Classical Music, Noisy Listening

Shh! You're in a classical concert - quiet! What has become, in the 20th and 21st centuries, a musical tradition of as-quiet-as-possible, cough-free contemplation and passive disengagement in concert halls was not always that way. In fact, it wasn't ever that way: the way that audiences listen is inscribed in the fabric of music of the last millennium in Western classical music, a spectrum that encompasses everything from silent meditation to explosive applause.

In this lecture, we will introduce the idea of musical works as tools for listening, from Mozart to Mahler, from medieval repertoires to minimalism.

A lecture by Tom Service, Gresham Professor of Music 19 November 2018

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/classical-music-noisy-listening

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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