How to listen to Classical Music !

Listening to classical music is an art. It requires close and accurate attention, sympathy,
imagination and genuine culture. Listening to classical music is an art of high degree. Many
derive exquisite enjoyment from it, for classical music is potent and universal in its appeal. To
listen intelligently to classical music is an accomplishment few have acquired. Those who are
fortunate enough to have been surrounded from childhood up by the choicest gems of the tonal
language, and whose minds are of the deceptive order, will insensibly attain a refinement of taste
and delicacy of perception no learned dissertation on classical music could afford. An
acquaintance with form as the manifestation of law is essential to an intelligent hearing of
classical music. The listener should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of classical musical
construction from the simplest ballad to the most complex symphony. Having this knowledge it
will be possible to receive undisturbed the impressions music has to give, and to distinguish the
trivial and commonplace from the noble and beautiful. Classical music is far beyond words, and
in attempting to translate it into these we miss its musical meaning, the best that is in it. Even a
well-cultivated ear and taste may often be baffled by the intricacies of a fugue, symphony or other
great work of musical art heard for the first time. The best listener beyond the pale of genius will
at times feel as one astray in a labyrinth of beauty to which for the moment no clue appears. A
single representation will rarely suffice to reveal the full worth of a masterpiece of classical
music. By hearing it often, by admitting it, or some reproduction of it, to our own fireside, we
will become familiar with its contents and learn truly to know it. The oftener good classical
music is heard the more completely it will be appreciated. Therefore, they listen best to music
who hear the best continually. The assertion is often heard that a person must be educated up to
an enjoyment of high class music. Certainly, one who has heard nothing else must be educated
down to an enjoyment of ragtime, with its crude rhythms.

Beyond knowledge comes the intuitive feeling which is enriched by knowledge. Through it we
may feel the breath of life, the spiritual appeal, which belongs to every great work of art and
which must forever remain inexplicable.
Many are content to listen to classical music for the mere sensuous impression it creates as it
wraps itself about the inner being, lulling a perturbed spirit to rest, or awakening longing and
aspiration, joy and sadness, according to the nature of the music and the hearer's mood. Some
even take pleasure in formulating into words the sensations evoked by the ebb and flow of the
tonal waves, and fancy they are thus deriving intellectual profit from music. The idea so largely
accepted that classical music is an unfathomable mystery, like all half truths has wrought much
mischief, and has greatly retarded musical progress in social life. Behind the Divine Art, as
behind Religion, lies the inscrutable mystery of Life, and in both there is a Holy of Holies only
the consecrated may enter. Before the portals of this are reached there is a broad, fertile field for
intellectual activity that all may work to advantage, preparing the way to the inner sanctuary.