I notice that this topic is quite old, but I really like it. I haven't read all posts so I'll reply to the thread creator. You asked if we listen to Classical music because it makes us feel smart and personally I can almost agree with you on that. I also like to listen to it though because I am smart, so its a mixture of the two. The stereotypical belief in my area that I live would most likely be called if someone unintelligent knew I listened to classical music would be 'queer' or something along those lines. It's the word the rednecks resort to when they see someone doing something that
they think is stupid, which really disgusts me. I live in the must uncultured, retarded area of the world and I cant say that one person (excluding all those little band members) in my school appreciates classical music. It's either death metal, country, pop, or rap. I too am 17 and commiserate for those are in a similar situation as myself, lol.
One of the other reasons I love classical music so much is that the actual music is just scratching the surface. To be able to understand the work, you have to know what was going on with the composer during that period of his live. It there is text to the piece, you generally have to look it up (even when it's in English for me) to understand what the composer was saying at the time. If I didn't read the english translation of Mahler's 2nd, I wouldn't have been thinking of Jesus' resurrection and I doubt anyone else would had he not included the text. This is sort of peripheral to the actual topic of the thread, but I'm bored..
Azathoth, you make a good point when you ask if everyone listened to classical music, would we still listen to it? I probably wouldn't listen to it as much as I do today, TBH. I completely agree with what you're asking. If everyone listened to this genre of music I have came to love, no, I would never listen to it like I do today.
Thanks for enlightening me.
