Is the end of classical music approaching? The media is full of stories of doom and gloom: established orchestras and ensembles face closure or are being forced to merge, the audience is ageing, recordings don’t sell, copyright is dying and, worst of all, music education in schools is dwindling. Even in Germany, my country of residence, where high culture used to be heavily subsidised, the signs of the times are changing and increasingly politicians score points by advocating arts funding cuts. The prejudice that classical music is merely a substitutable commodity and a tiny minority’s pastime has gained ground. While there is occasional talk about the beneficial impact of musical education on memory, self-discipline, good grades and social life, the immaterial and aesthetic aspects of music tend to be overlooked.

The prejudice that classical music is merely a substitutable commodity and a tiny minority’s pastime has gained ground

How to attract audiences in our pluralist times? Some suggestions seem to me worthwhile, some double-edged, and others rather harmful. It’s a complex matter, for sure, but what has been proved is that pandering to the lowest common denominator, à la “classic goes pop” won’t work – and market research tools often seem about as helpful as asking a small child who is the world’s best mum.

For my part, I tend to think that the potential audience for complex classical music is much larger than commonly expected, and that it does not depend on class or education or knowledge. Since everybody has auditory skills, we’re all potential listeners. I’m convinced that there is an evolutionary encoded thirst for artistic complexity and beauty, which can, and will, wither if it is not being nourished.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Children’s aesthetic tastes form before the age of nine – music must become more visible in schools.’ Photograph: StockbrokerXtra/Alamy

Since everybody has auditory skills we’re all potential listeners

Advanced music, as a whole-brain activity, can elevate us from our daily routines to a higher sphere. I believe it’s a source of contemplation direly needed in our times of information overkill and consumerism – it is a health product whose effect is profound, even though it can’t be easily measured. Exposure to an advanced piece of classical music might be laborious in the beginning, but – not unlike in sports – there are flow experiences and the equivalent of runner’s highs as soon as one has overcome their baser instincts. Lofty words like these are not in high fashion, I know, and perhaps not very helpful. Neither is tiresome lamenting or scapegoating. Nor is cynicism an option. How refreshing, then, to read something such as Joseph Brodsky’s An Immodest Proposal, a 1991 lecture given by the great exiled Russian poet and Nobel prize for literature recipient at the Library of Congress. I am fascinated by the trust Brodsky places both in the common audience and in the communicative power of complex art. For him, access to the arts is a vital part of civic rights, and poetry should be as omnipresent as electricity or cars:

“It should be sold in drugstores (not least because it might reduce the bill from your shrink) … It certainly cannot reduce poverty, but it can do something for ignorance. Also, it is the only insurance available against the vulgarity of the human heart. Therefore it should be available to everyone in this country and at a low cost … For cultural matters, it is not demand that creates supply, it is the other way around … Perhaps not at once, but gradually, over a decade or so, the books will sell. And if they will not sell, well, let them lie around, absorb dust, rot, and disintegrate. There is always going to be a child who will fish a book out of the garbage heap.

The last sentence reminds me of my own childhood in the South Korea of the 1960s, a period after decades of occupation and the devastating Korean war. Life was marked by poverty and repressive structures. But I was lucky – through a number of coincidences I got access to classical music, even though concerts were few and far between and unaffordable and formal education was scarce. Listening to a recording or, even more rarely, reading a score felt like getting in touch with something sacred. The heroes of my youth – besides British pop bands – were Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. Not for a minute did the thought occur to me that I was wasting my time with “dead white males”. And as a young student, when I discovered the contemporary music of Ligeti and Xenakis – unheard of in Korea – I was equally fascinated and uplifted. Out of avant-garde snobbery? Certainly not: in my situation, snobbery would have been quite mindless.

The heroes of my youth – besides British pop bands – were Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky

Of course, I don’t wish to draw too close comparisons. The problems back then were completely different than those in today’s affluent and information-driven societies. And yet, something remains universally valid: the natural, hard-wired inclination children have towards complex classical music. Perhaps they won’t yet grasp its intellectual dimensions, but the emotional impact is all the stronger, and this is what counts: for one doesn’t need a PhD or a specific gift in order to appreciate classical music. But this innate curiosity and understanding can vanish: as is known, children’s aesthetic tastes form before the age of nine. Consequently, music must become more visible in schools – last, but not least since “training in the arts prepares a growing child just as well for a scientific or technical career as does training in science, technology, engineering and maths, if not better.” (Thomas Südhof, 2013 Nobel laureate in medicine)



No matter how little access grownups might themselves have to classical music, they should at least give kids a chance to form their own taste and knowledge.

• The Philharmonia give the UK premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Clarinet Concerto on 22 October at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Unsuk Chin is the artistic director of the Philharmonia’s Music of Today series.

