-based compositions. Most of these derived from his homeland of Poland and, as a self-imposed exile living in Paris, Chopin was naturally drawn to expressing his love of his country. Nationalism of a much more fervent kind was to be a key factor in the music of composers writing later in the Romantic tradition (Chopin himself, incidentally, disliked being labelled ‘a Romantic’).

Louise Farrenc's three symphonies, as Richard Wigmore wrote in Gramophone , ‘represent a double triumph: over sexual prejudice, in an age when female creative artists suffered from so many social constraints, and over the French establishment’s resistance to a quintessential German genre.’ Farrenc's First Symphony was written in 1841 and her Third in 1847, and have been given an outstanding recording by Insula Orchestra and Laurence Equilbey (must read: Laurence Equilbey on Louise Farrenc the symphonist ), about which Wigmore wrote: ‘these are among the earliest symphonies, if not the earliest, by any female composer. Yet when you listen to them Farrenc’s sex is irrelevant. This is music whose inventiveness and melodic fecundity can stand comparison with virtually any mid-19th-century symphony, and Equilbey and her forces prove ideal, committed advocates.’

But to truly define ‘the Romantic era’ in music, we have to look at the three composers who dominated the musical world for the second and third quarters of the 19th century and who pushed music onward to the dawn of the next: Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner.

● Top 10 Romantic composers

● Forgotten Romantic violin concertos

The Romantic era

Rebellion and freedom of expression lie at the heart of the Romantic movement in music, literature, painting and architecture, a self-conscious breaking of the bonds and belief in the right of the artist. Liszt, Byronic in looks and temperament, the greatest pianist of the day, gave us the solo piano recital, the ‘symphonic poem’ – the extended orchestral equivalent of Schumann’s ‘characteristic pieces’ – and a bewildering variety of music in all shapes and forms. The B minor Piano Sonata, in which all the elements of traditional sonata form are subsumed into an organic whole, is one of the cornerstones of the repertory; his final piano works anticipate the harmonies of Debussy, Bartók and beyond. While all of his music is by no means profound – there’s a great deal of gloss and glitter – his adventurous scores and his patronage and encouragement of any young composer who came to him made him one of the most influential musical geniuses of the entire century.

● Top 15 Liszt recordings : A beginner's guide to the music of one of the great composer-pianists

Franz Liszt

Berlioz was not a pianist. Perhaps that is why he is the most important composer of the period in terms of orchestral writing. He based his music on ‘the direct reaction of feeling’ and could summon up with extraordinary vividness the supernatural, say, or the countryside or ardent lovers. Like Liszt, he never wrote a formal symphony: Liszt’s  Faust Symphony  and Berlioz’s  Symphonie fantastique  are ‘programmatic’ and rely on their literary inspiration for their structure. Berlioz wrote on an epic scale, employing huge forces to convey his vision: the  Grande Messe des Morts , for example, requires a tenor solo, brass bands and a massive chorus as well as an expanded orchestra. Théophile Gautier, whose  Nuits d’été  Berlioz set to music, summed Berlioz up thus: ‘[He] represents the romantic musical idea, the breaking up of old moulds, the substitution of new forms for unvaried square rhythms, a complex and competent richness of orchestration, truth of local colour, unexpected effects in sound, tumultuous and Shakespearean depth of passion, amorous or melancholy dreaminess, longings and questionings of the soul, infinite and mysterious sentiments not to be rendered in words, and that something more than all which escapes language but may be divined in music.’ Technical improvements in the manufacture of orchestral instruments – the brass and woodwind especially – helped composers like Berlioz achieve their ends, for the modern instruments provided a wider range and variety of sound. This additional colour in the composer’s orchestral palette encouraged more extended (sometimes seemingly formless) works. The prop of the symphonic structure was needed less, though, writing this at the beginning of the 21st century, many still enjoy the challenges of composing in that form.

● Hector Berlioz – music's great revolutionary : Tim Ashley is joined by four great advocates of the composer to celebrate the self-taught, revolutionary musician whose eccentric genius is only now being fully recognised

Hector Berlioz

The third Titan of the Romantics was the most written- and talked-about composer of all time:  Richard Wagner . As intelligent and industrious as he was ruthless and egocentric, Wagner’s great achievement was  The Ring of the Nibelungen , a cycle of four operas which took opera from the realm of entertainment to a quasi-religious experience. Influenced by Beethoven, Mozart (held to be the first truly German operatic composer) and Meyerbeer (whose sense of epic theatre, design and orchestration impressed him), Wagner’s vision was to create a work that was a fusion of all the arts – literature, painting and music. He called his vision ‘music-drama’.

Some of his ideas had been anticipated 40 years earlier by Carl Maria von Weber, one of the first to insist on total control of all aspects of the production of his work and who, as early as 1817, wrote of his desire to fuse all art forms into one great new form. Weber’s opera  Der Freischütz , the first German Romantic opera, was a milestone in the development of these ideas, using German mythology as its subject.

Richard Wagner

Wagner decided that the music must grow from the libretto (he supplied his own), that there must be no display arias for their own sake, inserted just to please the public; the music, like the opera’s narrative flow, must never cease, for the music is equally important in the telling of the story and commenting on the action and characters; leitmotivs, short musical phrases associated with different characters and moods, would recur throughout the score to underpin and bind the whole work. The orchestral contribution was at least as important as the vocal element. But Wagner was more than just an operatic reformer. He opened up a new harmonic language, especially in the use of chromaticism (see page XXXI). This had not only a profound influence on succeeding generations of composers but led logically to the atonal music of the 20th century.

Not all composers fell under Wagner’s spell.  Brahms  was the epitome of traditional musical thought. His four symphonies are far nearer the style of Beethoven than those of Mendelssohn or Schumann, and the first of these was not written until 1875, when Wagner had all but completed  The Ring . Indeed Brahms is by far the most classical of the German Romantics. He wrote little programme music and no operas. It’s a curious coincidence that he distinguished himself in the very musical forms that Wagner chose to ignore – the fields of chamber music, concertos, variation writing and symphonies.

● The 50 best Johannes Brahms albums

● Top 10 Wagner recordings

Verdi v Wagner

It was only in old age that  Giuseppe Verdi  adopted some of Wagner’s musical ideas. The Italian represents the culmination of the different school of opera. Wagner’s operas are the descendants of Beethoven and Weber; Verdi’s developed from the comic masterpieces of Rossini and the Romantic dramas by Bellini and Donizetti. With the famous trilogy of  Rigoletto  (1851),  Il trovatore  (1853) and  La traviata  (1853), Verdi combined his mastery of drama with a flow of unforgettable lyrical melodies, creating masterpieces of the genre of which the public has never tired.  Don Carlos  (1867),  Aida  (1871),  Otello  (1887) and  Falstaff  (1893) show a development and tirelessly searching mind that remain among the great miracles of music.

Giuseppe Verdi

One thing that Wagner and Verdi had in common was their fierce patriotism. In his own lifetime, Verdi was held as a potent symbol of Italian independence, while Wagner espoused the dubious theories which made him such hero of the Third Reich. During the course of the century, Western music, now dominated by German tradition and forms, began to be more and more influenced by the rise of nationalism. Composers wanted to reflect the character and cultural identity of their native lands by using material and forms which derived from their own country. Russia was the foremost in the surge of nationalism that now fertilised the Late Romantic era. Glinka was the first important Russian composer to use Russian subjects and folk tunes in his opera A Life for the Tsar. Influenced by the Italian tradition, it nevertheless succeeded in conveying typical Russian song and harmony and had a profound effect on Borodin, Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov – the so-called ‘Mighty Five’ (or ‘Mighty Handful’ – though Cui is hardly ‘mighty’ compared with the genius of his peers).

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Tchaikovsky, the most accomplished of all his Russian contemporaries, paid lip-service to the Nationalists, composing largely in the German tradition. Elsewhere in Europe, nationalist schools of music arose: in Bohemia there were Smetana,  Dvořák  and  Janáček ; in Scandinavia,  Nielsen ,  Grieg  and Sinding; in Finland, Sibelius, whose seven symphonies developed the medium in a highly arresting and individual way; in Spain, Albéniz, Granados and de Falla. Britain and the United States were slow in developing a nationalist school: Parry and  Elgar  wrote firmly in the German manner and it was not until the later arrival of  Vaughan Williams  and  Holst  that a ‘British’ (or at any rate ‘English’) sound began to emerge. America was a curious case. Its first native composer of any note, Gottschalk, used indigenous native rhythms for his (mainly) piano works as early as the 1850s – South American, New Orleans and Cuban elements are boldly to the fore. It took another half century before any music directly derived from American folk material began to assert itself in the form of jazz.

The dates for each period of music must be treated flexibly. The Romantic period embraces a wide divergence of personal styles and represents a long and rapid period in Western music’s development. In common with every aspect of life, the art developed at an ever-increasing pace. Parallel to the growth of Nationalism, came the Italian  verismo  school of opera, the school of Realism or Naturalism epitomised by the works of  Puccini , Leoncavallo and Mascagni, whose subjects were drawn from contemporary life presented with heightened violence and emotions. During the closing years of the period, emerging under the influence of Wagner, came the neo-Romantics whose use of massive symphonic structures and elaborate orchestration is heard in the music of  Bruckner ,  Mahler , Scriabin and the early works of Richard Strauss.

