Gareth Malone’s Guide to Classical Music: The Perfect Introduction to Classical Music. Gareth Malone

Rachmaninov: ‘Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.’

      I recently went to see Elgar’s Violin Concerto performed by Nikolaj Znaider, poster-boy of the violin world, who at six foot four inches stands head and shoulders above other musicians. It’s not a piece I know well, though I’ve heard it several times before, most notably in a deft performance by the more petite Tasmin Little. The work had always left me cold, through no fault of the musicians involved; it lacks the great melodic motifs of the ’cello concerto, which is a work I grew up listening to (Jacqueline du Pré’s blistering recording, of course). That is a work that I feel welcomes the first-time listener more readily than its big sister, the violin concerto, and in du Pré’s hands had a raw emotional quality and a beautiful lyricism.

      So this time I was determined to get under its skin. I listened twice during the day to the measured and authoritative recording that Znaider made with Sir Colin Davis and the Staatskapelle Orchestra, Dresden. I can’t say that I gave it much attention, I just put it on in the background while I went about my business. I read a little about the work on the orchestra’s website before I went to the concert, and I was interested to discover that it was 100 years to the day since the world première and that Znaider was playing exactly the same violin as Fritz Kreisler played on 10 November 1910 (the one he had to give up for tax reasons). Made by renowned luthier Guarneri Del Gesù (a luthier is a string instrument maker), this violin has an astonishing tone and in the hands of Znaider, whose playing is both muscular and tender, it has an almost sugary sweetness.

      The first movement was gripping, at moments frenetic with the trademark impetuousness of Elgar; I was impressed by Znaider’s handling of the difficult passages; yet so far the piece was failing to pierce my heart in the way that I expected from this most famously mournful and autumnal of composers. As the work unfolded it became clear to me that it builds to an emotional climax after around thirty minutes. A casual listen in my kitchen was not equivalent to the experience of concentrating on the work in the concert hall. Finally, after about twenty minutes, there is a passage of searching tenderness where the strings of the orchestra shimmer in the background whilst the soloist soars above – but without hearing the whole work, and experiencing the climb to those emotional heights, the moment doesn’t make sense.

      My friend Jamie put it beautifully after the concert. ‘The work has an emotional core from which the rest of the piece radiates.’ When you experience those moments in the concert hall you don’t care that it took an hour to get there or that you had to pay good money for your seat, because the value of that moment is beyond words, and to me beyond money.

      That emotional core – a kind of golden moment in the piece – puts you in a very powerful state of mind. It is similar to what productivity gurus and self-help books call a state of ‘flow’. You feel immersed. Sir Ken Robinson, an expert on education, justifies the artistic experience thus:

      An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak, when you’re present in the current moment, when you’re resonating with the excitement of ‘this thing’ that you’re experiencing; when you’re fully alive.²

      Come to think of it, that’s probably what it feels like to do a bungee jump, but if you can’t do a bungee jump, go to a concert. This is the polar opposite of the way people have marketed classical music as simply ‘relaxing’ – it’s not relaxing, it’s enlivening. You may reach a state of tranquillity while listening to music, but you are not deadened by it. Classical music shouldn’t really be a substitute for sleeping tablets.

      Listening to the work in my kitchen had prepared me for the concert such that I knew how long the piece was, recognised much of the music and most importantly I was immersed in the sound world. I had a rough map of the layout of the music in my mind, even though I hadn’t been giving it my full attention. I wasn’t coming to this piece having spent all day listening to pop music – I felt ready for it.

      When I start to tackle a piece of music that I don’t know, there are a few stages I go through before I really feel that I know the work. The first stage is usually just giving it a couple of listens before I’m intrigued enough to do some background reading.

      You’ve got a hot date: with music

      For me, developing a ‘friendship’ with a piece has the following stages. It’s a bit like dating …

      

Meeting the piece for the first time

      Like meeting someone in a noisy bar when you can’t understand what they are saying, the first time you hear a piece of music it will be unfamiliar but may be reminiscent of other pieces in the same style or it might sound utterly meaningless.

      

Getting to know you

      On second hearing, even the most complex piece of music becomes marginally more familiar. There may well be one or two points that you remember hearing the first time. You’ve got their number and you’ve given them that all-important second chance.

      

Knowing the score

      By the third date something of the structure of the piece should become clearer (though the number of times you need to hear it for the piece to become familiar will depend on the length and complexity of the work). Familiarity has set in and you may be able to predict changes in the music, how many sections it is in, when we are heading for a climax, and so on. It’s possible you may start to look forward to a particular moment or passage, or a certain instrumental solo. This is when the piece begins to get lodged, and you may well find moments will echo around your mind for hours after.

      

Becoming obsessive

      You’ve fallen hook, line and sinker. If you’re anything like me then by now you’ll be listening to the piece you’ve fallen for at any available opportunity. You’ll wake up humming it and put it on as soon as you can. Music that you know well becomes an old friend and even if you don’t listen to it for twenty years it can immediately be recognised like a long-lost brother returning from overseas. But arriving at the point where you know a piece this well requires patience, time and effort. While there is some music that is instantly appealing, there is much to be gained from listening to music that has more depth; not all music surrenders its treasures on those first few listens. So stick it on repeat for a week and see how you feel then.

      

Seeing it live

      Things are getting serious. Now you are booking tickets to see each other. When you see the piece live it will cement many aspects of the work. The added visual dimension can make sections more memorable; for instance, the use of offstage instruments (producing a very different aural experience than listening on a CD), perhaps the faces of the musicians as they play emotional music strike you as especially intense, or maybe the attire of the soloist is so remarkable that for you it becomes forever associated with the music.

      Memorable moments in concert

      I can think of dozens of examples of this: Steven Isserlis’s hair flailing around during the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto, the sight of Deborah Voigt sailing on stage in a glorious frock, Ian Bostridge clinging to the piano during the madder sections of Die Winterreise and the effervescent movements of the percussion section of the CBSO during a new work by Thomas Adès.

      The list goes on and on. These moments from concerts are as clear now as they were at the time, and being a nostalgic type I’m always looking to experience them again … though I know I never can. This is my shared history with music. It’s a personal, private treasure trove.

      Until you’ve heard a piece performed by several different artists you don’t truly know it from all sides. Many of the sounds that