Comment on Open Thread: October 2009

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:18:51 GMT

In the case of classical music, the benefit of learning to like it isn't really in the form of enjoyment of classical music; it's in the form of getting to sincerely claim to like classical music, and no longer being left out when highly cultured people discuss classical music.

How would you know this given your admittedly limited experience with classical music?

Speaking for myself, there is lots of music that I love listening too, in many different genres, but nothing else has such power to move me as classical music as its best does -- for example -- the Confutatis from Mozart's Requiem, or the Bach d-minor Chaccone, or in a lighter vein that I think anybody can appreciate and feel moved by, Paganiniani or the vitali chaconne.

I love lots of popular music, and probably listen to popular music about as much as I do classical, but there is a certain kind of ecstatic -- almost mystical -- experience that some classical music triggers that I've never gotten with popular music.

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