● How Vaughan Williams found his voice through folk song

● The 50 best Mahler albums

The Nationalists

Towards the end of the century there was a reaction against the excesses of the Romantics – the too-obvious heart-on-sleeve approach, the emotional over-indulgence, the extra-musical programmes and philosophies began to pal. Just as the Baroque period had melted into the Classical period, the Classical drifted into the early Romantic era, so the close of the 19th century saw a tendency toward bold experimentation in new styles and techniques. Coinciding with the French Impressionist movement in painting and poetry, came Impressionist music, epitomised by the daring (at the time), personal harmonic idiom of Claude Debussy. Here emphasis was put not on the subject of a piece of music but on an emotion or sensation aroused by the subject. His music is just as closely organised as anything in the classical German manner but, using the whole-tone scale and fresh harmonies, Debussy conjures up a sensuous, atmospheric spell in his piano music and orchestral works. The fastidious Maurice Ravel followed in his footsteps with exotic evocations of light and colour, later tinged with jazz references.

By the turn of the century, it was no longer possible to define a dominant general musical trend. Under its many fragmented divisions we can only label the successor of the Classical and Romantic periods somewhat lamely ‘Modern Music’.

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky studied with one of music’s great orchestrators, Rimsky-Korsakov. He orchestrated some of Beethoven’s piano sonatas as an exercise; he worked at counterpoint and learnt about classical forms – in other words, a sound, traditional conservatoire training. In less than a decade, we find Stravinsky writing music that is a world away from that of his mentor.  The Firebird  (1909),  Petrushka  (1911) and  The Rite of Spring  (1913), his three ballet masterpieces, became progressively more adventurous: in  Petrushka  we find bitonal passages (ie music written in two keys simultaneously), dissonant chords, a new rhythmic freedom and a percussive orchestral quality; in  The Rite of Spring , a score which provoked a riot at its première, Stravinsky reduced all the elements of music to reinforce rhythm. Debussy and Schoenberg in certain of their works reduced music to the vertical effect of simultaneously sounding notes, so Stravinsky reduced melody and harmony to rhythm. As Alec Harman and Wilfred Mellers put it in their  Man and His Music : ‘Harmony without melody and rhythm, rhythm without melody and harmony, are static. Both the pandemonium of Stravinsky’s  Rite of Spring  and Debussy’s  Voiles  deprive music of the sense of motion from one point to another. Though they started from diametrically opposed points, both composers mark a radical departure from the traditions of European music since the Renaissance.’

● Stravinsky the conductor : Riccardo Chailly and Teodor Currentzis talk to Peter Quantrill about what can – and can’t – be learnt from Stravinsky’s own recordings

Stravinsky went on to write in a number of other styles throughout his remarkable career, dominating the musical world for 50 years, in the same way that his almost exact contemporary Pablo Picasso dominated his field. Arguably, no other composer this century has exercised a greater influence than Stravinsky – Debussy and Ravel were less wide-ranging, Sibelius and Bartók less daring, Schoenberg and Webern less accessible.

Arnold Schoenberg is Stravinsky’s only rival as the musical colossus of the age – to some he opened the door on a whole new world of musical thought that is as exciting as it is challenging; to others he is the bogey man of music, who sent it spiralling out of reach to the ordinary man in the street until, nearly one hundred years later, it has revealed itself as a cul de sac.

Since the Renaissance, all music had a tonal centre. No matter how far away from the tonic – the basic key – the music wandered, the listener was always conscious of the inevitability of a final return to that centre. Increasingly towards the end of the 19th century, music began to incorporate intervals outside the prevailing diatonic scale with the result that a work would feature an extraordinary amount of modulation. This is known as chromatic writing, since intervals from the chromatic scale (not the diatonic scale) are used to harmonise a piece. Listen, for instance, to Wagner’s later works and to those of Mahler and Richard Strauss which followed closely on their heels. Hearing them, it becomes less clear as to which key the piece is written in, its tonal centre less obvious. What Schoenberg did was follow logically on from this and ask ‘If I can introduce these chromatic notes into my music, can a particular key be said to exist at all? Why should any note be foreign to any given key? Harmony is simply the sounding together of notes, so why shouldn’t the 12 semitones of the chromatic scale be accorded equal significance?’

The Second Viennese School

The theories and music of the so-called Second Viennese School – in succession to the First Viennese School of Haydn, Mozart et al – put the listener’s expectations on a wrong footing. There are none of the familiar features of chords we recognise, tunes we can hum or rhythms we can tap our feet to. Only the traditional manner of indicating on the score individual notes, time-signatures and expression marks remain. Because the vast majority of the music we are exposed to when growing up is tonal, it is fairly easy to assimilate a Beethoven symphony on a first hearing. Because serial music is written in a completely foreign language with which most of us have no reference points, its effect is like listening to a Scandinavian epic poem spoken in Japanese. The music lover has to acquire a knowledge of the language – in other words, the musical technique involved in the composition – before it can be appreciated. There are comparatively few who have the time to study Scandinavian poetry in Japanese translation, as it were.

Not all composers were attracted to the new technique but dissonance, atonality and the abandonment of melody are strong features of many composers’ work this century. Very little serial or atonal music has established itself in the regular concert repertoire; still less has found its way into the hearts and affections of the ordinary music-loving public. This, to jump forward in time, is especially true of music written since the Second World War. A list of works from the pens of world-famous contemporary composers will elicit a blank response form the majority of people. The avant-garde of today is taking far longer to become assimilated than the avant-garde of previous centuries. Opinions are deeply divided over the merits of a composer like  Charles Ives , for example, whose polyrhythmic, polytonal works are far too complex for them ever to achieve popularity; Stockhausen, Birtwistle , Cage, Carter, Berio, Nono (the list is endless) will remain a closed book for most people. Yet each of these composers have a huge and fanatical following in certain quarters. Musical development will always, hopefully, have daring, fantastical innovators, examining new possibilities, expressing themselves in new and original ways. Whether they will ever find a broad, responsive and appreciative audience, only time will tell. Most new commissions have a premiere, a broadcast (if they’re lucky) and are then consigned to oblivion – in whatever musical language they’re written.

Sergei Rachmaninov

The other path taken by music this century is the one which retains its link with tonality and (increasingly, nowadays) with melody. Harsh and acid though some of Prokofiev’s music may be, his style is a tangible descendant of the Romantics. Shostakovich too, sharing Prokofiev’s love of the spiky, humorous and satirical, as well as the sombre and introspective, follows on from the same tradition.  Rachmaninov  to an even greater degree wrote in the late-Romantic vein, producing some of the most popular symphonies and concertos written this century. In France, the most important composers after Ravel and Debussy were Honegger, Milhaud and Poulenc, three disparate composers un-usefully grouped together as Les Six (the other three made negligible contributions) and all influenced by the whimsical and eccentric Eric Satie. The most significant French composer since the Impressionists is Oliver Messiaen who introduced elements of Indian music and bird-song into the language of Western music. Pierre Boulez, whose complex works are often based on mathematical relationships, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose scores for his innovative electronic music are represented by charts and diagrams, are both pupils of Messiaen.

Florence Price (1887-1953) was the first black woman to have a symphony – her First in E minor – performed by a major American orchestra and her highly distinctive music has seen a great revival of interest in recent years. A recording of Price's First and Third symphonies by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin was Gramophone 's Recording of the Month in the November 2021 issue and was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2022, and there is a phenomenal recording of the Violin Concerto from the same forces with soloist Randall Goosby – an Editor's Choice in June 2023 (must read: Florence Price – out of the shadows ).

No longer does one school of musical thought prevail. There seems little to link the socio-political operas of Kurt Weill and their brittle, haunting melodies with his contemporary Paul Hindemith and his dense, contrapuntal neo-classical idiom. Far less does  Aaron Copland , born only five years later in 1900, have any connection with either. The first conspicuously great American-born composer, Copland used in his music folk material, the sixths and sevenths intervals of the blues, echoes of cowboy songs, jazz and the memory of Jewish synagogues. His  Appalachian Spring  (1944) has been compared by one critic to Vaughan Williams’s  Pastoral Symphony .

Neglected for tar too long, Grażyna Bacewicz's string quartets were given an outstanding recording by the Silesian Quartet – a Recording of the Month in the August 2016 issue of Gramophone and winner of the Chamber Award the following year. As Richard Bratby summarised: ‘Bacewicz’s seven quartets, written between 1938 and 1965, really do create a whole imaginative universe. Taken individually, they’re fascinating; music of concentrated invention, life-affirming energy and superb technical skill (Bacewicz was a virtuoso violinist herself). Listened to as a cycle, they become a vivid portrait-in-the-round of Bacewicz’s life and times. You’ll hear the influences of Polish folk music, of Szymanowski and Bartók, and the post-war experiments of her younger contemporaries Lutosławski and Penderecki.’

