In November 2015, I stopped listening to music.
Well, music that was written after 1930.
In a time where our attention spans are getting shorter, I thought that I would challenge myself by listening only to symphonies for a while. My then-girlfriend (now wife) and I decided that we wanted to try climbing the Mt. Everest of musical compositions. We haven't looked back.
The idea for this post came to me driving, tears in my eyes, as the 1st movement of Schubert's 9th Symphony in C major came to its incredibly dramatic and glorious close.
When we love something, we desire to share that love with others. Blockchains, bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies have brought a lot of people together on this forum. Maybe there are other people out there who are obsessed with the symphony like I am. Maybe you have never listened through a symphony in its entirety.
Either way, here are a few tips for either getting started, or getting more out of this epic musical form:
Give it time. You won't be able to memorize the entire piece like you can a 3-4 minute song. Listen to it over and over. I listen to a single symphony for a few weeks before I move on to the next one.
Listen for patterns. In many symphonies, you will hear the same melodies, or themes, come up again and again. The best composers can take a theme and twist it into ways that you would never expect.
Read about the piece you are listening to. All major orchestras release "program notes" any time they perform a symphony, and many of those can be found online. So a simple search for "Mahler's 1st Symphony program notes" would bring you content where you could learn all about the Austrian maestro's first symphony. The more you know about the piece, the more interesting the piece becomes.
Try different pieces. Just like any type of music, this genre has so many different styles within it. You may not like earlier, Classical pieces such as Mozart or Haydn's symphonies. You may find the Romantics too bombastic. On the contrary, like me, you may find yourself in the mood for something more structured and predictable, or something more heart-wrenching and ethereal.
Don't give up. The symphony is daunting at first, I will admit. Few are shorter than 25 minutes, and many go over an hour. However, pick ones that you think you are going to like, and stick with them. Listen from beginning to end, and listen actively. You will be rewarded.
If you are looking for a good place to start, here are a few recommendations.
Beethoven's 3rd Symphony - This symphony is a great mix of old form and new style. Many consider it the groundbreaker in the move from Classical to Romantic. This is also the symphony that I started with.
Shostakovich's 5th Symphony - If you are the kind of person who thinks that "all classical music sounds the same", this symphony will change your mind. Dark, sarcastic, heart-rending...this symphony also has a fantastic story to accompany it.
Sibelius' 2nd Symphony - My introduction to Jean Sibelius, who is now my favorite composer. Listening to this will make you long for open Scandinavian skies, crisp air, jagged fjords, and freedom.
Happy listening!
While walking together and speaking about the symphony, famous composer Jean Sibelius admired its "profound logic and inner connection". Gustav Mahler completely disagreed: "A symphony must be like the world," he said. "It must embrace everything."