Hattie Butterworth

How do you persuade someone to think about listening to classical music?

We could explain its greatness in terms of healing and productivity, or the place it sits in history. There’s ‘because it’s well-known’ or ‘played every year at the proms’. It is culturally ‘good music’, but is that a good enough reason to give new listeners? Is it enough to say people should listen to something because it’s ‘a classic’?

We have classical literature, plays, ballet and art that touch people without much thought into persuasion. I read Jane Eyre because it was referenced a lot and wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I go to watch the Nutcracker because I love the hopeless romance of a festive Royal Opera House. I don’t know how to persuade people to listen to my favourite classical music because it feels patronising.

The music I love could be explained without academia misting its powerful lens. Removed from why specific pieces of music are important, we can instead consider what music gives someone in terms of experience.

To my mind, to listen to classical music is to experience something completely new and, often, uncomfortable. It allows you to experience time in a new dimension. When life is monotonous, these vast emotional experiences open the possibility for change and inspiration. When life is difficult, they may feel too much, or conversely could even make time feel more manageable for a while.

Could we say that classical music gives us spiritual nourishment? It could give us a feeling of union with the earth or help us to make sense of our life’s wild landscape. It could light something within us and uncover a new musical freedom. Something to accompany us as we wait, walk and worry. Much of my favourite music was found during Wigmore Hall chamber concerts, but some was found accidentally on long train journeys of brave musical exploration.

We are saying, ‘come and listen to heal, listen to feel, listen to experience time in a new dimension, come and listen to be inspired and come to find new music for your heart’. Healing, feeling, new experiences and inspiration. It’s quite an overwhelming collection of potential promises to a listener! Do we have to wax lyrical about reasons why to come? People didn’t have to persuade me to read Rebecca, they just said I should because it’s ‘amazing’ and spoke about it with such sincerity.

Open-heartedness is attractive. People are drawn towards our interests if we are honest and open about them. We open our hearts and concert halls to brave, expressive and exciting classical music, but we don’t trust them to attract people without patronising potential audiences. Change is about thinking how our openness can be better communicated to the world, it’s not necessarily about changing the music we choose to share.