The British legacy

The Purcell centenary of 1895 stimulated interest in the great heritage of England’s musical past; the English Folk Song Society was founded in 1898; the London Promenade Concerts were inaugurated in 1895 and suddenly, ‘the land without music’ found itself in the midst of a musical renaissance. No one deserves more credit for the revival of the nation’s musical fortunes than Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Vaughan Williams took as his creed the belief that ‘The Art of Music above all other arts is the expression of the soul of the nation’. English Tudor music, medieval tonalities and folk song attracted him, composing in what might loosely be called a romantic neo-classical style, using counterpoint, classical forms (such as the symphony and the fugue) and modern harmony. Holst was inspired similarly but also drew inspiration from the east – his most famous piece, The Planets , from the ideas of Chaldean astrology.

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was influential as a composer, a conductor, and as a member of the women's suffrage movement. Smyth's music is now finding strong advocates in the recording studio. A recording of Smyth's The Prison by the Experiential Orchestra and Chorus, under James Blachly, was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2021, while the second of her six operas Der Wald has been recorded for Resonus by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and John Andrews (must read: Ethel Smyth’s opera Der Wald - a journey of discovery )

Of the succeeding generation, the most important have been Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett and William Walton. Britten especially, with his many stage works, established English music on the international stage, writing for a wide variety of mediums including an opera for television ( Owen Wingrave ).  Peter Grimes ,  Billy Budd ,  War Requiem ,  Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings ,  The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra  – the list of works he composed since the Second World War now in the regular concert repertoire is remarkably high. Walton’s outstanding contributions were made before the war with  Façade ,  Belshazzar’s Feast , the Viola Concerto and the First Symphony. Tippett has had less lasting success compared with his two contemporaries but  A Child of Our Time  (1941), the Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1939) and the  Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli  (1953) will undoubtedly stay the course.

Of the more recent generations of British composers, it is still too early to say with any certainty who and what will be remembered in the great scheme of things 50 years hence. Elizabeth Lutyens, Humphrey Searle and the so-called Manchester School of Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and Alexander Goehr have their champions and devoted admirers; they do not always mix comfortably with the likes of Richard Rodney Bennett, Malcolm Arnold and George Lloyd – to name those born prior to the War and who each enjoy a loyal following.

Contemporary composers you need to discover today ...

Caroline shaw.

What were you doing when you were 30 years old? Caroline Shaw is unlikely to forget, for this was her age when she received the Pulitzer Prize for music. The year was 2013, and the accolade was for her   a cappella   piece   Partita   (2009-11) for eight voices. Composed for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth, of which she was (and still is) a member, the work was released on their Grammy-winning self-titled debut album in October 2012. It didn’t receive its full premiere until November the following year, when it was performed by the group at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York.

Partita   for eight voices made Shaw the youngest ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for music. And in 2019,   The Guardian   ranked it as the 20th greatest work of classical music since 2000. All this for good reason – the piece is a vocal joyride. It begins with spoken word: ‘To the side. To the side. To the side and around’ – followed by a wall of harmonised euphoria. It continues with tides of song gathering and then drifting apart; flooding in and falling back. The work as a whole is inventive and pulls out all the stops when it comes to what a mouth and a pair of lungs can do: speech, whispers, sighs, wordless melodies and sundry other vocal techniques. It was inspired by artist Sol LeWitt’s   Wall Drawing 305   – ‘born’, as Shaw says, ‘of a love of surface and structure, of the human voice, of dancing and tired ligaments, of music, and of our basic desire to draw a line from one point to another’.

Read the full article: 'Contemporary Composer: Caroline Shaw'

Cultural considerations are not the only things that have recently brought a host of female composers to prominence. Half a century ago the wholly different talents of Lutyens, Maconchy and Thea Musgrave need not have feared comparison with their male contemporaries – a situation mirrored now with the emergence of a new generation on the new music scene, from among whom Anna Clyne is striking for the rapidity with which her output has evolved into a mature idiom always lucid in its compositional craft and immediate in its emotional impact.

Born in London, Clyne studied music at the University of Edinburgh then at the Manhattan School of Music where her tutors included Julia Wolfe – a founder member of the influential ensemble Bang on a Can, which commissioned and performed several of her earlier pieces. Clyne had begun composing around the age of 10, and although the first acknowledged works date from her early twenties, an essentially youthful delight in the discovering as well as realising of unusual combinations of sound is a constant across all her music that emerged at this time.

Read the full article: 'Contemporary composer – Anna Clyne'

Hildur Guðnadóttir

Every aspect of a traditional ‘classical’ composer’s craft requires a degree of compromise. Notation, no matter how meticulously realised, can never fully represent the work as conjured in the composer’s imagination; and no performance or recording can ever fully recreate every intention of a score – so it becomes a compromise upon a compromise. This isn’t to say, of course, that the whole business of writing and recording music is a fruitless exercise, it is simply that each element of the process that requires the music to be ‘translated’ into another medium moves the music further from the composer’s initial conception – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

Advances in the affordability and accessibility of recording technology over the last few decades have made it possible to write and record entire albums’ worth of music from home, practically alone, on nothing more than a laptop. It’s a model that has been widespread in pop music for years, but there are also many composers who are self-producing recordings of great interest to   Gramophone   readers, and one of the most compelling and successful is Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Read the full article: 'Contemporary composer – Hildur Guðnadóttir'

Errollyn Wallen

An influential figure and inspirational role model for young musicians, respected and admired by fellow composers and performers, and recognised by the pillars of the British musical establishment, Errollyn Wallen is a leading figure in today’s classical music world. But the journey that she has taken has been nothing if not unconventional. Indeed, it could never have been any other way.

She was born in Belize, and at the age of two moved to London with her parents. She became a musician almost by accident, owing to the fact that she came from a musical family: her father was a fine amateur singer who wrote songs and introduced his young daughter to jazz, blues and the recordings of Ella Fitzgerald. Being a keen dancer, Wallen first experienced classical music at a ballet class when an accompanist suddenly started playing Chopin. She was absolutely mesmerised and immediately set about exploring classical music – in both its traditional and its more contemporary forms.

Read the full article: 'Contemporary composer – Errollyn Wallen'

Sofia Gubaidulina

As the Soviet system gradually lost its grip on power through the 1980s, a diverse range of compositional voices was released into the wider musical world. A generation of ‘unofficial’ composers, effectively an underground movement in the 1960s and ’70s, suddenly came to prominence. Western audiences were introduced to the sophisticated polystylism of Alfred Schnittke, the esoteric serialism of Edison Denisov, the serene tintinnabulation of Arvo Pärt – and to Sofia Gubaidulina. Her music was, and remains, difficult to categorise. She is a religious maximalist, who employs an often brutal modernist language to express and explore dimensions of her Christian faith. Her music always seems immediate and spontaneous, yet is underpinned by sophisticated mathematical procedures. And, while she embraces joy, hope and light in her music, she does so via extreme contrasts, often leading her listeners through dark and unsettling places on her very individual path to transcendence.

Gidon Kremer brought Gubaidulina’s music to international attention when he gave the premiere of her violin concerto   Offertorium   in Vienna in 1981. The Soviet authorities almost succeeded in preventing the concert from taking place, but it was made possible by Gubaidulina’s enterprising Western publisher, Jürgen Köchel, who smuggled the score out of the country to get it to Kremer. The premiere was a great success, and Kremer continued to spread the word in the following years, giving performances of the concerto with leading orchestras around the world.

Read the full article: 'Contemporary composer – Sofia Gubaidulina'

Jennifer Higdon

'Jennifer Higdon’s myriad accolades and accomplishments are impressive by any standard, but particularly in the world of contemporary classical music. She’s won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award. Her music is in such high demand that she’s able to compose exclusively on commission. And her champions include top-tier soloists, ensembles and orchestras. According to a recent survey of US orchestras, Higdon is one of the most performed living American composers.

'Yet Higdon’s most striking achievement doesn’t fit so easily into a biography, and that’s how thoroughly her music has filtered into every stratum of classical music culture in the United States. Glance through the ‘Upcoming Performances’ page of her official website and you’ll find that her work is being played not only by the Houston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra, but also by municipal, community, and high school ensembles across the country. On the surface, it appears to be a simple formula: Higdon writes music that audiences like to hear and musicians find gratifying to play. But is it really so simple?..'

Read the full article: 'Contemporary composer – Jennifer Higdon'

Lera Auerbach

'In an age of multitasking habits, polymodal perceptions and multisensory experiences, we are all now expected to become polymaths. As Vinnie Mirchandani put it in his preface to  The New Polymath  (Wiley: 2010): ‘[We] can no longer be just one person but a collection of many.’ But in trying to become too many people, what is lost? Identity, depth, talent? Genius, perhaps?

'Lera Auerbach is a polymath in the original sense of the word – as defined and defended by Renaissance writers and thinkers; but she is also very much an artist of her time. Apart from being a successful composer and concert pianist, she’s a painter, sculptor, librettist and author of several books of poetry and prose, but for Auerbach these extramusical activities are not exercises in dilettantism: all art forms are interconnected and designed to nourish and sustain each other...'

