Is Classical Music Relevant?

My friend Dave McKinney has sent in another great essay!
-the editor.

The Relevancy of Classical Music

So, is Mozart moot? Is Beethoven banned? Has Rimsky-Korsakov shuffled off? I could go on but, with my finely tuned sense of mercy, I will stop here.

I think that this is a fair question. Although the Grammys still have an award every year for the best classical recording, I challenge anyone except the artist's immediate family to tell me who won at the last awards ceremony without looking it up on the internet. So maybe the majority of people just don't care about classical music. They would rather spend their time and money listening to Bare Naked Ladies, Counting Crows or a local band here in Denver who, I think, has the best name ever – Opie Gone Bad.

I wonder, though, if this is really the case. Has a true choice been made or have the current generation of music buyers and listeners not been exposed to enough classical music to be able to make a clear choice? Many of the parents of my Baby Boomer generation were familiar with a fair amount of classical music, even though the popular taste ran to Big Band, Jazz and other genres. My generation was the first to really embrace rock and roll but there were a lot of my friends who would recognize Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by J.S. Bach if they heard it. My children were (and are) metal heads. I really hated that music until I stopped and listened to Metallica, Joe Satriani and others and realized that, for every mindless thrasher out there, there were also some extremely talented musicians. At the same time, I still exposed my kids to classical music and they seemed to enjoy it. My daughter especially fell for much of Tchaikovsky's ballet music, such as Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

My 14 year-old grandson likes punk music. I can never remember the names of the bands but it really doesn't seem important as their music seems to be interchangeable. However, I was listening to a piece of classical music on the computer a couple of days ago. It was a choral Agnus Dei set to the music of Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, to me, one of the most beautiful and haunting pieces of music ever written. If you have ever seen the Oliver Stone movie, Platoon, this piece is the main theme music for it. My grandson walked by and stopped dead, no mean feat for him as he is always moving at ninety miles an hour. He sat down and listened until the piece was finished, then said, "Wow! What was that?" I told him and he asked if we could play it again, which I did. Then, I made a CD copy for him, along with a few other pieces that I had (legally) downloaded. I don't know if he is hooked, like his Grandpa but at least I know that his ears still work.

So, I think that classical music can be very relevant to today's young people, if only they can be exposed to it and find a piece that fires their imagination. I know many kids of my generation caught the classical bug by watching Disney's Fantasia. Two generations later, Fantasia 2000 came along. I think that, if you take a young child to a performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf or Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, you may hook them for life. I believe that you can appreciate punk, metal, rock classical or anything else at the same time. You just have to learn to appreciate excellence when you hear it.

Dave McKinney, Parker, CO – May 21, 2004

And here's mine-

The only Classical Music that some people ever hear are pieces that have been used as movie scores or background music in TV shows. I guess that makes it relevant to the current cultural milieu. For me it has a larger role in my life than just background Music.

And what is “Classical” Music, anyway? Some people are fond of saying that what we call “Classical” was once the popular music of long ago. I don’t think this is really true. Some of it became popular and was put to lyrics, some of it was took themes from popular songs of the day. But I think that most of what we know as Classical Music was intended for performance in front of the upper crust of society and had very little to do with the people out on the street. I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think so.

If I am correct about this, it means that “Classical” Music wasn’t all that relevant to most people even when it was created!

So what!

I often listen to it when I am working around the house, it soothes me when I am tired and I want my children to have a good bit of it in their heads before they are exposed to the popular Music of today. I feel that it is relevant because I make it so.

I listen to all kinds of Music but there is nothing that soothes me and lets my mind wander quite like Classical Music does. It has helped me make it through some terribly dark nights and helped me celebrate some mighty fine days. There have been some times when I have been moved me to tears and some times when I have had to dance. I am a frequent “air conductor” the way some people play “air guitar,” thrashing about wildly when nobody is looking, brandishing a paintbrush or pencil in place of the baton.

One trick that I have is when I am really, really depressed I like to turn all the lights out and put on Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings Opus 13, really loud. I find that it gets me so low that I just have to laugh at myself for being such a melancholy baby. This treatment has never failed to raise my spirits thus far.

I also write what some people would consider “Classical” music and although I will probably never be acknowledged as the great composer that I am, I feel it is a great mental exercise and enjoy it.

So... is Classical Music relevant? Heck yes! It is to me, at any rate.

Dave Cofell