Calling all avid classical music fans - listen up and take a look at the list below, all about the magic of listening to classical music. You never know when these facts might come in handy...
1. Opposites attract
Would you ever think that classical and heavy metal music attract listeners with similar personalities? It’s difficult to associate the two together as they seem to be such dissimilar genres of music but the type of personality that likes metal and the personality that likes classical, both share a motivation and that is to hear something dramatic and theatrical, a ‘love of the grandiose.’
2. Dance of the spiders web
Did you know that spiders like listening to classical music? During a study to see if music affected the way spiders created their webs they found that when listening to techno and rap, spiders made their webs as far away from the speaker as possible, but when listening to Bach, they spun webs as near as possible to the speaker. So perhaps that’s why your sound system is cobwebbed?
3. *Ahem*
You may or may not have noticed when you visit the theatre, the amount of coughing that happens in the auditorium, but here is an interesting fact to share with your fellow classical music fans. People cough at classical music concerts twice as often as they do normally, and the rate increases during complex and atonal music as opposed to traditional works.
4. None for us please
Did you know that between 1966 and 1978 classical music was banned in China? It was banned under the dictator Mao Zedong who in 1966 initiated the ‘Cultural Revolution’, a programme to counter ‘revolutionary’ elements in Chinese society. This included classical music and it started with Claude Debussy’s music, which was targeted for ideological slander.
5. Classical is not always calming…
Classical music isn’t known to cause riots but on 29 May 1913 when Stravinsky premiered his new contemporary music, The Rite of Spring, it caused outrage and a riot occurred. Audience members were shocked by the violent music, causing fistfights and fellow composer Camille Saint-Saëns to storm out.