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Lera Auerbach'

Sally Beamish

'In a way, music was Sally Beamish’s first language. Her mother, a violinist, taught her to read and write notes at the age of four – before she could play an instrument, before she could even read or write words. She would draw little flowers or faces on the manuscript and her mum would interpret how the graphic notation might sound. ‘I always wanted to make my own stuff,’ she says. ‘I’ve made my own clothes, written stories, painted…’ When she started learning piano aged five, she constructed herself a little exercise book.

'Today Beamish is one of the UK’s busiest and most warmly respected composers, with commissions coming in thick and fast for scores ranging from large-scale ballet and oratorios to chamber, theatre and solo works. At 60 she already has a catalogue of more than 200 pieces and that number is rising fast: this year she has been writing three piano concertos, among several other projects. For many listeners, the great appeal of Beamish’s music is the space it finds between softness and steel – her knack of blending folk-flecked lyricism, emotional candour, a sense of the natural world and a propulsive way with rhythm plus real economy, directness, luminous orchestrations and rigour of craft. She’s the kind of composer who seems to know exactly what she wants a piece to say and finds the most compassionate and least fussy way of saying it...'

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Sally Beamish'

Augusta Read Thomas

'American classical music this past quarter-century has been dominated by the minimalist aesthetic that came to the fore as a reaction against the modernist thinking which had previously held sway. Currently it represents a virtual lingua franca in terms of its influence on mainstream composers. Others, however, have looked back (not in anger and still less out of nostalgia) to an era in which aspects of modernism were linked to a freely evolving tonality so that new possibilities were opened up for exploration. Only recently has this approach regained prominence, with Augusta Read Thomas being among its leading exponents.

'Born in Glen Cove, Long Island, in April 1964, Thomas studied at Yale University and later at the Royal Academy of Music in London and Chicago’s Northwestern University. To speak of influences is often unnecessarily subjective, yet two composers with whom she came into contact during this period were to leave their mark on her music in the most direct and positive sense. From Jacob Druckman (1928-96) she absorbed the value of instrumental colour as a formal and expressive component rather than just an external dressing, while in Donald Erb (1927-2008) she had the example of an orchestrator who was second to none in this respect among American composers of his generation. What this gave to Thomas’s music from the outset was its clarity of conception and precision of gesture (whether in the briefest of instrumental miniatures or in large-scale orchestral works), which act as the focus for her often intricate textures and iridescent harmonies – thereby ensuring that her work exudes an immediacy and a communicativeness whatever its degree of complexity and dissonance...'

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Augusta Read Thomas'

'Curiouser and curiouser. Listening to the music of Unsuk Chin can feel like an adventure in Alice’s Wonderland. We start in familiar territory, with simple and attractive musical ideas, but these gradually weave into complex and unsettling textures. Soon we are down the rabbit hole, and nothing is quite what it seems. The music appears stable, until a subtle change in harmony casts it in an entirely new light. Perspectives change, motifs and melodies twist and distort. Simplicity gives way to beguiling complexity. Then everything stops, often with a thump from the percussion, and we are left contemplating the bizarre turn of events. Was it all a dream?

'Unsuk Chin has been fascinated by  Alice in Wonderland  since childhood, and it has inspired much of her music, most notably her 2007  Alice  opera. But her take on the story is distinctive. The opera is full of moments of intrigue and wonder, but these are set against stark representations of the tale’s brutal absurdity – a fantastical yet always lucid conception, typical of Chin. As a Korean based in Germany, she has an outsider’s perspective on European culture, and her music regularly highlights its ingrained paradoxes. She is a voice of reason, bringing order to the surreal. Above all, she brings clarity, however complex her music becomes, with every note remaining audible, every motivation clear...'

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Unsuk Chin'

Anna Thorvaldsdóttir

Before notating her works conventionally via the five lines of the musical stave, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir literally draws them. The pristine pencil illustrations this process spawns are something to behold. One of them is reproduced on the cover – and inside the booklet, in a more complete version – of what was the first album to feature her music and her music alone: Rhízoma .

The drawing features a consistent yet bumpy horizon of two almost-horizontal lines in counterpoint. Beneath that, multiple roots gather towards a single, thick trunk before breaking into four branches, fraying outwards at their end points (it could be a forbidding volcano; it could be a weedy turnip). Thoughts in text form are scattered around in meticulous block capitals: ‘In constant development’ / ‘Bell like’ / ‘I predict that the duration of this piece will be approximately 12-14 minutes’.

Speaking at an open question-and-answer session in Copenhagen in January, Thorvaldsdóttir explained that she uses drawings like these as compositional aids, devices for ‘mapping where a piece is going’. But they contain vital structural clues for the rest of us. In the case of this particular drawing – an image of the piece Streaming Arhythmia (2007) – we can trace how the biology of subterranean roots or ‘rhizomes’ has influenced the development of the music. The sketch also bears an uncanny resemblance to the landscape of Thorvaldsdóttir’s Iceland: a barren and highly atmospheric terrain characterised by black rock, dark moss, starkly outlined volcanic peaks and a total lack of trees.

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Anna Thorvaldsdóttir'

Olga Neuwirth

The music of Olga Neuwirth ( b 1968) is richly allusive, moving freely between reference points as varied as Monteverdi, Weill, Miles Davis and Klaus Nomi. She has cited influences from Boulez to the Beastie Boys. Yet if there’s one artist whose aesthetic approach seems particularly close to hers, it isn’t a musician at all – it is film-maker David Lynch, the maverick director behind such cult classics as Twin Peaks (1990-91; 2017), Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Drive (2001). Bizarre juxtapositions, surreal narrative twists, vivid images of obscure significance: his films are not just strange but also uncanny – even inexplicable at times – as they journey into dreamlike worlds in which the standard rules of time, space and sense seem to drift away. Music may be a more abstract medium than film, but Neuwirth’s work proves its ability to be just as fascinatingly unfathomable. Her music is enthralling and provocative not despite its strangeness, but because of it.

The Lynch comparison is one that Neuwirth provoked herself when she turned Lost Highway , the film that some call Lynch’s very strangest, into an opera in 2002-03, in collaboration with her Nobel Prize-winning compatriot Elfriede Jelinek. It is hard to imagine a more audacious choice of film to receive the operatic treatment, but Neuwirth’s fragmentary, multidimensional music creates something that somehow does seem to be the kindred spirit of the original. At one point in both film and opera (some time before he inexplicably transforms into a car mechanic), the protagonist Fred explains why he doesn’t own a video camera. ‘I like to remember things my own way,’ he says. ‘How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way they happened.’ Perhaps the opera takes a similar approach in adapting the film, twisting it into new shapes – hyper-expressionist vocal acrobatics for one character, deadpan spoken word for another, eerie falsetto vocalise for a third – while retaining the plot and enhancing the noir undercurrent. In fact, perhaps that is what all opera does anyway, taking the kernel of a story and heightening its intensity through clipped lines of text and sweeping currents of music. To be sure, opera seldom portrays events ‘the way they happened’.

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Olga Neuwirth'

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) was one of the foremost women composers on the planet and one of the leading creative figures of her generation of either gender; a truly original artist with a very distinctive musical style and personal voice, developed and refined over decades. The awards she has received over the years are indicative of this, including the Kranichsteiner Prize (1986), the Nordic Council Music Prize (2000, for Lonh), the Grawemeyer (2003, for her first opera, L’amour de loin ), the Nemmers Prize in Composition (2007), the Wihuri Sibelius Prize (2009) and the Léonie Sonning Music Prize (2011).

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Kaija Saariaho'

Thea Musgrave

Asked once whether she had any advice for young composers, Thea Musgrave replied: ‘Don’t, unless you really have to; then you’ll do it anyway.’ Musgrave – the Scottish composer, conductor, pianist and teacher who turns 90 this month – has lived by her own advice. There’s a clear-sighted rationality to her approach, to the way she speaks about her music, to the way she adheres to deadlines and writes practical, non-fussy scores that endear her to commissioners and orchestral musicians.

But beneath the pragmatism, Musgrave’s music is all about drama. Whether in her searingly perceptive operas or her non-narrative instrumental works, she has long been fascinated by the innate drama of human behaviour: the psychological dance of conversation, interaction, confrontation and appeasement. She’s a composer who recognises that music mirrors life, that music can shape the way we live, that the emotional and even physical makeup of musicians is integral to the impact of any performance. To put it simply, her work speaks directly and compassionately about all of us. ‘There are basic human truths,’ she says, and it is those truths that she probes in her music.

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Thea Musgrave'

Roxanna Panufnik

There’s a different kind of revolution taking place in today’s contemporary music, and at its heart lies Roxanna Panufnik. Hers is not a radical revolution designed to overhaul the old order completely, à la Schoenberg or Cage. Instead, here is a quiet revolution that utilises music’s power to unite people from different cultures, religious backgrounds and political persuasions: a revolution that is more John Lennon than John Cage.

In Panufnik’s own words: ‘I’m on a mission to shout from the rooftops the beauty of all these different faiths’ music. It’s about bringing us together. Too often we don’t think about what we have in common, but instead about our tiny fraction of difference from each other.’

The importance of music’s social and political function was, of course, not lost on Roxanna’s father. The well-known, much admired and highly regarded Polish composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik (1914-91) was forced to escape the oppressive post-war climate of his native country in 1954. He arrived in London and some nine years later married author and photographer Camilla Jessel. Roxanna was born in 1968.

