Thread: Classical Music in the Present Time

I'm just a normal 22-year-old who lives in Canada. I'm not the typical nerd, but I'm not a brainless football player. I do have friends (yes!!) I'm not an artsy-fartsy Visual Arts student
either.

When I tell people that my passion is classical music, they immediately start picturing me drinking a cup of tea while listening to Boccherini's minuet.

The typical replies are : "Cool.", which is followed by an immediate change in discussion topic, or : "Oh yeah, do you know that Beethoven song, Fur Elise?"

Anyway, it seems to be that it's almost become a shameful thing to listen to "real" music, as I like to call it. What are your experiences? Are you an outcast?

In a society where people praise American Idol and pop icons, I feel outdated and weird.

It's funny how people are weird. These days, in my surroundings, it seems as though classical music is something illegal.

A friend of mine told me this little anecdote.

She was sitting in her room one day, waiting for a mutual friend of ours who wanted to come over and lend some notebooks from her. Not really intending to listen, she put the Beethoven's 7th cd in her player and studied quietly. When the friend finally arrived and entered the room, she asked him if the music annoyed him, since he didn't show any interest in classical before. Then he told her 'No, I actually listen to this kind of music at home - but hey - don't tell anyone!'

See what I mean? As though he was smuggling drugs or something...

My friends know my musical tastes for quite a time, and though they usually don't talk about it with me, I've recently started some interest in some of them. Sara and Denis were amazed with Bruckner's 9th scherzo, and Ines started to enjoy piano music...

Here where I live, some people surely think as bad of classical music listeners as they think of gay people (and, which is sad, very few here are tollerant of that).

Hey Morigan, I'm just a normal fellow Canadian also. Although 10 years older.

I agree with your sentiments and also with Lisztfreak. It's like there is something wrong or taboo with "loving classical music".

I don't really care if it's "cool" or "not cool" to be into classical music. It's been by far the most rewarding and fulfilling discovery in my life.

Growing up, and all the way into my late 20's, I listen to light rock/pop, hard rock, and heavy metal (70's and 80's). Anything past Nirvana and Pearl Jam I did not like. I wasn't "cool" because my friends said I was stuck in the 70's and 80's. They told me to go hang out with their grandparents or join up some pompous old men's bridge club, I would surely find alot of people there with the same taste in music.

Then I discovered the world of classical music, and I have not looked back since. All of the hundreds of rock CD's are all packed up in boxes, and my music shelf just keeps piling up with more classical music CD's.

So, after switching from rock to classical music, am I now "cool"? Ah......no! And I couldn't care less. It seems that if you aren't into the latest music releases and artists (hip hop/dance/rap) that you are not "cool".

It's great to see there are alot of young people who actually do enjoy classical music. That's a positive sign for the future!

I think there are alot of "closet classical music listeners out there".

Those who look down upon on classical music are, in the words of the great man himslef, "Cattle! Asses!"





That is what Beethoven is supposed to have said when the crowd didn't encore the Gross Fugue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Fugue:
When the work was first performed the audience demanded encores of only two of the middle movements of the quartet. Beethoven, enraged, was reported to have growled, "And why didn't they encore the Fugue? That alone should have been repeated! Cattle! Asses!"

Originally Posted by Morigan

When I tell people that my passion is classical music, they immediately start picturing me drinking a cup of tea while listening to Boccherini's minuet.

Hey, I like tea! (Hence my name.)

My wife calls me a "nerd" for liking classical music. . . but I love her anyway.

I get the deer-in-the-headlights stare from people that learn my music preferences. It's like they envision me as having the same mannerisms of Sherlock Holmes at that point ... for all they care, I am Sherlock Holmes.

I too have noticed a great number of young people taking a genuine interest in classical music. If they carry their present enthusiasm levels on into their adult years, classical music will continue to perpetuate forever.

Originally Posted by Keemun

Hey, I like tea! (Hence my name.)

My wife calls me a "nerd" for liking classical music. . . but I love her anyway.

Ha! The tea part was plausible though. I'm an avid tea drinker too.