Classical Explorations

When I started listening to classical music, I was 15. I didn’t want to, but my clarinet teacher made me listen to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Like most 15 year olds, I considered classical music something for old and boring people. Little did I know!

The clarinet concerto started to grow on me and my mother bought me another album with various Mozart compositions. It was a good way to explore some of his greatest pieces. Soon I could hum the album from A to Z. And then, one evening when I was fussing around in my room, I saw the clarinet concerto on television. It was a complete coincidence. Sabine Meyer, a famous clarinetist, was performing it. Jaap van Zweden was the conductor. And then, something ‘new’ happened to me. Before I knew what was happening, I was crying. I started to shiver uncontrollably. It was like the gates of heaven opened a little. The feeling was so wonderful, pure happiness I think. I didn’t know that something so perfect existed! It was the first time music moved me to tears. I thought it was a random phenomenon and didn’t think about it a lot afterward. I didn’t explore too much other classical music immediately, but kept listening to Mozart mostly.

But when I got a little older, 17 I think, my music teacher in high school made my class listen to classical music. That’s when I first heard the 9th Symphony from Dvorak. Especially the 2nd movement made a lasting impression on me. The chords at the beginning, just perfect!!!!

This was also the time when I started to listen to Brahms. Mostly the 4th Symphony. The 2nd movement is again my favorite here, because of the lovely interaction between clarinet and horn. Yet still, I didn’t realize what classical music could do to me. I actually didn’t realize that until roughly 1,5 year ago. I explored a lot more music at that time, in every genre. One of my favorite classical pieces at the time (2009) was the first piano concerto from Brahms. When I saw that it would be performed in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam I bought tickets instantly. It was the first time that I went to the Concertgebouw. Christiaan and I had very good seats. The piano concerto starts with the violins, a very peculiar thriller sound. I was sitting, in anticipation but with a tabula rasa. How could I know what to expect, when you are used to listening to CD’s? But then the conductor raised his hands and the violins started…My whole body surged with the music. I cried, I had goosebumps, I felt like a thousand things at the same time. And again, that feeling of utter happiness. It happened even more intense when the piano started. Of course, it didn’t last the whole performance, but still. I had never felt anything like it.

And that’s when I started to pursue those ‘moments’. Not like an addict or something, but I started to crave those moments. I sort of expected them to happen when I listened to certain classical music. And of course, it happens, but as soon as you expect it, the moment isn’t as special. An unexpecting attitude was better. It was better when I didn’t know when it would happen. The beauty of the real moments is, that they are unpredictable, but the ‘lesser moments’ always happen when I listen to certain pieces: Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s Matthäus Passion, Arvo Pärt’s Te Profundis.

A recent, more special moment, happened when I listened to Mahler’s 2nd symphony. I’m really into Mahler at the moment and I view his second symphony as the most perfect composition out there (the opinion might change overtime, but for now, this is it!). I was watching it on DVD for the second time, the first time nothing happened because I was too consumed by exploring it. But during the second time, the symphony started to make sense and it entranced me. It is a very long piece, but it all comes together in the end, the fifth movement. When you here the grand finale, it is as if from the first note onwards, this is what it has been building to. Like it all makes sense, everything that has happened before. And that finale is quite something. It is the most intense stuff I’ve ever heard (in a beautiful way). The ports of heaven opened again.

And when I realize that Mahler is now my hero, I smile. Because I am so young and there is so much more (classical) music to be discovered. There will be so many more experiences like this, and isn’t that just wonderful?