Read the full article:   'Contemporary composer – Roxanna Panufnik'

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How Listening to Music Can Have Psychological Benefits

Research-backed reasons why listening to music can feel so good

Listening to music can be entertaining, and some research suggests that it might even make you healthier. Music can be a source of pleasure and contentment, but there are many other psychological benefits as well. Music can relax the mind, energize the body, and help people manage pain better.

The notion that music can influence your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors probably does not come as much of a surprise. If you've ever felt pumped up while listening to your favorite fast-paced rock anthem or been moved to tears by a tender acoustic performance, then you easily understand the power of music to impact moods and even inspire action.

The psychological effects of music can be powerful and wide-ranging. Music therapy is an intervention sometimes used to promote emotional health, help patients cope with stress, and boost psychological well-being. Some research even suggests that your taste in music can provide insight into different aspects of your personality .

At a Glance

Listening to music isn't just enjoyable—it's good for you, too! Research has found that it can help your brain process information more efficiently, increase your ability to cope with stress, and even help jog your memory. Keep reading to learn more about the many different benefits of listening to music, including a few that may surprise you.

Music Can Improve Cognitive Performance

Eternity in an Instant / Getty Images

Research suggests that background music, or music that is played while the listener is primarily focused on another activity, can improve performance on cognitive tasks in older adults. One study found that playing more upbeat music led to improvements in processing speed, while both upbeat and downbeat music led to benefits in memory.

So the next time you are working on a task, consider turning on a little music in the background if you are looking for a boost in your mental performance. Consider choosing instrumental tracks rather than those with complex lyrics, which might end up being more distracting.

Music Can Reduce Stress

It has long been suggested that music can help reduce or manage stress. Consider the trend centered on meditative music created to soothe the mind and inducing relaxation.

Fortunately, this is one trend supported by research. Listening to music can be an effective way to cope with stress.

Research has found that listening to music has an impact on the human stress response , particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the autonomic nervous system .

People who listen to music tend to recover more quickly following a stressor. Evidence also shows that high-frequency music leads to the greatest stress relief, lowering cortisol and increasing oxytocin levels.

Music Can Help You Eat Less

One of the most surprising psychological benefits of music is that it might be a helpful weight-loss tool. If you are trying to lose weight, listening to mellow music and dimming the lights might help you achieve your goals .

One study found that listening to music at its original tempo was associated with normal eating pace. Speeding up or slowing down the tempo resulted in higher food intake.

Other research suggests that when people are distracted by music or if the music contributes to increased arousal, they may disregard feelings of fullness and overeat.

The emotions people feel when listening to music can also affect eating behaviors. In one study, people were more likely to report that beer was sweeter, better tasting, and more enjoyable when they were listening to music associated with positive feelings.

However, it's important to remember that the findings on the relationship between food and music are mixed. More research is needed, but you might put this into practice by choosing background music that is at a middle-range tempo and avoiding tunes that are fast-paced and upbeat in order to minimize overeating.

Music Can Improve Your Memory

Many students enjoy listening to music while studying, but is that a great idea? Some feel like listening to their favorite music as they study improves memory , while others contend that it simply serves as a pleasant distraction.

It may help, but it also depends upon various factors, including the type of music, the listener's enjoyment of that music, and even how musically well-trained the listener may be.

In one study, musically naive students learned better when listening to positive music, possibly because these songs elicited more positive emotions without interfering with memory formation.

However, musically trained students tended to perform better on learning tests when they listened to neutral music, possibly because this type of music was less distracting and easier to ignore.

If you find yourself distracted by music, you may be better off learning in silence or with neutral tracks playing in the background.

Research on the effects of music on learning is mixed. While students often report that they find it helpful, study results often suggest that it can be distracting, particularly music with lyrics. However, listening to instrumental background music may have some benefits.

One study found that participants learning a new language showed improvement in their knowledge and abilities when they practiced singing new words and phrases versus just regular speaking or rhythmic speaking.

Music Can Help Manage Pain

Research has shown that music can be very helpful in the management of pain. One study of fibromyalgia patients found that those who listened to music for just one hour a day experienced a significant reduction in pain compared to a control condition.

In the study, patients were passively exposed to pleasant, relaxing music of their own choice as well as a control auditory condition. They then performed a timed motor task to measure their functional mobility and rated their pain levels. 

The results found that listening to music before the task helped reduce pain and increased mobility.

A 2015 review of research on the effects of music on pain management found that patients who listened to music before, during, or even after surgery experienced less pain and anxiety than those who did not listen to music.  

While listening to music at any point in time was effective, the researchers noted that listening to music pre-surgery resulted in better outcomes. The review looked at data from more than 7,000 patients and found that music listeners also required less medication to manage their pain.

There was also a slightly greater, though not statistically significant, improvement in pain management results when patients were allowed to select their own music.

Music May Help You Sleep Better

Insomnia is a serious problem that affects people of all age groups. While there are many approaches to treating this problem, research has demonstrated that listening to relaxing music can be a safe, effective, and affordable remedy.​

One review of the research found that music had a beneficial impact on sleep quality. Some evidence suggests that music could also improve how quickly people fall asleep and increase sleep duration, but more research is needed.

Another study found that listening to relaxing music before a nap improves subjective and objective sleep quality measures. People reported feeling that they slept better, and listening to music was associated with increased slow-wave sleep (aka deep sleep ).

Music Can Improve Motivation

There is a good reason why you find it easier to exercise while you listen to music. Researchers have found that listening to fast-paced music motivates people to work out harder.

One study found that people exercise significantly longer when listening to music than without. Another study found that listening to high tempo music during high-intensity exercise can improve performance without causing people to feel like they are exerting themselves harder. In other words, while you might be exercising harder, it doesn't feel harder when you are listening to music.

So if you are trying to stick to a workout routine, consider loading up a playlist filled with fast-paced tunes that will help boost your motivation and enjoyment of your exercise regimen.

Music Can Improve Mood

Another of the science-backed benefits of listening to music is that it just might make you happier. Research suggests that listening to music can help boost your happiness, mood, and subjective well-being in several ways:

• It helps enhance social connections, particularly during shared musical experiences like concerts
• It helps support better cognitive health in older adults
• Playing an instrument can improve cognition and well-being
• Combining music with dance and movement can help improve mood and well-being
• Music can help marginalized people feel more connected and empowered and increase overall well-being and self-esteem

Researchers suggest that listening to music can be a highly pleasurable experience that increases positive emotions and promotes the release of dopamine , a neurotransmitter tied to pleasurable feelings.

Music May Reduce Symptoms of Depression

Researchers have also found that music therapy can be a safe and effective treatment for a variety of disorders, including depression .

One study found that music therapy was a safe, low-risk way to reduce depression and anxiety in patients suffering from neurological conditions such as dementia, stroke, and Parkinson's disease.

While music can certainly have an impact on mood, the type of music is also important. Classical and meditation music offer the greatest mood-boosting benefits, while heavy metal and techno music are ineffective and even detrimental.

Music Can Improve Endurance and Performance

Another important psychological benefit of music lies in its ability to boost performance. While people have a preferred step frequency when walking and running, scientists have discovered that the addition of a strong, rhythmic beat, such as fast-paced musical track, could inspire people to pick up the pace.  

Runners are not only able to run faster while listening to music; they also feel more motivated to stick with it and display greater endurance. The ideal tempo for workout music is somewhere between 125 and 140 beats per minute.

While research has found that synchronizing body movements to music can lead to better performance and increased stamina, the effect tends to be the most pronounced in cases of low to moderate intensity exercise. In other words, the average person is more likely to reap the rewards of listening to music more than a professional athlete might.

So why does music boost workout performance? Listening to music while working out lowers a person's perception of exertion. You're working harder, but it doesn't seem like you're putting forth more effort.

Because your attention is diverted by the music, you are less likely to notice the obvious signs of exertion such as increased respiration, sweating, and muscle soreness.

Listening to music can inspire and entertain, but it also has powerful psychological effects that can improve your health and well-being. Instead of thinking of music as pure entertainment, consider some of the major mental benefits of incorporating music into your everyday life. You might find that you feel more motivated , happier, and relaxed as a result.

