In my opinion, classical music is a bit like mushrooms! You don’t see the link? Let me explain. When I was younger, I didn’t like mushrooms. They had a horrible texture and no taste at all, and I used to pick them out of every dish in which my mum tried to hide them. But gradually, as I got older, my view changed. I started to enjoy mushroom-flavoured things like soups and sauces, and eventually I found I could eat mushrooms without grimacing. And now I even quite enjoy them! So my mum’s prediction that I would ‘grow into them’ was proved quite correct.
Similarly, I always thought of classical music as this boring genre that only boring grown-ups liked. Whenever my parents played it in the car, I would count down the minutes until we could change it to my preferred genre: pop. But while at university, I found that calming orchestral music was just the thing for library revision playlists – it had no lyrics to distract me, and the pieces tended to be very long: perfect for long work sessions!
Recently, my developing relationship with classical music reached a new level when I voluntarily chose to go to a ballet. Admittedly, it was the dancing that originally attracted me, but once there I thoroughly enjoyed the music too. It was The Nutcracker, and I was surprised by just how much of the music I recognised! The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, The Russian Dance, The Waltz of the Flowers – they all sounded familiar. I didn’t know how I knew them, I just knew that I did! And I loved them. My parents would be proud.
Do you listen to classical music? Is there anything you like now that you didn't use to like when you were younger?