Gold BP, Frank MJ, Bogert B, Brattico E. Pleasurable music affects reinforcement learning according to the listener . Front Psychol . 2013;4:541. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00541

Lata F, Kourtesis I. Listening to music as a stress management tool .  Eur Psychiatry . 2021;64(Suppl 1):S609. doi:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2021.1621

Sato N, Miyamoto M, Santa R, Homma C, Shibuya K. The effect of background music tempo on eating speed and food intake volume within in healthy women .  Nutr Health . doi:10.1177/02601060231158234

Pereira LJ, van der Bilt A. The influence of oral processing, food perception and social aspects on food consumption: a review .  J Oral Rehabil . 2016;43(8):630-648. doi:10.1111/joor.12395

Reinoso-Carvalho F, Dakduk S, Wagemans J, Spence C. Not just another pint! The role of emotion induced by music on the consumer's tasting experience .  Multisens Res . 2019;32(4-5):367-400. doi:10.1163/22134808-20191374

Cui T, Xi J, Tang C, Song J, He J, Brytek-Matera A. The relationship between music and food intake: A systematic review and meta-analysis .  Nutrients . 2021;13(8):2571. doi:10.3390/nu13082571

Gold BP, Frank MJ, Bogert B, Brattico E. Pleasurable music affects reinforcement learning according to the listener .  Front Psychol . 2013;4:541. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00541

Souza AS, Leal Barbosa LC. Should we turn off the music? Music with lyrics interferes with cognitive tasks .  J Cogn . 2023;6(1):24. doi:10.5334/joc.273

Ludke KM, Ferreira F, Overy K. Singing can facilitate foreign language learning . Mem Cognit. 2014;42(1):41-52. doi:10.3758/s13421-013-0342-5

Garza-Villarreal EA, Wilson AD, Vase L, et al. Music reduces pain and increases functional mobility in fibromyalgia .  Front Psychol . 2014;5:90. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00090

Hole J, Hirsch M, Ball E, Meads C. Music as an aid for postoperative recovery in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis . Lancet . 2015;386(10004):1659-71. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60169-6

Jespersen KV, Pando-Naude V, Koenig J, Jennum P, Vuust P. Listening to music for insomnia in adults .  Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2022;8(8):CD010459. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD010459.pub3

Cordi MJ, Ackermann S, Rasch B. Effects of relaxing music on healthy sleep .  Sci Rep . 2019;9(1):9079. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-45608-y

Thakare AE, Mehrotra R, Singh A. Effect of music tempo on exercise performance and heart rate among young adults .  Int J Physiol Pathophysiol Pharmacol . 2017;9(2):35-39.

Maddigan ME, Sullivan KM, Halperin I, Basset FA, Behm DG. High tempo music prolongs high intensity exercise .  PeerJ . 2019;6:e6164. doi:10.7717/peerj.6164

Dingle GA, Sharman LS, Bauer Z, et al. How do music activities affect health and well-being? A scoping review of studies examining psychosocial mechanisms .  Front Psychol . 2021;12:713818. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713818

Croom AM. Music, neuroscience, and the psychology of well-being: A précis .  Front Psychol . 2012;2:393. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00393

Raglio A, Attardo L, Gontero G, Rollino S, Groppo E, Granieri E. Effects of music and music therapy on mood in neurological patients . World J Psychiatry. 2015;5(1):68-78. doi:10.5498/wjp.v5.i1.68

Snyder KL, Snaterse M, Donelan JM. Running perturbations reveal general strategies for step frequency selection . J Appl Physiol. 2012;112(8):1239-47. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01156.2011

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Essay on “Importance of Classical Music” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Importance of Classical Music

Classical music is important for many reasons. However, before the benefits of classical music can be brought to light, it is important to clarify what ‘classical music’ really is. There are many misconceptions on what classical music is. The name ‘classical music’ is applied to the Viennese Classical expression, which flourished in the late 18th century, and early 19th due to the brilliance of three main composers. Hayden, Mozart, and Beethoven were the three brilliant minds that are credited for the classical music period. Some musical characteristics of classical music are: the use of energetic and orchestral color in a thematic way, the use of rhythm, including periodic structure and harmonic rhythm, to give definition to large-scale forms, along with the use of modulation to build longer spans of tension and release (most of the music is cast in sonata form or closely related forms), and the witty, typically Austrian mixture of comic and serious strains. The importance of classical music can be seen in many different things. For example it has been proven to help the mind, it is also yet another way of expression, and it can also be used as therapy. One of the most intriguing benefits of classical music is how it helps stimulate the brain. In many child development studies, research has shown very positive effects on the child’s brain by just listening to classical music. The research has demonstrated that auditory stimulation (listening to classical music) at an early age can increase the rate of development of synoptic connections in a young mind. By increasing the synoptic connection, intelligence is also increased. “Music, particularly classical music, stimulates the frontal and prefrontal portions of the brain that perform analytical functions.” Many doctors for therapeutic reasons also use classical music. The reasons can be anything from trauma to nightmares. It seems strange that classical music can have such a big effect. However the doctors say that it clears the mind, helps focusing, and also is very relaxing. It is a great stress reliever and a great way to express emotions. The expression of emotions allows people to Open up. For people that have been in traumatic situations opening op is the first step to healing. Classical music opens up options to doctors that might have been really hard to get to Classical music is a creative expression, which many artists are using today. The artists that are beginning to use classical  music are trying to make great music like the original composers once did. The more the artist use classical music the more the artist express his desire to expand their musical talent. It is also a sign of maturity. It is a sign of maturity because once people have settled down they can appreciate everything that went into classical music. It is also a sign of maturity because it takes patients to really understand the music, and people have more patients when they are a bit maturer. Personally classical music has never really interested me. However learning more about the history and what the music means has made me respect the music more. The thing, which interests me about classical music is the effect it has on young children. It is something that I might have my children listen to at a young age. The importance of classical music in my opinion is whatever importance you personally take out of it. It may make you more intelligent or more relaxed it really all depends on your personality. I have learned if at first you may not think that classical music is important, give it a chance it will grow. And you will soon get a new respect for it. The significance of classical music has helped develop many cultures and ways of life.

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Why Jazz Still Matters

Jazz: it has been called both cool and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellectual and primitive. It is improvisational music touted for the freedom it permits its players, but in its heyday was largely composed and tightly arranged. It tells a story about race in America: not only because African American musicians were so central in its creation and African American audiences so important in their creative responses to it, but because whites played such a dominant role in its dissemination through records and performance venues and its ownership as intellectual and artistic property. But is jazz a relic of the past, or does it continue to have meaning and influence for today’s artists and audiences? And while it may still be present , does it still matter ?

Gerald Early , a Fellow of the American Academy since 1997, is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and Editor of The Common Reader at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports (2011), One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture (rev. ed., 2004), and This is Where I Came In: Black America in the 1960s (2003).

Ingrid Monson is the Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music at Harvard University. She is the author of Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (2007), The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (2000), and Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (1996).

I’d rather play something that you can learn and like that you don’t know. I don’t want people to know what I am.

 – Miles Davis, 1985 1

Perhaps, like Miles Davis, jazz itself is a mystique wrapped in an enigma, an essential or inescapable unknowingness that makes this music attractive for its audience. But if jazz is partly – through its challenging demands as a musical form, through the various changes through which it has sustained itself over the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, and through its aspirations to both embody and transform modernity – a music of clear and revealed intentions, it remains an art that many, even many of its devotees, do not fully understand. Even the word “jazz” itself is wrapped in mystery. How did the music come to be called this and what does this word mean? Jazz bassist Bill Crow points out that some have thought the word comes the French verb jaser , or to chatter. Others say that the word “arose from corruptions of the abbreviations of the first names of early musicians: ‘Charles’ (Chas.) or ‘James’ (Jas).” Some have thought it came from the slang word for semen or that it came from “jazzing,” a slang word for fornication. 2 Anthropologist Alan Merriam notes that there are also Hausa and Arabic words that may be related to the term: jaiza , the rumbling of distant drums, and jazb , allurement or attraction. 3

One of the reasons that the early music in New Orleans and after was so disapproved of by the bourgeoisie was because of the association with sex. The same reaction would occur roughly thirty-five or so years later with the advent of rock and roll, another rebellious form of music with a name associated with sex. Because jazz in its early days before World War I was performed in brothels, as well as at picnics and parades, an association with sex and the erotic is not surprising. As Gerald Early observed about Miles Davis, the black male body came to define a kind of black male existentialism functioning as “a symbol of engagement and detachment, of punishing discipline and plush pleasure that operated cooperatively, not in conflict, if rightly understood.” Furthermore, this new kind of sexuality, first associated with jazz and the margins, became, over time, idealized in mainstream culture. 4

Many jazz musicians never liked the word “jazz,” among the most notable being Duke Ellington, drummer Max Roach, saxophonist Rashaan Roland Kirk, composer Muhal Richard Abrams, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and Miles Davis, who said to his interlocutor in 1985: “You know I don’t like the word jazz, right? You’ve heard that? I hope that’s one of the things you’ve heard.” 5  Many African American musicians viewed the word as a music industry label created by whites that demeaned, stereotyped, and limited them artistically. Bill Crow ends his meditation on the word jazz by noting: “As we enter the 1990s the sexual connotation of the word has almost completely faded away. ‘Jazz’ is now used to identify musical forms, as well as a style of Broadway theater dancing, a patented exercise regimen, a toilet water, a basketball team, a brand of computer software.” 6 Within this metamorphosis lies a tale.

J azz improvisation celebrates the heroic genius improviser, but, as musicians know, that brilliance often depends on the collective magic of the right band: individuals who compliment, anticipate, inspire, and upset each other into a communal whole greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, two of the most influential heroes in jazz – Miles Davis and John Coltrane – are known by the brilliance of their quartets and quintets, which became the most revered models of group interplay. These collective musical relationships became generalized into idealized concepts of community that pervade our contemporary understanding of jazz. For Wynton Marsalis, the jazz ensemble is democracy in action: participatory, inclusive, challenging, competitive, and collective. 7 For the interracial musical scene of the forties and fifties, jazz improvisation was often viewed as the ultimate integrated music, crossing the color line and social categories with aplomb. 8 For others, black musicians created idealized and woke communities of color, which inspired the development of progressive black social and spiritual movements. Freedom links the musical aesthetics of jazz and its sociopolitical ambitions: associated with improvisation and desperately needed for racial justice and inclusion. For some, the political and cultural associations of jazz are primary, indeed, above the music itself, which can make jazz seem like a branch of social theory. Ralph Ellison criticized this tendency by wryly critiquing Amiri Baraka’s (LeRoi Jones) Blues People by noting that “the tremendous burden of sociology which Jones would place upon this body of music is enough to give even the blues the blues.” 9 For others, the music must be addressed to the exclusion of the social and cultural. Music theorists are more comfortable on this terrain, but the most interesting recent work on jazz has emphasized the sound of the music, the embodied experience of listening and performing as the link between the musical and the social. 10

Jazz is a complex, highly blended, sometimes contradictory music and, indeed, since its inception, it has been hotly debated exactly what forms or styles constitute this music. Is it music theory or a technique that is applied to music? Is it one music or several loosely grouped forms of music that deal with improvisation? Its roots are African and European, classical and popular, dance music and art music. It has been called both cool and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellectual and primitive. It has been influenced by Latin American and Afro-Cuban music, by Middle Eastern, Indian, and other forms of Asian music, by African music, and by varieties of religious music including gospel and the Protestant hymnal. Jazz also has roots in the American popular song (which makes up a good deal of its repertoire), the blues, hokum and circus music, marching band music, and popular dance music. It is known for being improvised and touted for the freedom it permits its players, but jazz in its heyday of swing was largely composed and tightly arranged; although many jazz players have soloed, relatively few, as might be expected, were exceptional, memorial, or highly influential soloists. In any case, why did so-called free music generated on the spot by the player become more highly valued by jazz players and audiences than notated music that, by its very nature, is presumed to have a greater range of expressiveness? Improvised music goes back to Western classical composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, who were superb improvisers, but has also existed elsewhere around the world for millennia. What makes jazz improvisation different? Singers made jazz popular, but the music is mostly instrumental, and the great instrumentalists are considered its most important innovators. Because most of the great singers were women – from Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Peggy Lee to Cassandra Wilson and Dianne Reeves – male bias on the part of both the musicians themselves and of critics (most of whom were and are male) likely skewed our sense of this music. 11

Jazz has always sought a popular audience with varying success but, since its earliest days, it has been a music that is often performed by musicians for musicians. This has made many listeners impatient with it, feeling that if one needs practically a degree in music theory to appreciate it, its practitioners should not expect untrained or casual audiences to be bothered with it. But on the other hand, its technical pretensions have made jazz a kind of status music with some audiences.

Early sound technology such as phonograph records and radio spread jazz around the world, and the speed with which it spread frightened many people in its early days, especially because the music in its inception appealed so powerfully to the young. Jazz emerged in the twentieth century, the Age of Music, when people not only heard more music than ever before but consumed it more voraciously than ever before in human history, largely attracted to music for its emotional and psychological effects. Jazz became the first, though not the last, popular music to be trapped by its intellectual pretensions, on the one hand, and its anti-intellectual appeal, on the other. Jazz has been condemned and promoted by various political ideologies and governments: Nazis called it “Nigger-Juden” music; 12 the Soviets thought of it as music of the workers and the dispossessed, on the one hand, and a sensationalized, bourgeois art, on the other; in the United States, it was once considered low-class, dance hall music, on the one hand, and the music of democracy, the Only Original American Music, on the other. So powerful was the presence of jazz when it first emerged that it is the only music that has a social epoch named in its honor: the Jazz Age (1920s).

Jazz is, of course, about race in America not only because African American musicians were so central in its creation and African American audiences so important in their creative responses to it, but because whites played such a dominant role in its dissemination through records and performance venues and its ownership as intellectual and artistic property. (Whites also played jazz music from its earliest days and always constituted a major portion of its audience. Whites, both in the United States and in Europe, were leading critical interpreters of and writers about jazz as well.) 13 It is a music that has always attracted intellectuals and artists, and thus the music’s influence can be felt far from the bandstand or the dance floor or the recording studio. Jazz has spawned an influential, international lifestyle, an attitude toward life – the hot, the hip, and the cool – that is secular, obsessed with youth, fixated on the marginalized, and detached yet passionately self-centered, and that has attached itself to other forms of popular music, like rock and hip hop, as jazz has become, for many young music lovers, passé. This attitude of the cool and the hip has influenced literature, including the production of the so-called jazz novel and jazz poetry, as well as art, speech, dress, and antibourgeois habits of indulgence such as using illegal drugs like marijuana and heroin. Even interracial sex, considered rebellious by some and deviant by others, was associated with the demi-monde of jazz.

Every dimension of jazz outlined above is the subject of academic and critical study in a variety of fields including English, history, American studies, musicology, African American studies, studies of the Americas, and culture studies. Indeed, jazz studies as an interdisciplinary field of research and pedagogy formally exists and has its own journal, Jazz Perspectives . What is this all about, anyway? And why should those with no interest in jazz care about any of this?

This issue of Dædalus gathers noted writers, artists, and scholars to explore the validity of three basic contentions about the “life” and “death” of jazz, which is, without question, the “deepest,” most technically difficult “popular music” ever created: 14   first, that jazz was never simply a form of music or a congeries of musical styles, but was in fact a larger modernist artistic movement both in the United States and internationally that was a rebellious response against and, contrarily, a powerfully evocative intensification of the new mass consumer culture that signified twentieth-century urban life; second, that jazz’s transformation from dance to art music, which occurred during and immediately after World War II , was one of the profoundly cataclysmic changes to occur in American popular culture that both reflected and affected larger social (race and gender), political (liberal reformism), and cultural (the impulse for liberation versus technical elitism) shifts that were swirling in the United States at the time; third, that jazz was, to a great extent, a pluralistic music during the years of its greatest popularity in the United States and that it has since become a vibrantly global art form, not only in Europe and Asia, but also in Panama, South Africa, and Ghana. Whether its future lies as a high-culture, transnational, privileged form of taste and practice or in a new synthesis joining jazz artistry with global hip hop and the popular is an open question. In either case, jazz today is a form of cosmopolitanism. But perhaps that was always what it was striving to be. As New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff put it: “There is no American popular music so well miscegenated as jazz.” 15

Whatever jazz today has lost in the size of its audience as compared with forms of popular music with bigger market shares, it has gained in the high esteem in which it is held in the business and art worlds as a sophisticated artistic expression (it is frequently used as mood music in upscale business establishments, in museums and galleries, and in commercials promoting upscale products) and in the institutionalization it has experienced as a formal course of study at many colleges and universities. Indeed, if it were not for colleges, universities, and high school jazz bands, and institutions such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and SF Jazz, it is quite possible that few young people in the United States would be playing or hearing jazz today.

As Ingrid Monson wrote, “The art music known variously as jazz, swing, bebop, America’s classical music, and creative music has been associated first and foremost with freedom. Freedom of expression, human freedom, freedom of thought, and the freedom that results from an ongoing pursuit of racial justice.” One has only to read, for instance, historian Michael H. Kater’s Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (1992) or author Josef Skvorecky’s extraordinary novella The Bass Saxophone (1977) to know how profoundly true Monson’s observation is – that jazz was a beacon, an act, a trope of freedom, an expression against repression that inspired many people around the world. But if jazz was, at one point in its history, about freeing oneself from artificial and arbitrary constraints in both popular and classical music, about freeing society from its restrictions and repressions, then, for many of its fans and practitioners, it has now become about preserving and conserving a tradition, an ideology, a set of standards, a form of practice. Today, jazz is an art that can satisfy the compulsions of the liberationist and the conservative, of those who seek change and of those who prefer stasis. 16

Is jazz still a relevant form of artistic expression, still a significant force in the world of popular music or the world of art music? In other words, is jazz so insufficiently hip that its pretensions and its conceit no longer matter as either a theory or a practice? Has it become, in many respects, like mainline Protestantism, a theory and a practice prized by its followers because of its limited and slowly declining appeal and its glorious history as something that once did matter? Is jazz simply a music trapped in the memory of itself, technically exhausted and imaginatively hampered, shadowed and sabotaged by its pop and R & B commercial doppelgänger, smooth jazz? Fifty or one hundred years from now will more accessible and commercial jazzers like saxophonist Kenny G and trumpeter Chris Botti be more remembered than trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and pianist Brad Mehldau? To be sure, for many of its fans and followers, jazz has gone from being an anti-establishment to an establishment art form, something that may have drained the art form of its purpose and its emotional correlatives. If jazz has acquired a new power, a new appeal, then what precisely is it and what is the relationship of this new power, this new appeal, to the power and appeal that jazz once had when it was the dominant music of the United States? Has jazz transcended the marketplace or is it a music that deserves to be protected from the desecrations of the market as we try to protect classical music? Protectionism, when it comes to the arts, has usually been a lost cause. Jazz’s advocates and supporters say that jazz is more popular, more listened to than ever despite its low market ratings, and this may be true: it certainly shows up in unexpected places such as, for instance, two unrelated Tom Cruise movies, 1996’s Jerry Maguire (which features a long sequence with an avant-garde Charles Mingus tune) and 2004’s Collateral (which features a trumpeter playing Bitches Brew – style Miles Davis jazz). And there continues to be art-house films about jazz, such as Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead (2016) about Miles Davis, Robert Budreau’s Born to Be Blue (2016) about jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, and Cynthia Mort’s Nina (2016) about jazz/folk singer Nina Simone.

There is no question that jazz is still present in the culture, but the larger question is: does jazz still matter ? We think it does in ways that are rather astonishing in their implications. Jazz artists like Robert Glasper and Kamasi Washington and avant hip hop artists like Kendrick Lamar may forge a new synthesis of jazz, the avant-garde, and the popular that rivets new audiences or may provide a radically new relationship between art and the popular. The Black Lives Matter movement has inspired a florescence of socially engaged artistic expression in jazz (Terence Blanchard’s Breathless ), popular music (Beyoncé’s Lemonade ), and hip hop (Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly ) that models itself on the artistic vision of jazz. We suggest that jazz improvisation remains a compelling metaphor for interrelationship, group creativity, and freedom that is both aesthetic and social. Improvisation transforms, one-ups, reinterprets, and synthesizes evolving human experience and its sonic signatures regardless of their classical, popular, or cultural origins. The most innovative popular musicians are returning to its acoustic power, representing the screams of Aunt Hester, as Fred Moten has put it, with the unconventional timbres and tones of haunting jazz. 17 Understanding what has happened to jazz can tell us a great deal about the nature and influence of popular music as both a national and international art form.

This issue of Dædalus explores both the legacies of jazz and its futures from the perspectives of artists and academics engaged in multiple fields of study. The interdisciplinarity of the contributors emphasizes the fact that jazz, as stated above, was never only a music but rather was a music that served as a muse for an arts movement, enchanting and bewitching other creative artists to make and to critically examine their art: from novelists like Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, Jack Kerouac, and John Clellon Holmes to poets like Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsburg, and Michael Harper to painters like Romare Bearden and Jackson Pollock to dancers like Fred Astaire, Agnes de Mille, Norma Miller, and Savion Glover and to hip hop and spoken-word artists like the Roots, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé. The essays in this issue critically examine the achievements of jazz as an artistic movement through historical case studies, engagement with contemporary jazz innovations, and projections of the art form’s future. A mixture of historical reckoning and utopian possibility bracket the ever-changing character of jazz now.

This issue hopes to begin to answer for readers: What made and continues to make jazz different from other forms of music? Why did jazz happen? How did jazz, as popular music, gain and lose its popularity or, put another way, how did it lose its status as a music for the ordinary or casual musical palette? How did jazz’s close association with the repertoire of the Broadway musical, a song form that itself ceased to dominate popular music with the rise of rock and roll, affect its reception and reputation and its future? How did and how do musicians in other countries change jazz and how much did that change affect how Americans performed it? How have the changes that affect the selling of music affected jazz? Did jazz transcend social constructions of race or did it reinscribe them? How did jazz generate criticism of itself? Who constructs the official history of a form of popular music like jazz? Can music without words, as most jazz is, contain any specific political meaning? Can a music fade away and not fade away at the same time?

In moving toward answering these questions, the issue’s authors weave together a narrative about jazz then and now to approach an understanding of why, in its many ways and forms, jazz still matters .

• 1 Richard Cook, “Miles Davis: ‘Coltrane was a Very Greedy Man. Bird was, Too. He was a Big Hog’–A Classic Interview from the Vaults,” The Guardian , November 6, 2012, [ LINK ].
• 2 Bill Crow, Jazz Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 19.
• 3 Alan Merriam and Fradley Garner, “Jazz – The Word,” Ethnomusicology 12 (3) (1968): 382.
• 4 Gerald Early, Miles Davis and American Culture (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2001), 7, 16.
• 5 Cook, “Miles Davis.”
• 6 Crow, Jazz Anecdotes , 21–22. Most recently jazz has been lauded as a business strategy or as a model for group creativity and collaboration. Greg Satell, “How Jazz Can Transform Business,” Forbes , October 25, 2013, [ LINK ]. See also Adrian Cho, The Jazz Process: Collaboration, Innovation, and Agility (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2010); Penelope Tobin, The Jazz of Business: Leadership in a New Groove (United Kingdom: Dodgem, 2012); Frank J. Barrett, Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012); and Keith Sawyer, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration (New York: Basic Books, 2007). See also Stephen Alexander, The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 2016) for an exploration of jazz’s implications as a creative art that can explain scientific theory.
• 7 Let Freedom Swing: Conversations between Sandra Day O’Connor and Wynton Marsalis on Jazz and Democracy , DVD , pr. Robe Imbriano (New York: Teachers College Press, 2010).
• 8 Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color : Jazz Black and White (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
• 9 Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage, 1964), 249.
• 10 Vijay Iyer, “Improvisation, Action Understanding, and Music Cognition with and without Bodies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies , vol. 1, ed. George Lewis and Benjamin Piekut (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 74–90; and Georgina Born, “On Musical Mediation: Ontology, Technology, and Creativity,” Twentieth-Century Music 2 (1) (2005): 7–36.
• 11 Few jazz listeners are aware of the achievements of the most important female instrumentalists and composers: Mary Lou Williams, Melba Liston, Carla Bley, Maria Schneider, Geri Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Nicole Mitchell.
• 12 It should go without saying that Nazism intensified the racist inclinations of conservative German music and art critics and the N -word was frequently used. See Michael H. Kater, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 19. But in American literary criticism, for instance, think how common the phrase “Nigger Jim” was in discussing the slave character from Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . (The character’s name was simply Jim.) Critics ranging from T. S. Eliot to Ernest Hemingway used the expression. Indeed, despite how much he deplored the characterization, even Ralph Ellison used it. See Ralph Ellison, “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke,” in Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 50, 58. This is only to point out how much the N -word, far from being just a lower-class obscenity, penetrated the reaches of high culture. This realization only underscores the impact of the word on the Western world and how powerful its stigmatizing reach. It is important to recognize this.
• 13 For an interesting discussion of race and jazz among contemporary jazz critics, see Yuval Taylor and Will Friedwald, eds., The Future of Jazz (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 2002), 23–41.
• 14 James Lincoln Collier, in his biography Benny Goodman and the Swing Era , referred to the music of his youth, swing, the most popular form that jazz ever took, as “better–more sophisticated, more genuinely musical–than virtually any popular music before or since.” James Lincoln Collier, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 5. In his book, Why Classical Music Still Matters , Lawrence Kramer makes a point of saying that he was not aiming for his audience to “appreciate” classical music. As he writes, it is not his purpose to persuade his readers that “if people would only absorb some technical information, follow the instructions of an expert, and listen for some formal routines, they could come to understand this music and discover that it is not only ‘great’ but also good for them.” Lawrence Kramer, Why Classical Music Still Matters (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 4. It is not our purpose here to do so either, although a certain amount of music appreciation is unavoidable in some of these essays because the writers love the music and inevitably wish for others to recognize its virtues as well as its importance. (Of course, Kramer, inadvertently, winds up doing his share of “music appreciation” outreach in his book.) But “music appreciation” is not a goal because it is, as Kramer notes, “condescending and authoritarian.” Kramer, Why Classical Music Still Matters , 4. It bears all the earmarks of middlebrow school lessons and the quest for bourgeois respectability. And it is, in the end, not persuasive because it diminishes the art it is trying to promote. The true goal here with these essays is to remind readers that the culture we have and the society we live in owe a great many of its admirable aspects to the monumental achievement of jazz as both a music and an art movement. Langston Hughes, in responding to the question of why he was not a member of the Communist Party, defended the need for the artist to be independent and for art to be free of political coercion from the state. He said memorably, “I wouldn’t give up jazz for a world revolution.” Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 122. In some vital ways, the essays in this volume, as is this introduction, are arguing that jazz itself was a world revolution.
• 15 Taylor and Friedwald, eds., The Future of Jazz , 23.
• 16 Jazz critic and novelist Albert Murray often scoffed at the notion that jazz represented freedom, saying that Ellington, for instance, was not interested in musicians being free but playing his music in the way he wanted it played. This, he asserted, was true for any bandleader. In Ian Carr’s Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music , the pianist talks about how difficult it was to write music for his 1970s American quartet of saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Paul Motian. “That group was the hardest group in the world to write for. I had to write in everybody’s attitudes and still write what I heard, and still play what I wanted to hear.” So, in jazz, as in all music, neither the players nor the composer are truly free to do whatever they want. Each is constrained by the other. Ian Carr, Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992), 80. Murray’s comments were made at a consultants’ meeting for the Ken Burns’s documentary Jazz and at a conference on Ralph Ellison at New York University, both of which Gerald Early attended.
• 17 Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 19, 22, 32.

on Miles Davis, Vince Lombardi, & the crisis of masculinity in mid-century America

Dædalus explores why jazz still matters.